Reflect on your experiences as a nursing student and to identify how, why,and what you have developed through these experiences.
The reflection techniques are simple, quick and a well-established ways of recording your development
Try to select an event/incident that has particular meaning for you. It does not need to be something dramatic; it can be a very ordinary event that captures the essence of nursing for you or about a particular clinical event, or it could be about the way you worked with others professionals in the multi-disciplinary team.
Choose a topic here:
Giving an injection..
Being part of a ward round or MDT meeting.
Assessing a patient with an occupational or physiotherapist.
Using a reflective tool
The reflective tool included in the portfolio is the reflective cycle proposed by Gibbs (1988). It helps you describe, analyse and identify the learning that had occurred during different situations in which have been involved.
Writing your reflective essay using sub heads:
Description
In this section, write an account of what happened.
Feelings
Here write about how you felt being involved in this situation.
Evaluation and analysis
In this section the evaluation would be stating what went well and what was difficult in that situation. You might want to just identify these on a list before you write this section. The analysis is about explaining why different elements went well or why they were problematic. So here you are really trying to analysis the situation. You may want to use some references to text books or articles to help your explain and support your analysis.
Conclusion
Here draw some conclusion about the situation and what you have learnt from it and how that learning may help your future practice.
Here are some reflective questions to help you think and start reflecting and analysing the situation:-
Describe the situation
What happened?
Who was involved?
Where were you?
What were you doing?
What was your part in this?
What were other people doing?
What was the result of the situation?
Discuss your feelings about that situation
How were you feeling when the event started?
What were you thinking at the time?
How did it make you feel?
What did other peoples actions/words make you feel?
How did this make you feel?
How did you feel about the outcome of the situation?
What emotions did you go through during the situation?
Which is the most important or significant for you?
Evaluate and analyse the situation
What was good about the situation?
What was bad, difficult or problematic about the situation?
What when well?
What did I do well?
What did others do well?
Did you expect anything different to happen, if so what and why?
What went wrong, or did not turn out the way you expected?
In what way did you contribute to the situation, either positively or negatively?
In what way did other professionals, staff or people contribute to the situation, either positively or negatively?
What knowledge from theory and research can you apply to this situation?
What broader issues, e.g., ethical, political or social arise from this situation?
Has this situation changed the way you think you will act in similar situations in the future?
Draw some conclusions about the situation and what you have learnt from it?
How could you have improved the situation for yourself, the patient, or others involved?
What could you have done differently?
What have you learnt from this situation?
How you might be able to use this learning in the future in the same or similar situations?
How will you act differently if the same or similar situation arose again?
From what you have learnt what can you apply to other situations
