reflective essay on work placement

The Critical Blog

The home of critical thinking, observations and reflections on my first year placement.

This essay was written by Adrian Bloxham and was the winning social work entry in this year’s Critical Writing Prize 2019. Adrian is studying for an MA at Anglia Ruskin University and he was nominated by his lecturer Dr Wendy Coxshall.

I am currently on placement in a Supported Housing Hostel for adults in Cambridgeshire. This assignment is based on my work with one particular resident who I will refer to using the pseudonym ‘Alice’. The case study will explore core social work tenets including relevant knowledge and skills, critical reflection, processes of oppression and discrimination, communication and partnership working. I will seek to examine and reflect on my interactions with Alice, primarily by applying a reflective model to a ‘critical incident’. I will also attempt to view Alice’s life, and my professional relationship with her, from a broader social work perspective. My initial observations and impressions of the hostel were largely defined by the levels of socio-economic deprivation that dominate many of the residents’ lives. In virtually all cases the people that live at the project either have an underlying mental health condition or experience drug or alcohol misuse, often there are a combination of these factors. The very nature of this type of accommodation means that the population is transient.  This often means that residents have little consistency and no control over who they live with, resulting in an enforced togetherness that can lead to feelings of insecurity, anxiety and fear (Bengtsson-Tops, et al., 2014). I observed during my early conversations with Alice that she often seemed subdued and that her mood fluctuated unpredictably. As the initial phase of my placement progressed I became increasingly aware of Alice’s persistent and chronic low self-esteem and her tendency to depressive episodes. I noted this in my journal and tried to “…think, to be self-aware and to question…” as a first step towards reflecting on practice (Rutter & Brown, 2012, p. 30). My vague sense of unease and concern about Alice and her general well-being crystalized early one morning as I arrived at work to find Alice upset and in tears in the communal lounge. I now recognise the ensuing conversation as a ‘critical incident’ that changed my learning and the way that I thought about the staff and my placement setting. What qualifies as a critical incident is not rigidly defined but the event should be important or significant in some way to the practitioner and should offer the opportunity for professional learning (Fook & Gardner, 2007, p. 77). During the course of this exchange Alice disclosed to me that she felt trapped, bullied by a member of staff and other residents, and that she was feeling utterly powerless with no hope of moving on from the hostel. Alice showed me a scar on her right wrist and stated that she had tried to commit suicide in the past and was now experiencing suicidal ideation once again. This type of situation, with all its complexities and difficulties, is described in the seminal work of Schön (1983) as the ‘swampy lowlands’ of practice (Schon, 1983). In more recent times ‘reflective practice’ has been developed further into a concept of ‘critical reflection’ (Payne, 2014). The application of critical reflection challenges accepted modes of thought, social organisation, dominant discourses and assumptions (Graham, 2017; Savaya & Gardner, 2012; Thompson, 2010). The two-stage reflective model developed by Fook & Gardner (2007) seeks to examine power relations and structures of domination, which in turn intrinsically challenges oppressive and discriminatory thought processes and practice (Graham, 2017, p.49; Fook, 2012, p.47). As will become apparent, forms of oppression and discrimination are a vital aspect of Alice’s narrative, and for this reason I propose to apply Fook & Gardner’s (2007) model to my critical incident and the subject of my case study. Alice’s disclosure was deeply concerning and very challenging for a number of reasons. My inexperience, the fact that Alice has a diagnosis of schizophrenia and the gravity of what she was saying all contributed to a feeling of unease. The first ‘stage’ of the reflective model is designed to question the underlying structural and social assumptions of the practitioner and analyse how and why feelings of discomfort and concern have been generated (Fook & Gardner, 2007, p.92). Adopting this process has helped me to identify possible assumptions that I suspect I may have held. For example, could my knowledge of Alice’s dysfunctional relationships in the past have resulted in me making assumptions about inherent personality ‘traits’? Did I view her mood swings and depression as simply emanating from her diagnosis of schizophrenia? Did my upbringing, that instilled and encouraged a deference to authority and ‘professional’ figures, blunt my critical faculties in relation to the ‘care’ and ‘support’ offered by individual staff members? It would also be remiss to discount the influence of gender and class on the assumptions I may have held. A closer critical analysis of the factors and experiences that have shaped Alice’s life expose the fundamental flaws and prejudices in my misplaced assumptions. As I began to work with Alice it became increasingly clear to me that she had experienced discrimination and oppression throughout her life. I learnt that Alice had endured severe and multiple adverse childhood experiences. Both of her parents committed suicide, she was raped and endured physically abusive relationships with two consecutive partners. This culminated in Alice being admitted to various psychiatric institutions in order to treat her schizophrenia and personality disorder. Eventually Alice became homeless, living on the street and addicted to heroin. The physical scars on Alice’s body as a result of these experiences can be understood from a postmodern perspective as embodied manifestations of power and oppression (Tangenburg & Kemp, 2002). Taking a postmodern perspective that conceptualises the body as the site of power relations (Foucalt, 1977) leads to an understanding that “…the body is fundamentally implicated in mechanisms of domination and control.” (Tangenburg & Kemp, 2002). Postmodernism rejects overarching general theories, instead adopting an approach that acknowledges individual narratives, social context and recognises multiple identities that may intersect (Graham, 2017; Fook, 2012). The intersection of Alice’s gender, her adverse experiences both as a child and as an adult, her diagnosis of schizophrenia and the fact that she has experienced poverty for the entirety of her life has led to oppression and discrimination at multiple levels. A reliance on members of staff who are experienced as oppressive reinforces feelings of hopelessness, stigma, discrimination and disempowerment (Williams, et al., 2015). Alice has been exploited by fellow residents who target her on the days when she receives benefits, this form of oppression takes place at a personal level and is often experienced by adults with serious mental illnesses in the “…forced intimacy of supportive housing.” (Forenza & Bermea, 2017). Oppression and discrimination also takes place at a wider level. People diagnosed with schizophrenia are often stigmatized by a discourse of ‘otherness’ which portrays people with mental health challenges as a ‘problem’ who must be ‘controlled’ by bio-medical, biogenetic models (Beresford & Wilson, 2002). Despite the dogged insistence of the dominant ‘medical model’ discourse, contemporary evidence points to a causal link between social factors and a diagnosis of schizophrenia (Read, 2010). Typical triggers include poverty, adverse childhood experiences, rape and physical or psychological violence (Read, 2010; Burns, et al., 2014). It is essential that social workers acknowledge this increasingly influential discourse which suggests that schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness are bio-psycho-social manifestations of social conditions and health inequalities, not an inherent physiological condition (Bywaters, 2015; Karban, 2017; Friedli, 2009; Marmot, 2010; Read 2010). Revisiting the assumptions that I outlined above has helped me to explore how I experienced the initial incident. Firstly, I now believe that I saw and understood the situation in simplistic, binary terms. Identifying assumptions and binary thinking, regardless of how uncomfortable this may be for the practitioner, is crucial and demonstrates reflexivity (Fook, 2012, p.107). By ‘deconstructing’ and ‘resisting’ this binary thinking the practitioner can then go on to address how change might be achieved and what values and assumptions have been challenged (Fook & Gardner, 2007). Arriving at an understanding of the multiple levels of oppression and discrimination that have shaped and distorted Alice’s life has not only heightened my awareness in this particular case but it has also changed the way I will approach practice situations in the future. The importance of recognising multiple perspectives and social contexts in a non-linear, fluid and multifaceted way leads to more ‘bottom up’ practice that in turn empowers marginalised people by recognising and legitimising their experiences and voice (Fook, 2012; Graham, 2017; Parton & O’Byrne, 2000). Alice’s deteriorating mental health led me to conclude that her social worker needed to be informed of the situation. The worker expressed a great deal of frustration at the lack of inter-agency communication, written or otherwise, and a failure to disclose key pieces of information. This can often be attributed to a defensiveness on the part of housing organisations “…due to fear of damaging reputation…or fear of over-reaction” (Parry, 2013, p.19). As a plethora of Serious Case Reviews illustrate, clarity of inter-professional and interagency communication is vital for safe practice (Moss, 2017; Hall & Slembrouck, 2009; Flynn, 2010). In the case of Alice there are three primary agencies involved. In addition to this, Alice also has contact with a psychiatrist and regular medical reviews with her GP. The number of professions and agencies involved with this single client illustrates the multiple points of contact and potential challenges that operating in this contemporary inter-agency environment presents. Understanding the communication process requires an acknowledgement of the complexity and meaning of language itself. That is to say, ‘communication’ is not neutral and does not necessarily have a universal meaning to each element of the agency or profession (Hall & Slembrouck, 2009). ‘Communication’ can be seen as a process whereby “…information passes from one person to another and is understood by them.” (White & Featherstone, 2005, p. 214). This rather simple statement camouflages the multi-layered nature of the exchange which involves an array of subjective attitudes and feelings which are projected onto the communicated information both from the perspective of ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’ (Sarangi & Slembrouck, 1996). The diversity of roles within Alice’s network highlights the danger that various professions and agencies may assign different levels of priority or even conceptualisations to the arising issues (Hudson, 2015). This means that each communication is potentially ‘categorised’ differently and therefore there is a danger that co-agencies conceive of a given situation in completely different ways (Hall & Slembrouck, 2009). I continued to learn more about Alice’s life over the following weeks.  I observed the patience and empathy that Alice’s social worker demonstrated during the interview process. Often Alice would experience what appeared to be moments of psychosis during which she seemed to be transported back in time to a particularly traumatic event which resulted in repetitive phrases and sentences being used to describe what had happened. Although these moments appeared to be traumatic for Alice she said on many occasions that she wanted to speak about her past. I noted the way that Alice’s social worker handled difficult or emotionally salient passages during interviews (Goss, 2011), particularly the use of silence and the importance of being patient rather than asking superfluous questions to fill uncomfortable pauses (Trevithick, 2012). The importance of ‘iatrogenic health’, the process whereby possibilities and opportunities are acknowledged and explored, is part of a constructive narrative approach founded on a postmodern perspective (Parton & O’Byrne, 2000). The whole thrust of the conversations, whilst acknowledging the trauma of the past and the difficulties of the present, were very much focused on the aim of Alice moving-on in both a literal and metaphorical sense. The social worker talked through the steps that needed to be taken by Alice and the support that she would need in order to achieve this goal, a process referred to as the amplification of personal agency (Parton & O’Byrne, 2000, p.60). This relationship-based work (Woodcock Ross, 2011) with Alice highlights the importance of partnership working and emphasises the need to avoid ‘top-down’ structural models (Hudson, 2015, p.102). Whilst the idea of ‘partnership’ suggests equality and collaboration, practitioners should still manage power relations with service users carefully, especially where a lack of confidence inhibits the service user from taking on the responsibility of partnership (Dalrymple & Burke, 2006). This aspect of partnership practice was and is very pertinent in the relationship between Alice and her social worker. The asymmetry between the social worker and service user emphasises the need for the practitioner to be cognizant of the inherent power imbalance in the relationship (Leung, 2011). Even where social work is undertaken with the best of intentions, for example in anti-oppressive practice, there is a danger that the voice and knowledge of the service user is lost by the intervention of the ‘expert’ practitioner (Wilson & Beresford, 2000). The difficulties Alice experienced at the hostel which culminated in such a troubled state of mind calls into question the place of adult safeguarding both within the organisation and in the wider context. The implementation of The Care Act 2014 introduced new responsibilities and statutory duties on local authorities and partner agencies with an emphasis on moving away from process-driven practice (Cass, 2015). The new legislation was adopted into Company policy, statutory guidance makes it clear that there is an onus on employers to ensure that staff working in a housing environment are adequately trained in recognising signs of abuse or neglect, which includes self-neglect under the terms of The Care Act 2014 (Department of Health, 2014). At the time of my critical incident Alice was failing to attend to personal hygiene on a regular basis, frequently appeared to be experiencing low mood and would often break down in tears even when engaging in mundane, everyday conversation. Supported housing is often regarded as a positive environment that promotes recovery-oriented practice (Harvey, et al., 2012), but it can also be experienced as an oppressive and hostile setting where staff are at best indifferent to the needs of service users or can actively act as the oppressor (Bengtsson-Tops, et al., 2014). This is especially concerning when one considers that housing staff may be the only service that residents have contact with (Cass, 2015). Risk assessments are an integral aspect of work with vulnerable people (Parry, 2013). Yet risks remain, in essence, unpredictable phenomena that defy reliably accurate outcomes (Munro & Rumgay, 2000). From a postmodern perspective, practitioners should not seek to totally eliminate risk by a ‘scientized’, calculated approach because this is doomed to failure (Parton, 1998, p. 23). Instead, there should be an acceptance that uncertainty and complexity are inherent in human interaction and therefore consideration should be given not only to ‘negative’ risk but also to the benefits of ‘positive’ risk (Macdonald & Macdonald, 2010). Risk management can be seen as a continuum (Nolan & Quinn, 2012), so whilst service user vulnerabilities must be taken into account when assessing risks there is also a balance to be struck. Planned risk-taking can and should promote a good quality of life, develop new skills and expand life experiences (Barry, 2007). Alice wishes to live independently and this is the preferred option for the social worker. However, a judgment will ultimately need to be made as to whether the rights and needs of a vulnerable service user are best served by advocating for Alice’s wishes or actively encouraging another course of action that is ‘safer’ for Alice (Kemshall, et al., 2013). This case study has demonstrated the complexity and breadth of contemporary social work. Whilst there is not universal agreement (Ixer, 2016), the central importance of critical reflection to the profession of social work is widely accepted (Thompson, 2010, p. 183). The opportunity to work with Alice has provided much to reflect on and learn from. My work with Alice has taught me many things, most notably the impact of personal and structural processes of oppression and discrimination. However, I believe the key lesson that I take from my professional relationship with Alice is to try and show the same level of astonishing resilience and generosity of spirit that Alice has demonstrated throughout her life to the present day. Works Cited Barry, M., 2007. Effective Approaches to Risk Assessment in Social Work: An International Literature Review. [Online]  Available at: www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/doc/194419/0052192.pdf BASW, 2014. The Code of Ethics for Social Work, Birmingham: BASW. Bengtsson-Tops, A., Ericsson, U. & Ehliasson, K., 2014. Living in supportive housing for people with serious mental illness: A paradoxical everyday life. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 1(23), pp. 409-418. Beresford, P. & Wilson, A., 2002. Genes Spell Danger: Mental health service users/ survivors, bioethics and control. Disability & Society, 17(5), pp. 541-553 Bywaters, P., 2015. Inequalities in Child Welfare: Towards a New Policy, Research and Action Agenda. British Journal of Social Work, 45(1), pp. 6-23. Cass, E., 2015. The role of housing in adult safeguarding. Housing, Care And Support, 18(2), pp. 51-55. Dalrymple, J. & Burke, B., 2006. Anti-Oppressive Practice Social Care and the Law. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Department of Education, 2018. Knowledge and skills for child and family practitioners, London: HMSO. Department of Health, 2014. Care and Support Statutory Guidance. London: HMSO. Department of Health, 2015. Knowledge and Skills Statement for Social Workers in Adult Services. [Online]  Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/411957/KSS.pdf Fook, J., 2012. Social Work: A Critical Approach to Practice. 1st ed. London: SAGE. Fook, J. & Gardner, F., 2007. Practising Critical Reflection: A Resource Handbook. 1st ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Forenza, B. & Bermea, A. M., 2017. An Exploratory Analysis of Unhealthy and Abusive Relationships for Adults with Serious Mental Illnesses Living in Supportive Housing. Community Mental Health , Volume 53, pp. 679-687. Friedli, L., 2009. Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities, Copenhagen: World Health Organisation. Goss, J., 2011. Poetics in Schizophrenic Language: Speech, Gesture and Biosemiotics. Biosemiotics, 4(3), pp. 291-307. Graham, M. J., 2017. Reflective Thinking in Social Work: Learning from Student Narratives. 1st ed. Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C. & Slembrouck, S., 2009. Professional Categorization, Risk Management and InterAgency Communication in Public Inquiries into Disastrous Outcomes. British Journal of Social Work, 39(1), pp. 280-298. Harvey, C., Killackey, E., Groves, A. & Herrman, H., 2012. A place to live: Housing needs for people with psychotic disorders identified in the second Australian national survey of psychosis. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 46(9), pp. 840-850. HCPC, 2017. Social workers in England, London: HCPC. Healy, K., 2012. Social Work Methods and Skills: The Essential Foundations of Practice. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Hudson, A., 2015. Social Work: a “forgotten” piece of the integration jigsaw?. Journal of Integrated Care, 23(2), pp. 96-103. Ingram, R., 2013. Locating Emotional Intelligence at the Heart of Social Work Practice. British Journal of Social Work, Volume 43, pp. 987-1004. Ixer, G., 2016. The concept of reflection: is it skill based or values?. Social Work Education, 35(7), pp. 809-824. Karban, K., 2017. Developing a Health Inequalities Approach for Mental Health Social Work. British Journal of Social Work, Volume 47, pp. 885-902. Kemshall, H., Wilkinson, B. & Baker, K., 2013. Working with Risk. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Laird, S., 2011. Anti-Racist and Anti-Oppressive Practice. 1st ed. Maidenhead: SAGE. Lam, C. M., Wong, H. & Leung, T. T. F., 2007. An Unfinished Reflexive Journey: Social Work Students’ Reflection on their Placement Experiences. British Journal of Social Work, 1(37), pp. 91-105. Leung, T., 2011. Client Participation in Managing Social Work Service-An Unfinished Quest. Social Work, 56(1), pp. 43-52. Lishman, J., 2009. Communication in Social Work. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Macdonald, G. & Macdonald, K., 2010. Safeguarding: A Case for Intelligent Risk Management. British Journal of Social Work, 40(1), pp. 1174-1191. Marmot, M., 2010. Fair Society, Healthy Lives: Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England post 2010. [Online]  Available at: www.parliament.uk/documents/fair-society-healthy-lives-full-report Moss, B., 2017. Communication Skills in Health and Social Care. 4th ed. London: SAGE. Munro, E., 2011. The Munro Review of Child Protection, Final Report, A child-centerd system, London: The Stationary Office. Munro, E. & Rumgay, J., 2000. Role of risk assessment in reducing homicides by people with mental illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 176(2), pp. 116-120. Nerdrum, P., 1997. Maintenance of the Effect of Training in Communication Skills: A Controlled Follow-Up Study of Level of Communicated Empathy. British Journal of Social Work, 27(1), pp. 705-722. Nolan, D. & Quinn, N., 2012. The Context of Risk Management in Mental Health Social Work. Practice: Social Work in Action, 24(3), pp. 175-188. Norrie, C. et al., 2017. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Models of Organising Adult Safeguarding. British Journal of Social Work, 47(1), pp. 1205-1223. Parrish, M., 2014. Social Work Perspectives on Human Behaviour. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Parrish, M., 2014. Social Work Perspectives on Human Behaviour. 1st ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Parry, I., 2013. Adult safeguarding and the role of housing. The Journal of Adult Protection, 15(1), pp. 15-25. Parton, N., 1998. Risk, Advanced Liberalism and Child Welfare: The Need to Rediscover Uncertainty and Ambiguity. British Journal of Social Work, 28(1), pp. 5-27. Parton, N. & O’Byrne, P., 2000. Constructive Social Work. 1st ed. Basingstoke: MacMillan Press Ltd. Payne, M., 2014. Modern Social Work Theory. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Piat, M., Sabetti, J. & Padgett, D., 2017. Supported housing for adults with psychiatric disabilities: How tenants confront the problem of loneliness. Health Soc Care Community, Volume 26, pp. 191-198. Read, J., 2010. Can Poverty Drive You Mad? ‘Schizophrenia’, Socio-Economic Status and the Case for Primary Prevention. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 39(2), pp. 7-19. Rutter, L. & Brown, K., 2012. Critical Thinking and Professional Judgment for Social Work. 3rd ed. London: SAGE. Sarangi, S. & Slembrouck, S., 1996. Language, Bureaucracy & Social Control. 1st ed. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. Savaya, R. & Gardner, F., 2012. Critical Reflection to Identify Gaps between Espoused Theory and Theory-in-Use. Social Work, 57(2), pp. 145-154. Savaya, R., Gardner, F. & Stange, D., 2011. Stressful Encounters with Social Work Clients: A Descriptive Account Based on Critical Incidents. Social Work: National Association of Social Workers, 56(1), pp. 63-72. Schon, D., 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York:Basic Books Schön, D., 1987. Educating The Reflective Practitioner. 1st ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schwartz, S., 1982. Is there a schizophrenic language?. The Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 5(1), pp. 579-626. Skills for Care, 2015. The Social Work ASYE: Guidance for NQSWs completeing the ASYE in adults and child settings. [Online]  Available at: www.skillsforcare.org.uk Tangenburg, K. M. & Kemp, S., 2002. Embodied Practice: Claiming the Body’s Experience, Agency, and Knowledge for Social Work. Social Work, 47(1), pp. 9-18. Tannebaum, R. P., Hall, A. H. & Deaton, C. M., 2013. The Development of Reflective Practice in American Education. Ameican Educational History Journal, 40(2), pp. 241-259. Teater, B., 2014. Contemporary Social Work Practice. 1st ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Thompson, N., 2010. Theorizing Social Work Practice. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Trevithick, P., 2012. Social Work Skills and Knowledge ; A Practice Handbook. 3rd ed. Maidenhead: Open University. White, S. & Featherstone, B., 2005. Communicating misunderstandings: Multi agency work as social practice. Child and Family Social Work, 10(2), pp. 207-216. Williams, C. C., Almeida, M. & Knyahnytska, Y., 2015. Towards a Biopsychosociopolitical Frame for Recovery in the Context of Mental Illness. British Journal of Social Work, 45(1), pp. i9-i26. Wilson, A. & Beresford, P., 2000. ‘Anti-Oppressive Practice”: Emancipation or Appropriation. British Journal of Social Work, 30(1), pp. 553-573. Woodcock Ross, J., 2011. Specialist Communication Skills for Social Workers: Focusing on Service Users’ Needs. 1st ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Share this:

Leave a comment cancel reply.

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Additional menu

Student voices

Get the inside view on student life at York.

• My placement experience: highlights and reflections

13 October 2021 by Kimberley

I have now completed my 12-month placement experience as part of the uplands research team at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. In that time, I have worked with some amazing people, had lots of practical fieldwork experience and spent a year living in what must be one of the most beautiful areas of the country (around Barnard Castle, Northumberland). As I start my final year at university, I am only beginning to appreciate how much I have gained from the past year.

Hands on placement experience

Undoubtedly one of the most valuable aspects of the placement has been the practical experience. I have done everything from fieldwork to GIS mapping, these are skills I will take with me into final year and beyond. The responsibility I have for my own project taught me so much about time management and the research process. I began by writing a project proposal and finishing with a presentation of my results to staff at the GWCT. Doing this, I realised how much I enjoy science and has made me keen to explore a career in research.

Work through the seasons

As a field-based position, my work was very seasonal. I had not realised how much of a difference it would make to my enjoyment of the placement. At the start of my placement until November, I was in the lab or the office. Most of this time was spent on a single GIS mapping task that was quite repetitive. I struggled with this to begin with, especially with having confidence in my work and decision making. However, by persevering and eventually getting all the data, I was able to discover different and better ways to approach such tasks.

Spring and summer brought their own challenges, with lots of fieldwork occurring at the same time. The work means coordination is key, to ensure everyone can access the vehicles they needed. With every month came new challenges and opportunities to learn and making the most of these. This is what really enhances the placement experience.

Part of the team

Working in the research team was a fantastic experience. I enjoyed discussing my ideas with research staff and it really boosted my confidence. Especially when I was asked for my opinion or a suggestion of mine was used in their work. I am really proud of how I have become more comfortable with asking questions or suggesting things. Team meetings became something to look forward. An opportunity to discuss ideas and learn about the other work, rather than a stressful situation. Working with people with a range of knowledge and experiences was also really interesting. They gave me a lot of information and advice. This is helpful for gaining a deeper understanding of the work and thinking about potential career paths.

There were issues surrounding staff reductions due to COVID-19 and organisational politics impacted some aspects of the work. As a student I was unaffected and able to gain an insight into some of the nuances of working for an organisation like the GWCT.

Final reflections on my placement experience

Three years ago, I set myself the goal of doing a year in industry at the beginning of university. I am proud to say I have completed my placement. I have achieved what I set out to – increasing my confidence and gaining experience within a conservation organisation. However, the whole experience has been so much more than I expected. I have designed and carried out my own project and have contributed to ongoing, long-term research. I have also been able to spend time exploring and volunteering in an amazing part of the country. Doing a year in industry has been the highlight of my time at university so far, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone.

Read more blogs about why our students chose York .

About Kimberley

I am a third year biology student and am currently on placement with The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. Within biology, I am most interested in conservation, ecology and evolution whilst outside of biology I spend my time playing hockey and volunteering for various organisations and events.

Reader Interactions

3 November 2021 at 9.23 am

Your experience has provided me with a lot insight into the highs and lows experienced during placement. Thank you for sharing your story Kimberly.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About this blog

These blogs represent students’ views and reflections, at the time of publish. For course details and the official information please always refer to the University of York website .

To get in contact with us about anything on this blog you can email us .

• My experience as a Social Work student
• What I wish I knew before starting my placement in the Operating Theatre
• My guide on what to pack for University
• All Things Asian: Food and Shopping in York

• Peterborough

How to Write a Reflection Paper

Why reflective writing, experiential reflection, reading reflection.

• A note on mechanics

Reflection offers you the opportunity to consider how your personal experiences and observations shape your thinking and your acceptance of new ideas.  Professors often ask students to write reading reflections.  They do this to encourage you to explore your own ideas about a text, to express your opinion rather than summarize the opinions of others.  Reflective writing can help you to improve your analytical skills because it requires you to express what you think, and more significantly, how and why you think that way.  In addition, reflective analysis asks you to acknowledge that your thoughts are shaped by your assumptions and preconceived ideas; in doing so, you can appreciate the ideas of others, notice how their assumptions and preconceived ideas may have shaped their thoughts, and perhaps recognize how your ideas support or oppose what you read.

Types of Reflective Writing

Popular in professional programs, like business, nursing, social work, forensics and education, reflection is an important part of making connections between theory and practice.  When you are asked to reflect upon experience in a placement, you do not only describe your experience, but you evaluate it based on ideas from class.  You can assess a theory or approach based on your observations and practice and evaluate your own knowledge and skills within your professional field.   This opportunity to take the time to think about your choices, your actions, your successes and your failures is best done within a specific framework, like course themes or work placement objectives.  Abstract concepts can become concrete and real to you when considered within your own experiences, and reflection on your experiences allows you to make plans for improvement.

To encourage thoughtful and balanced assessment of readings, many interdisciplinary courses may ask you to submit a reading reflection.  Often instructors will indicate to students what they expect of a reflection, but the general purpose is to elicit your informed opinions about ideas presented in the text and to consider how they affect your interpretation.   Reading reflections offer an opportunity to recognize – and perhaps break down – your assumptions which may be challenged by the text(s). 

Approaches to Reflective Inquiry

You may wonder how your professors assess your reflective writing.  What are they looking for? How can my experiences or ideas be right or wrong?  Your instructors expect you to critically engage with concepts from your course by making connections between your observations, experiences, and opinions.   They expect you to explain and analyse these concepts from your own point of view, eliciting original ideas and encouraging active interest in the course material.

It can be difficult to know where to begin when writing a critical reflection.  First, know that – like any other academic piece of writing – a reflection requires a narrow focus and strong analysis.  The best approach for identifying a focus and for reflective analysis is interrogation.   The following offers suggestions for your line of inquiry when developing a reflective response.

It is best to discuss your experiences in a work placement or practicum within the context of personal or organizational goals; doing so provides important insights and perspective for your own growth in the profession. For reflective writing, it is important to balance reporting or descriptive writing with critical reflection and analysis.

Consider these questions:

• Contextualize your reflection:  What are your learning goals? What are the objectives of the organization?  How do these goals fit with the themes or concepts from the course?
• Provide important information: What is the name of the host organization? What is their mission? Who do they serve? What was your role? What did you do?
• Analytical Reflection: What did you learn from this experience? About yourself? About working in the field? About society?
• Lessons from reflection: Did your experience fit with the goals or concepts of the course or organization?  Why or why not? What are your lessons for the future? What was successful? Why? What would you do differently? Why? How will you prepare for a future experience in the field?

Consider the purpose of reflection: to demonstrate your learning in the course.  It is important to actively and directly connect concepts from class to your personal or experiential reflection.  The following example shows how a student’s observations from a classroom can be analysed using a theoretical concept and how the experience can help a student to evaluate this concept.

For Example My observations from the classroom demonstrate that the hierarchical structure of Bloom’s Taxonomy is problematic, a concept also explored by Paul (1993).  The students often combined activities like application and synthesis or analysis and evaluation to build their knowledge and comprehension of unfamiliar concepts.  This challenges my understanding of traditional teaching methods where knowledge is the basis for inquiry.  Perhaps higher-order learning strategies like inquiry and evaluation can also be the basis for knowledge and comprehension, which are classified as lower-order skills in Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Critical reflection requires thoughtful and persistent inquiry.  Although basic questions like “what is the thesis?” and “what is the evidence?” are important to demonstrate your understanding, you need to interrogate your own assumptions and knowledge to deepen your analysis and focus your assessment of the text.

Assess the text(s):

• What is the main point? How is it developed? Identify the purpose, impact and/or theoretical framework of the text.
• What ideas stood out to me? Why? Were they new or in opposition to existing scholarship?

Develop your ideas:

• What do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge come from? What are the observations or experiences that shape my understanding?
• Do I agree or disagree with this argument?  Why?

Make connections:

• How does this text reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How does this text challenge my existing ideas or assumptions?
• How does this text help me to better understand this topic or explore this field of study/discipline?

A Note on Mechanics

As with all written assignments or reports, it is important to have a clear focus for your writing.  You do not need to discuss every experience or element of your placement.  Pick a few that you can explore within the context of your learning.  For reflective responses, identify the main arguments or important elements of the text to develop a stronger analysis which integrates relevant ideas from course materials.

Furthermore, your writing must be organized.  Introduce your topic and the point you plan to make about your experience and learning.  Develop your point through body paragraph(s), and conclude your paper by exploring the meaning you derive from your reflection. You may find the questions listed above can help you to develop an outline before you write your paper.

You should maintain a formal tone, but it is acceptable to write in the first person and to use personal pronouns.  Note, however, that it is important that you maintain confidentiality and anonymity of clients, patients or students from work or volunteer placements by using pseudonyms and masking identifying factors. 

The value of reflection: Critical reflection is a meaningful exercise which can require as much time and work as traditional essays and reports because it asks students to be purposeful and engaged participants, readers, and thinkers.

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

Academic Writing: The Reflective Essay

• 3-minute read
• 5th June 2018

If you are at university, you may be asked to write a reflective essay at some point. This is particularly common on courses with a work-based learning focus. But what exactly is a reflective essay ?

What Is a Reflective Essay?

A reflective essay is a paper in which you write about your own experiences, a bit like an academic diary entry! The idea is to help you think about something that happened in your life.

For example, a student nurse might be asked to write a reflective essay on a work placement. They would then use this to highlight what happened and what they learned from the experience.

The Reflective Cycle

To see what your essay should include, we can look to Professor Graham Gibbs’ reflective cycle . This is designed to help people learn from experience and involves the following steps:

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

• Description – A detailed description of what happened (i.e. the thing that prompted the reflection), including where and when it happened, who you were with, and what you did.
• Feelings – How you felt before, during and after the experience.
• Evaluation and Analysis – A look at the positives and negatives of the experience (e.g. what went right and what went wrong), along with how you understand it. This may involve discussing your experience in relation to ideas or practices you have learned in class.
• Conclusions – Any final thoughts on the experience, including what you have learned.
• Action – A plan for what you will do next, what you need to study, or what you would do differently in the same situation if it were to arise again.

The key is to make sure all of the above ‘steps’ are included somewhere in your reflective essay.

Structuring a Reflective Essay

While there are no hard rules about how to structure a reflective essay, it helps to keep things simple. The basic structure should therefore be something like this:

• Introduction – A short passage setting out what you are writing about.
• Main Body – This is where you write about your experiences, including describing what happened and how it made you feel . You will also need to evaluate and analyse what you describe, either as you describe it or in a separate paragraph after the description.
• Conclusion – A passage about what you have learned from the experience, including what you will do next and/or what you would do differently next time.

If you cite any sources in your essay, you will also need a reference list at the end. Cover all of these things in your work and you should have a good reflective essay on your hands! But if you need anyone to offer feedback on the clarity and structure of your work, feel free to get in touch .

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Get help from a language expert. Try our proofreading services for free.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template (2024)

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

How to Ace Slack Messaging for Contractors and Freelancers

Effective professional communication is an important skill for contractors and freelancers navigating remote work environments....

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

• Deakin Home
• Student news
• StudentConnect
• Help and contact us

Reflective writing

Reflective writing tasks ​allow you to review and think critically about a personal experience related to your course.

Reflective writing as an assessment is a great way for your marker to see your thoughts progress. You can ask questions, add suggestions, argue with the material and question your own experiences or previous understanding. It demonstrates you’re taking your understanding of your subject deeper. —Ari Moore, Senior Student Writing Mentor

Reflective writing tasks at university are a way of asking you to critically evaluate and make connections between the theories and practice you are engaging with in your unit. They can also guide you to become more aware of your personal thoughts about your life experiences in relation to those theories. In some disciplines, for example, education, reflection is often used to build upon existing knowledge and to help improve professional practice.

Reflective writing is  not just a description or summary of something that you have observed. Instead, reflective writing requires you to  describe ,  analyse and  evaluate . Describing, analysing and evaluating experiences enables you to develop new insights and perspectives. The quality of your analysis is improved by reading widely and thinking critically about what you are learning in your course.

Some examples of reflective writing assignments include:

• Analysing your experience of working on a group task.
• Critiquing a teaching or learning activity (self-review or peer review activities).
• Critiquing your experiences on a placement or internship.
• Describing a critical experience in your life that has shaped your view of the world.
• Keeping a reflective journal or log on a work placement.

There are various reflective writing models and this guide will discuss two used at Deakin. However, you should always check your unit assessment instructions for specific directions or preferred reflection models.

Language features

The language and style used in reflective writing tasks will depend on the assignment instructions and your discipline. However, in most reflections, the reader will expect to learn about your personal experience, feelings, ideas and opinions. You may also reflect on and cite sources from your coursework. It is acceptable to refer to yourself and use personal pronouns when writing reflectively (I, my, me). The use of action verbs to express feelings and opinions can also be useful (‘I felt…’, ‘I think…’, ‘I agree…’).

The ideas and phrases listed below are commonly used in reflective writing.

‘What? So what? Now what?’ model

The ‘What? So what? Now what?’ model can guide your reflection on an experience and the actions that follow. Use the suggested prompts under each heading to help you get started.

4R’s model

The 4r's reflection model.

The 4R's of reflection model can be applied to suit many different contexts and provides you with a general idea of how to organise the information in your reflection.

Bain J, Ballantyne R, Packer J and Mills C (1999) ‘Using journal writing to enhance student teachers' reflectivity during field experience placements’, Teachers and Teaching , 5(1):51-73.

• The 4 Rs (PDF, 98.4KB)
• Reflective writing models (DOCX, 32.2KB)

You might also like:

• Critical thinking
• Integrating sources
• Essay writing
• Report writing
• Reflecting on your learning

Book an appointment with a language and learning adviser; or First Nations students can book with the First Nations academic support links

• Book an appointment
• First Nations Academic Support bookings
• Email First Nations Academic Support

We use cookies to improve your experience. You consent to the use of our cookies if you proceed. Visit our Privacy policy for more information.

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• Writing Tips

How to Write a Reflective Essay

• 3-minute read
• 29th August 2018

If you think that a “reflective essay” is a college paper written on a mirror, this post is for you. That’s because we’re here to explain exactly what a reflective essay is and how to write one. And we can tell you from the outset that no mirrors are required to follow our advice.

What Is Reflective Writing?

The kind of “reflection” we’re talking about here is personal. It involves considering your own situation and analyzing it so you can learn from your experiences. To do this, you need to describe what happened, how you felt about it, and what you might be able to learn from it for the future.

This makes reflective writing a useful part of courses that involve work-based learning . For instance, a student nurse might be asked to write a reflective essay about a placement.

When writing a reflective essay, moreover, you may have to forget the rule about not using pronouns like “I” or “we” in academic writing. In reflective writing, using the first person is essential!

The Reflective Cycle

There are many approaches to reflective learning, but one of the most popular is Gibb’s Reflective Cycle . This was developed by Professor Graham Gibbs and can be applied to a huge range of situations. In all cases, though, it involves the following steps:

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

• Description – You will need to describe your experiences in detail. This includes what happened, where and when it happened, who else was involved, and what you did.
• Feelings – How you felt before, during, and after the experience you describe.
• Evaluation and Analysis – Think about what went well and what could be improved upon based on your experience. Try to refer to ideas you’ve learned in class while thinking about this.
• Conclusions – Final thoughts on what you’ve learned from the experience.
• Action – How you will put what you’ve learned into practice.

If your reflective essay addresses the steps above, you are on the right track!

Structuring a Reflective Essay

While reflective essays vary depending upon topic and subject area, most share a basic overall structure. Unless you are told otherwise, then, your essay should include the following:

• Introduction – A brief outline of what your essay is about.
• Main Body – The main part of your essay will be a description of what happened and how it made you feel . This is also where you will evaluate and analyze your experiences, either as part of the description or as a separate section in the essay.
• Conclusion – The conclusion of your essay should sum up what you have learned from reflecting on your experiences and what you would do differently in the future.
• Reference List – If you have cited any sources in your essay, make sure to list them with full bibliographic information at the end of the document.

Finally, once you’ve written your essay, don’t forget to get it checked for spelling and grammar errors!

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

5-minute read

Free Email Newsletter Template (2024)

Promoting a brand means sharing valuable insights to connect more deeply with your audience, and...

