CPD

REFLECTING BACK

In this issue I thought we’d look at one part of the CPD cycle – reflection. It’s a vital part of the CPD cycle, but it’s one that often seems to take a back seat against the understandable enthusiasm for participating in activities and clocking up CPD hours.

by Matt Bower

IWater CPD Champion

When we review members’ CPD records as part of our annual monitoring exercise, reflection is one of the weakest elements of the CPD cycle across all professions and membership grades.

As an Institute we need to change this, as reflecting on learning activities is key to completing the CPD cycle and maximising the benefit we get from our efforts. Reflection is the act of taking the time to consider what has been learned, any shortfall against what was hoped or planned for, and feeding this into our future plans for learning and development. Without reflection, each activity exists in isolation from the others; there’s no review of learning outcomes to shape future activities, we don’t learn from our CPD mistakes and successes and we don’t progress in our development activity. Reflection is a great habit to get into.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has a useful guide1 to a technique known as Reflective Practice, which takes things a step further. Reflective Practice is a method of assessing our own thoughts, feelings and actions in order to inform our future strategies. It is different from straightforward reflection in that it is captured in a systematic way – the CIPD paper argues that the process of representing the reflection is of value in itself. In fact, it goes further, to suggest that the technique actually develops the individual, by growing the capacity to manage emotions and thoughts to respond to challenges and make timely decisions based on good judgement.

So how does a hard-bitten water professional become a reflective practitioner?

The CIPD describes three stages: Critical reflection on the experience Action Plan

If it arose again what would you do?

Description

What Happened?

Conclusion What else could you have done?

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle

Feelings What were you thinking and feeling?

Analysis What sense can you make of a situation?

Re-inhabit / relive the experience Reflect – notice what was going on Review – critically analyse the situation Re-frame – capture new understanding

Reflection in action

This means that, with practice, we are able to notice patterns of thoughts and feelings as they happen, enabling us to steer our approach in real time;

Reflection for action

Apply the insights to guide future learning.

It may just be me, but I find it easier to visualise the concept using an example. Suppose we are on a secondment, with the aim of developing new skills. At a suitable point, we (hopefully) set aside time to reflect on our progress by recalling experiences and reflecting on what we are learning and whether we are achieving what we hoped. One approach is to use Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle2 (pictured). By taking the time to revisit experiences in our heads, we reinforce key learning points as well as assessing the value of what we are doing against our learning objectives and making

Evaluation

What was good and bad about the experience?

adjustments as needed. Once we become practiced in this technique, we may find we are able to apply the technique in “real time”, steering our approach or direction. Now we are really taking control of our learning, making the most of every opportunity. We can also use reflection to guide our future learning – for example by focussing on a few key topics for additional study, or even changing to a different learning method if we decide the secondment approach doesn’t work well for us.

This article is only an introduction to the subject – If you’d like to know more, I recommend you access the full paper on the CIPD website: www.cipd.co.uk/Images/ reflective-practice-guide_tcm18-12524.pdf

References

1 Reflective Practice Guide Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in collaboration with Grace Owen and Alison Fletcher 2 Gibbs G (1988) Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods Further Education Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford