Group B

CC-BY Licensed Resource

(Assessment Part 3)
24-25
Course: Foundations in Reflective Practice

© Rachel Colquhoun, Benjamin Coulson, Emma Clark & Lynda Clark , University of Edinburgh, 2025 CC-BY
My Reflective Journal

Including examples of reflection and choices of reflective framework

Introducing 3 Reflective Practice
Models
• This exercise will introduce you to 3 models
of reflective practice
o Integrated Reflective Cycle
o What? So what? Now What?
o Gibbs Reflective Cycle
• You are encouraged to work through the
sample exercises and think about which is
most applicable to you and your goals
• Each model is followed by a brief
sample exercise on how to implement it
which will then form part of your journal for
this course
 From To
Accepting Questioning
Intolerant Tolerant
Doing Thinking
Being descriptive Analytical
Changes Impulsive Diplomatic
associated Being reserved Being more open
with reflection Passive Assertive
Unskilled communicator Skilled communicator
Reactive Reflective
Concrete thinker Abstract thinker
Lacking self-awareness Self-aware
 Spend around 10 minutes
familiarising yourself with the
models in this document

Preparing for Over the coming weeks, you

will make use of the models to
Reflective v
undertake your own
independent reflections on
Practice the topics provided.
You will then bring these to
the 5 live sessions to share
with your reflective practice
group.
Integrated Reflective Cycle (Bassot, 2013)

• The Experience
Describe the situation with as much detail and context as necessary. What
happened? What were the contributing factors? Who else was there? What
did I/others do?

• Reflection on Action
Here you start to make sense of what happened by questioning yourself
and your assumptions to understand what led you to your actions. What
was I trying to achieve? Why did I act as I did? What assumptions did I
make? What were the consequences for me and the other people
involved? How did I feel? How did the other people feel and how could I
tell?

• Theory
Conclude on your learnings using both theoretical literature and your own
realizations to make sense of the experience. What has this experience
contributed to my professional or theoretical knowledge? What have I
learned that I can apply to a similar situation in the future? What have I
learned in general?

• Preparation
Create a plan for how to become better prepared for the future. What will I
do next time in a similar situation? How could I do better next time? What
will I now consider for next time? What other strategies could I adopt to
What? So what? Now what? Driscoll J. (1994)

• What?
Describe the experience of the situation. What is the context? What is the
problem/situation/difficulty/reason for being stuck/reason for success? What was
I/we/others trying to achieve? What was the outcome of the situation? What was
my role in the situation? What was the role of other people in the situation (if
others were involved)? What feelings did the situation evoke in me? And in
others (to the extent you know)? What were the consequences for me? And for
others? What was good/bad about the experience?

• So what?
Describe the implications of the situation - supplement your own
knowledge and thoughts with other people’s ideas, references, and
theories. So what does this tell me/teach me/imply about the situation/my
attitude/my practice/the problem? So what was going through my mind in
the situation? So what did I base my decisions/actions on? So what other
information/theories/models/literature can I use to help understand the
situation? So what could I have done differently to get a more desirable
outcome? So what is my new understanding of the situation? So what does
this experience tell me about the way I work?

• Now what?
Create an action plan . Now what do I need to do in the future to do
better/fix a similar situation/stop being stuck? Now what might be the
consequences of this new action? Now what considerations do I need
about me/others/the situation to make sure this plan is successful? Now
what do I need to do to ensure that I will follow my plan?
Gibbs Reflective Cycle Gibbs G (1988)

• Description
Describe the situation in detail (feelings come later). What
happened? When and where did it happen? Who was
present? What did you and the other people do? What was the
outcome of the situation? Why were you there? What did you want
to happen?

• Feelings
Explore any feelings you had during the experience and how they
impacted it. What were you feeling during the situation? What
were you feeling before and after the situation? What do you think
other people were feeling about the situation? What do you think
other people feel about the situation now? What were you thinking
during the situation? What do you think about the situation now?

• Evaluation
Objectively evaluate what worked and what didn't. What was good
and bad about the experience? What went well? What didn’t go so
well? What did you and other people contribute to the situation
(positively or negatively)?
Gibbs Reflective Cycle (part 2)
• Analysis
Here you move beyond details around what happened and start
to make sense of what happened, with reference to literature if
wanted. Why did things go well? Why didn’t it go well? What
sense can I make of the situation? What knowledge – my own or
others (for example academic literature) can help me understand
the situation?

• Conclusion
Summarize your learning and highlight what changes to your actions
could improve the outcome in the future. What did I learn from this
situation How could this have been a more positive situation for
everyone involved? What skills do I need to develop for me to handle
a situation like this better? What else could I have done?

• Action plan
Plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation
in the future. If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do
differently? How will I develop the required skills I need? How can I
make sure that I can act differently next time?
Integrated Reflective Cycle – example reflection
Task: Reflect on personal development across an experience with regards to certain skills

• The Experience
The experiences I am reflecting on include 3 experiences, a teaching session where lecturer and actor demonstrated initial mental health assessments, follow up
engagement with asynchronous resources including videos and written examples, which provided a further scaffold to the final experiential learning session, where
as a class of 30, we had the opportunity to role play delivery of this assessment. Generally, class anxiety was high, with this being the longest role play delivered, and
a sense of overwhelm at the number of questions/tasks needing remembered to complete the role play. Due to previous health care roles, aspects of the 1:1 nature
of this clinical interview felt familiar, I also found preparatory sessions and activities helpful, however I didn’t not expect the level of anxiety felt personally, in this
practice environment, and just how exposing the role of leading a session felt, in comparison to my previous experience of observing.

• Reflection on action
I hoped to gain a deeper understanding of the structure needed when conducting initial mental health assessments and build personal confidence in delivery. The
anxiety felt in preparation for the role play lead to patterns of over-preparation (common when I feel anxious about new situations generally), this I noticed lead to
entering the role play with several preconceptions about the client, gleaned from review of referral information and my own assumptions about the focus the
interview would take. This initially impacted my line of questioning and ultimately led to more closed answers from the client and could detract from the client
feeling confident to share their story. I found myself hitting a wall in my line of questioning at these times. The role plays were structured to allow time out for
reflective feedback from the "client" and an observer, which gently highlighted this.

• Theory
This experience connects to learning early in this course, considering why the use of open Socratic dialoged is a supportive technique which allows suspension of
pre-conceived ideas of what is happening for a client and promote genuine curiosity. There is a risk that without this, fostering a therapeutic alliance (Bordin, 1979)
with the client may be more challenging and keeping a person-centered approach is at risk. I have learnt whilst I understand my own drivers when faced with
something new and out of my comfort zone, my go to techniques of coping may be in direct conflict with allowing a client the freedom to tell their story. Preparation
is good, but this should not be at the cost of holding an open mind to the possible experiences of the client.

• Preparation
Professionally I will focus on the use of non-directive questioning, and use summary to ensure I am understanding from the client perspective, helping to create a collaborative
environment where clients can share their experiences. I will challenge myself to bring to the surface unconscious bias or assumptions I may hold about certain presentations
and allow myself to approach clients with open curiosity.
What? So What? What now? – example reflection
Task: Reflect on personal development across an experience with regards to certain skills

• What?
I attended a synchronous session on mental health assessment. The lecturer and an actor did a live demonstration. Afterwards I read the follow-up materials and
viewed the supporting videos. Finally, as a class of 30, we undertook roleplays ourselves in pairs as part of the assessment.

• So What?
The example roleplay and follow-up preparation made me feel as though I knew what to expect. However, when it actually came to my own turn to roleplay, I felt
extremely anxious. 'Performing' in front of others in his way made me feel extremely vulnerable. I had read the referral information closely as part of my
preparation and this meant I often ended up asking questions which would lead to the information I already knew, or that drew on preconceptions I had developed
about the 'client' rather than encouraging a free dialogue. I found the post-interview feedback from the 'client' and observer really valuable, because they both
highlighted this tendency in a constructive way, gently reminding the need to foster a therapeutic alliance (Bordin, 1979) and make use of open questions.

• Now What?
For future mental health assessments, I need to be wary of overpreparation. Obviously, I need to know about the client, but I also need to give them the freedom to
tell their story in their own time, and avoid trying to force the conversation down particular avenues. I will study the principles of non-directive approaches
(Snyder, 1945) rather than attempting to prepare particular questions, and will attempt to be more aware of my unconscious biases in order to mitigate against
them during discussions with clients.
 Gibb's Reflective Cycle– example reflection
Task: Reflect on personal development across an experience with regards to certain skills

• Description
Live mental health assessment roleplay demonstration by lecturer and an actor. Follow-up reading and video content. Assessment roleplays in front of whole class.

• Feelings
I initially felt confident because the demonstration and follow-up content were clear and well-structured and the task seemed straightforward. However, I began to feel
anxious during the preparation for and lead-up to final roleplay. I then felt extremely exposed and vulnerable during my own roleplay as session leader.

• Evaluation
My performance during the assessment roleplay was impacted by my anxiety – I fell back on pre-prepared questions and this meant I sometimes hit roadblocks with the
'client' where neither of us knew how best to proceed because we both lost confidence. However, the feedback from the 'client' and the observer was really helpful – they
constructively noted that my thorough knowledge of the referral information was affecting my choice of questions.

• Analysis
The client and observer offered reminders of the need to develop a therapeutic alliance (Bordin, 1979) and I agree that I need to work more on making use of general
frameworks and ways of questioning rather than going in with specific questions in mind. Open Socratic dialogue will help me to avoid falling back on pre-conceived ideas.

• Conclusion
I need to take time to build a relationship with the client in order to allow both of us to feel confident and comfortable in our discussion. I shouldn't rely solely on referral
notes to build a picture of the client, or to plan my questions.

• Action Plan
In future mental health assessments, I need to be particularly mindful of my own unconscious biases and natural tendency to fall into particular patterns of questions.
Studying non-directive approaches (Snyder, 1945) will help with this.
Please You can do this by hovering
explore the on the slide with your model
of choice and copy this slide
models and find as many times as is needed.
which one best You can refer back to the
prompt questions for each
suits you. You section in the model.
can then use this Add to the end of this
document, which will then
for use in on- make up your on-going
reflective journal for this
going course.
reflections.
Integrated Reflective Cycle – blank reflection
Task:

• The Experience

• Reflection on action

• Theory

• Preparation
What? So What? What now? – blank reflection
Task:

• What?

• So What?

• Now What?
Gibb's Reflective Cycle– blank reflection
Task:

• Description

• Feelings

• Evaluation

• Analysis

• Conclusion

• Action Plan
 Here you can store your own
My reflections reflections, using the
templates provided
References and Further Resources
• Bassot, B. (2013). The Reflective Journal. Basingstoke: Palgrave
• Driscoll J. (1994). Reflective practice for practise. Senior Nurse, 13, 47 -50
• Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit.
Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.
• Malthouse, R., Watts, M., & Roffey-Barentsen, J. (2015). Reflective questions, self-questioning and
managing professionally situated practice. Research in Education, 94, 71-87.
• Ryan, M. (2011). Improving reflective writing in higher education: a social semiotic perspective. Teaching in
Higher Education, 16(1), 99-111.

Please see this webpage for further resources including the reflective diagrams -
https://reflection.ed.ac.uk/reflectors-toolkit