6-minute read

How to Write a Nonprofit Grant Proposal

If you’re seeking funding to support your charitable endeavors as a nonprofit organization, you’ll need...

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

• +44 (0) 207 391 9032

Recent Posts

• What Is an Internship? Everything You Should Know

How Long Should a Thesis Statement Be?

• How to Write a Character Analysis Essay
• Best Colours for Your PowerPoint Presentation: How to Choose
• How to Write a Nursing Essay
• Top 5 Essential Skills You Should Build As An International Student
• How Professional Editing Services Can Take Your Writing to the Next Level
• How to Write an Effective Essay Outline
• How to Write a Law Essay: A Comprehensive Guide with Examples
• What Are the Limitations of ChatGPT?
• Academic News
• Custom Essays
• Dissertation Writing
• Essay Marking
• Essay Writing
• Essay Writing Companies
• Model Essays
• Model Exam Answers
• Oxbridge Essays Updates
• PhD Writing
• Significant Academics
• Student News
• Study Skills
• University Applications
• University Essays
• University Life
• Writing Tips

A complete guide to writing a reflective essay

(Last updated: 3 June 2024)

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

“The overwhelming burden of writing my first ever reflective essay loomed over me as I sat as still as a statue, as my fingers nervously poised over the intimidating buttons on my laptop keyboard. Where would I begin? Where would I end? Nerve wracking thoughts filled my mind as I fretted over the seemingly impossible journey on which I was about to embark.”

Reflective essays may seem simple on the surface, but they can be a real stumbling block if you're not quite sure how to go about them. In simple terms, reflective essays constitute a critical examination of a life experience and, with the right guidance, they're not too challenging to put together. A reflective essay is similar to other essays in that it needs to be easily understood and well structured, but the content is more akin to something personal like a diary entry.

In this guide, we explore in detail how to write a great reflective essay , including what makes a good structure and some advice on the writing process. We’ve even thrown in an example reflective essay to inspire you too, making this the ultimate guide for anyone needing reflective essay help.

Types of Reflection Papers

There are several types of reflective papers, each serving a unique purpose. Educational reflection papers focus on your learning experiences, such as a course or a lecture, and how they have impacted your understanding. Professional reflection papers often relate to work experiences, discussing what you have learned in a professional setting and how it has shaped your skills and perspectives. Personal reflection papers delve into personal experiences and their influence on your personal growth and development.

Each of these requires a slightly different approach, but all aim to provide insight into your thoughts and experiences, demonstrating your ability to analyse and learn from them. Understanding the specific requirements of each type can help you tailor your writing to effectively convey your reflections.

Reflective Essay Format

In a reflective essay, a writer primarily examines his or her life experiences, hence the term ‘reflective’. The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to provide a platform for the author to not only recount a particular life experience, but to also explore how he or she has changed or learned from those experiences. Reflective writing can be presented in various formats, but you’ll most often see it in a learning log format or diary entry. Diary entries in particular are used to convey how the author’s thoughts have developed and evolved over the course of a particular period.

The format of a reflective essay may change depending on the target audience. Reflective essays can be academic, or may feature more broadly as a part of a general piece of writing for a magazine, for instance. For class assignments, while the presentation format can vary, the purpose generally remains the same: tutors aim to inspire students to think deeply and critically about a particular learning experience or set of experiences. Here are some typical examples of reflective essay formats that you may have to write:

A focus on personal growth:

A type of reflective essay often used by tutors as a strategy for helping students to learn how to analyse their personal life experiences to promote emotional growth and development. The essay gives the student a better understanding of both themselves and their behaviours.

A focus on the literature:

This kind of essay requires students to provide a summary of the literature, after which it is applied to the student’s own life experiences.

Pre-Writing Tips: How to Start Writing the Reflection Essay?

As you go about deciding on the content of your essay, you need to keep in mind that a reflective essay is highly personal and aimed at engaging the reader or target audience. And there’s much more to a reflective essay than just recounting a story. You need to be able to reflect (more on this later) on your experience by showing how it influenced your subsequent behaviours and how your life has been particularly changed as a result.

As a starting point, you might want to think about some important experiences in your life that have really impacted you, either positively, negatively, or both. Some typical reflection essay topics include: a real-life experience, an imagined experience, a special object or place, a person who had an influence on you, or something you have watched or read. If you are writing a reflective essay as part of an academic exercise, chances are your tutor will ask you to focus on a particular episode – such as a time when you had to make an important decision – and reflect on what the outcomes were. Note also, that the aftermath of the experience is especially important in a reflective essay; miss this out and you will simply be storytelling.

What Do You Mean By Reflection Essay?

It sounds obvious, but the reflective process forms the core of writing this type of essay, so it’s important you get it right from the outset. You need to really think about how the personal experience you have chosen to focus on impacted or changed you. Use your memories and feelings of the experience to determine the implications for you on a personal level.

Once you’ve chosen the topic of your essay, it’s really important you study it thoroughly and spend a lot of time trying to think about it vividly. Write down everything you can remember about it, describing it as clearly and fully as you can. Keep your five senses in mind as you do this, and be sure to use adjectives to describe your experience. At this stage, you can simply make notes using short phrases, but you need to ensure that you’re recording your responses, perceptions, and your experience of the event(s).

Once you’ve successfully emptied the contents of your memory, you need to start reflecting. A great way to do this is to pick out some reflection questions which will help you think deeper about the impact and lasting effects of your experience. Here are some useful questions that you can consider:

• What have you learned about yourself as a result of the experience?
• Have you developed because of it? How?
• Did it have any positive or negative bearing on your life?
• Looking back, what would you have done differently?
• Why do you think you made the particular choices that you did? Do you think these were the right choices?
• What are your thoughts on the experience in general? Was it a useful learning experience? What specific skills or perspectives did you acquire as a result?

These signpost questions should help kick-start your reflective process. Remember, asking yourself lots of questions is key to ensuring that you think deeply and critically about your experiences – a skill that is at the heart of writing a great reflective essay.

Consider using models of reflection (like the Gibbs or Kolb cycles) before, during, and after the learning process to ensure that you maintain a high standard of analysis. For example, before you really get stuck into the process, consider questions such as: what might happen (regarding the experience)? Are there any possible challenges to keep in mind? What knowledge is needed to be best prepared to approach the experience? Then, as you’re planning and writing, these questions may be useful: what is happening within the learning process? Is the process working out as expected? Am I dealing with the accompanying challenges successfully? Is there anything that needs to be done additionally to ensure that the learning process is successful? What am I learning from this? By adopting such a framework, you’ll be ensuring that you are keeping tabs on the reflective process that should underpin your work.

How to Strategically Plan Out the Reflective Essay Structure?

Here’s a very useful tip: although you may feel well prepared with all that time spent reflecting in your arsenal, do not, start writing your essay until you have worked out a comprehensive, well-rounded plan . Your writing will be so much more coherent, your ideas conveyed with structure and clarity, and your essay will likely achieve higher marks.

This is an especially important step when you’re tackling a reflective essay – there can be a tendency for people to get a little ‘lost’ or disorganised as they recount their life experiences in an erratic and often unsystematic manner as it is a topic so close to their hearts. But if you develop a thorough outline (this is the same as a ‘plan’) and ensure you stick to it like Christopher Columbus to a map, you should do just fine as you embark on the ultimate step of writing your essay. If you need further convincing on how important planning is, we’ve summarised the key benefits of creating a detailed essay outline below:

Now you’re familiar with the benefits of using an outline for your reflective essay, it is essential that you know how to craft one. It can be considerably different from other typical essay outlines, mostly because of the varying subjects. But what remains the same, is that you need to start your outline by drafting the introduction, body and conclusion. More on this below.

Introduction

As is the case with all essays, your reflective essay must begin within an introduction that contains both a hook and a thesis statement. The point of having a ‘hook’ is to grab the attention of your audience or reader from the very beginning. You must portray the exciting aspects of your story in the initial paragraph so that you stand the best chances of holding your reader’s interest. Refer back to the opening quote of this article – did it grab your attention and encourage you to read more? The thesis statement is a brief summary of the focus of the essay, which in this case is a particular experience that influenced you significantly. Remember to give a quick overview of your experience – don’t give too much information away or you risk your reader becoming disinterested.

Next up is planning the body of your essay. This can be the hardest part of the entire paper; it’s easy to waffle and repeat yourself both in the plan and in the actual writing. Have you ever tried recounting a story to a friend only for them to tell you to ‘cut the long story short’? They key here is to put plenty of time and effort into planning the body, and you can draw on the following tips to help you do this well:

Try adopting a chronological approach. This means working through everything you want to touch upon as it happened in time. This kind of approach will ensure that your work is systematic and coherent. Keep in mind that a reflective essay doesn’t necessarily have to be linear, but working chronologically will prevent you from providing a haphazard recollection of your experience. Lay out the important elements of your experience in a timeline – this will then help you clearly see how to piece your narrative together.

Ensure the body of your reflective essay is well focused and contains appropriate critique and reflection. The body should not only summarise your experience, it should explore the impact that the experience has had on your life, as well as the lessons that you have learned as a result. The emphasis should generally be on reflection as opposed to summation. A reflective posture will not only provide readers with insight on your experience, it’ll highlight your personality and your ability to deal with or adapt to particular situations.

In the conclusion of your reflective essay, you should focus on bringing your piece together by providing a summary of both the points made throughout, and what you have learned as a result. Try to include a few points on why and how your attitudes and behaviours have been changed. Consider also how your character and skills have been affected, for example: what conclusions can be drawn about your problem-solving skills? What can be concluded about your approach to specific situations? What might you do differently in similar situations in the future? What steps have you taken to consolidate everything that you have learned from your experience? Keep in mind that your tutor will be looking out for evidence of reflection at a very high standard.

Congratulations – you now have the tools to create a thorough and accurate plan which should put you in good stead for the ultimate phase indeed of any essay, the writing process.

Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your Reflective Essay

As with all written assignments, sitting down to put pen to paper (or more likely fingers to keyboard) can be daunting. But if you have put in the time and effort fleshing out a thorough plan, you should be well prepared, which will make the writing process as smooth as possible. The following points should also help ease the writing process:

• To get a feel for the tone and format in which your writing should be, read other typically reflective pieces in magazines and newspapers, for instance.
• Don’t think too much about how to start your first sentence or paragraph; just start writing and you can always come back later to edit anything you’re not keen on. Your first draft won’t necessarily be your best essay writing work but it’s important to remember that the earlier you start writing, the more time you will have to keep reworking your paper until it’s perfect. Don’t shy away from using a free-flow method, writing and recording your thoughts and feelings on your experiences as and when they come to mind. But make sure you stick to your plan. Your plan is your roadmap which will ensure your writing doesn’t meander too far off course.
• For every point you make about an experience or event, support it by describing how you were directly impacted, using specific as opposed to vague words to convey exactly how you felt.
• Write using the first-person narrative, ensuring that the tone of your essay is very personal and reflective of your character.
• If you need to, refer back to our notes earlier on creating an outline. As you work through your essay, present your thoughts systematically, remembering to focus on your key learning outcomes.
• Consider starting your introduction with a short anecdote or quote to grasp your readers’ attention, or other engaging techniques such as flashbacks.
• Choose your vocabulary carefully to properly convey your feelings and emotions. Remember that reflective writing has a descriptive component and so must have a wide range of adjectives to draw from. Avoid vague adjectives such as ‘okay’ or ‘nice’ as they don’t really offer much insight into your feelings and personality. Be more specific – this will make your writing more engaging.
• Be honest with your feelings and opinions. Remember that this is a reflective task, and is the one place you can freely admit – without any repercussions – that you failed at a particular task. When assessing your essay, your tutor will expect a deep level of reflection, not a simple review of your experiences and emotion. Showing deep reflection requires you to move beyond the descriptive. Be extremely critical about your experience and your response to it. In your evaluation and analysis, ensure that you make value judgements, incorporating ideas from outside the experience you had to guide your analysis. Remember that you can be honest about your feelings without writing in a direct way. Use words that work for you and are aligned with your personality.
• Once you’ve finished learning about and reflecting on your experience, consider asking yourself these questions: what did I particularly value from the experience and why? Looking back, how successful has the process been? Think about your opinions immediately after the experience and how they differ now, so that you can evaluate the difference between your immediate and current perceptions. Asking yourself such questions will help you achieve reflective writing effectively and efficiently.
• Don’t shy away from using a variety of punctuation. It helps keeps your writing dynamic! Doesn’t it?
• If you really want to awaken your reader’s imagination, you can use imagery to create a vivid picture of your experiences.
• Ensure that you highlight your turning point, or what we like to call your “Aha!” moment. Without this moment, your resulting feelings and thoughts aren’t as valid and your argument not as strong.
• Don’t forget to keep reiterating the lessons you have learned from your experience.

Bonus Tip - Using Wider Sources

Although a reflective piece of writing is focused on personal experience, it’s important you draw on other sources to demonstrate your understanding of your experience from a theoretical perspective. It’ll show a level of analysis – and a standard of reliability in what you’re claiming – if you’re also able to validate your work against other perspectives that you find. Think about possible sources, like newspapers, surveys, books and even journal articles. Generally, the additional sources you decide to include in your work are highly dependent on your field of study. Analysing a wide range of sources, will show that you have read widely on your subject area, that you have nuanced insight into the available literature on the subject of your essay, and that you have considered the broader implications of the literature for your essay. The incorporation of other sources into your essay also helps to show that you are aware of the multi-dimensional nature of both the learning and problem-solving process.

Reflective Essay Example

If you want some inspiration for writing, take a look at our example of a short reflective essay , which can serve as a useful starting point for you when you set out to write your own.

Some Final Notes to Remember

To recap, the key to writing a reflective essay is demonstrating what lessons you have taken away from your experiences, and why and how you have been shaped by these lessons.

The reflective thinking process begins with you – you must consciously make an effort to identify and examine your own thoughts in relation to a particular experience. Don’t hesitate to explore any prior knowledge or experience of the topic, which will help you identify why you have formed certain opinions on the subject. Remember that central to reflective essay writing is the examination of your attitudes, assumptions and values, so be upfront about how you feel. Reflective writing can be quite therapeutic, helping you identify and clarify your strengths and weaknesses, particularly in terms of any knowledge gaps that you may have. It’s a pretty good way of improving your critical thinking skills, too. It enables you to adopt an introspective posture in analysing your experiences and how you learn/make sense of them.

If you are still having difficulties with starting the writing process, why not try mind-mapping which will help you to structure your thinking and ideas, enabling you to produce a coherent piece. Creating a mind map will ensure that your argument is written in a very systematic way that will be easy for your tutor to follow. Here’s a recap of the contents of this article, which also serves as a way to create a mind map:

1. Identify the topic you will be writing on.

2. Note down any ideas that are related to the topic and if you want to, try drawing a diagram to link together any topics, theories, and ideas.

3. Allow your ideas to flow freely, knowing that you will always have time to edit your reflective essay .

4. Consider how your ideas are connected to each other, then begin the writing process.

And finally, keep in mind that although there are descriptive elements in a reflective essay, we can’t emphasise enough how crucial it is that your work is critical, analytical, and adopts a reflective posture in terms of your experience and the lessons you have learned from it.

Essay exams: how to answer ‘To what extent…’

How to write a master’s essay

• essay writing
• reflective essays
• study skills
• writing a good essay
• writing tips

Writing Services

• Essay Plans
• Critical Reviews
• Literature Reviews
• Presentations
• Dissertation Title Creation
• Dissertation Proposals
• Dissertation Chapters
• PhD Proposals
• Journal Publication
• CV Writing Service
• Business Proofreading Services

Editing Services

• Proofreading Service
• Editing Service
• Academic Editing Service

Additional Services

• Marking Services
• Consultation Calls
• Personal Statements
• Tutoring Services

Our Company

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Become a Writer

Terms & Policies

• Fair Use Policy
• Policy for Students in England
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• [email protected]
• Contact Form

Payment Methods

Cryptocurrency payments.

• TOP CATEGORIES
• AS and A Level
• University Degree
• International Baccalaureate
• Uncategorised
• 5 Star Essays
• Study Tools
• Study Guides
• Meet the Team
• Education and Teaching

A reflection of my overall experience of the work placement

Reflective Essay

        In this essay I will give an overview of my experience of the work placement mentioning how I managed to obtain the specific learning outcomes of the module.        For me, this placement was mainly about getting vital legal work experience, which I could list on my curriculum vitae (CV) and which would thus help me to gain access into the legal profession.  Having read several articles, I realised that recruiters at City firms have recently complained that the ‘quality of applicants has not been as good this year as previously…they had weak career motivation.’   Tromans also stated that because so many students had done extremely well in qualifications, firms are looking for new criteria to pick trainees.  I have learnt that along with an impressive academic record, firms are seeking students who can demonstrate that they have chosen this career path for a reason.  At this point I realised that legal work experience is a significant factor that is taken into account when deciding applicants and will prove the necessary determination and motivation required.  Therefore, this placement has boosted my CV in the form of adding to my list of various legal work experiences, which will boost my employability and hopefully enhance my chances of securing a training contract in the near future.

        In addition to boosting my CV, I also believe that this placement has helped me to decide whether I would be good enough and whether I would enjoy the role of a solicitor in that type of a legal environment.  During the placement I always took time out to observe fellow colleagues in their roles and gained a good idea of what their daily tasks consisted of.  I noticed that on many occasions they became stressed out with clients or with solicitors from other firms they had been dealing with.  They also had to work punishing and tiring hours often with little breaks.  This aspect of life as a solicitor is obviously a drawback but if I am to become a successful solicitor I will have to learn to cope with the pressure and stress as it will be an integral part of my work.

This is a preview of the whole essay

        Recording my daily experiences in the form of a diary proved very useful to me.  A weakness of mine is that I have a bad long term memory so at the end of each working day, using my organisational skills, I wrote down my personal experience at work in order to combat this weakness, which also enabled me to write my portfolio fluently without the fear of forgetting to include important events whilst they were fresh in my mind.  I also learnt that effective diary keeping will help me manage my time as I will be ‘responsible for organising most of my study time which can be challenging when there are other commitments at work, family, and friends to fit in.’

        On several occasions I had to apply skills developed during my study of LSP2 in order to tackle an obstacle and in order to complete a task.  One occasion in particular that comes to mind is when I sought to broaden my legal research skills in obtaining information regarding access on a bridle path.  On this occasion my negotiation, communication and IT skills were called upon in order to solve the problem and obtain further advice from a reluctant and stubborn operator.

        I was able to demonstrate good research skills through using many different sources to acquire information.  In order to complete my various tasks I visited the Law Society Library  as well as seeking information from textbooks and Internet websites.  These research skills will prove useful when I am a trainee solicitor and I am required to search for information.  From these experiences, I have realised that I have a “preference for the ‘Reflector Style’ of learning”  in that I am able to carry out some painstaking research, as I did in the Law Society Library; am able to stand back from events and listen/observe, such as when I attended the meeting at Slaughter and May.  I believe it is this style that I am most suited and learn best from such activities, which I have demonstrated during my work experience.

        I was also required to demonstrate my oral communication skills when I was asked to give my views on the war on Iraq in front of a group, which is a skill I am not particularly confident at, as identified in my swot analysis.  Although, at first I was intimidated and uncomfortable about discussing this issue, I believe that I benefited out of it through improving my self-confidence.  From this experience I have learnt to be more confident and less shy in situations like these as it is a vital skill to possess for future success.

        It is important to mention that I was able to practice the art of networking during my placement.  From being sociable, polite and hardworking I was able to build useful contacts and gain a summer placement.  My employer, who expressed his sincere gratitude for all my hard work, offered me a summer placement, which I kindly accepted.

        Working at this firm was very demanding and as a result I was required to put my time management skills to good use in order to allocate sufficient time for my other university commitments.  My weekly tasks took up a lot of my time and therefore I had to plan my time effectively in order to balance my university schedule so that my other subjects did not suffer as a result.

        Through frequently reading case judgments, textbooks and articles, I noticed that my vocabulary slightly improved as a result, which I had aimed to achieve as identified in my key skills self assessment.  Through my continual reading around this subject I also improved my understanding of various legal concepts in civil litigation, such as personal injury and copyright law and will ultimately benefit from this knowledge gained if I decide to specialise in this area of law.  Therefore, I was able to enhance the quality of my academic knowledge, learning, and the application of that learning to the workplace.

        Having provided a detailed analysis of my personal experience at the firm and researched various areas of experiential learning, I have become aware that ‘learning is supposed to occur by reflecting on experience.’   Moon states that ‘experiential learning refers to the organizing and construction of learning from observations that have been made in some practical situation, with the implication that the learning can then lead to improved action.’   With regard to my experience at the firm, I believe that I have developed and gained vital skills required in the future.  I feel I have learnt from my mistakes, for example I felt the need to improve my time management skills when I failed to complete the research task given to me in the Law Society Library first time round, which I was able to correct next time.  This clearly demonstrates the need to learn from past experiences.

        Throughout my research and further reading on the topic of reflection in experiential learning, I came across a theory stating that ‘learning leads to the action that is, in effect, experimentation, which leads to more experience of reflection.’   This is expressed in Kolb’s cycle of experiential learning in which a learner changes from actor to observer ensuring that the learner does progress in their learning.  In light of this theory, I believe that this is a correct approach to adopt in that students/learners must learn from their past experiences and aim to develop their skills for future situations. This is an approach I believe I adopted throughout my work experience.

        Donald Schön makes reference to two main processes of reflection in professional practice – reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action.  His views suggest that ‘reflection-in-action occurs in situations where the action yields unexpected consequences whereas reflection-on-action is the form of reflection that occurs after action.’   I believe that my learning experience involved both these processes, in that I was able to look back in a critical way at what had occurred and ‘use the results to tackle new situations,’  as I did when I successfully completed the Law Society Library research second time round.

        In the end I believe that I benefited tremendously from this work placement and I have my employer to thank for providing me with this opportunity.  During my time with the firm, I developed a greater understanding in relation to civil litigation and put into practice key legal and work related skills, such as negotiating and interpersonal skills, respectively.  I have also concluded that ‘self awareness is an essential part of interaction skills in that one has to be aware of one’s own prejudices, fears, wishes and starting points to see how they affect the interaction.’   I also enhanced my employability by developing both my “key” skills such as ‘communication, numeracy, the use of information technology and learning how to learn,’  and my “soft skills” such as self-motivation, initiative, creative problem analysis and willingness to learn.  I will now be able to list these experiences on my CV and future job applications.

 Tromans, R, “Tools of the trade,” Legal Week, Spring 2004, p. 5

 Cottrell, S, ‘The Study Skills Handbook,’ Palgrave Study Guides, 2 nd  Edition, p. 74

 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL

 Honey, P and Mumford, A, ‘Using your Learning Styles’, 2 nd  Edition, 1986, p. 12

 Moon, J.A, ‘Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice,’ Kogan Page, 1999, p. 21

 ibid n. 5

 ibid n.5 p. 45

 ibid n. 5 p. 59

 Pohjonen, S and Lindblom – Ylänne, S, “Challenges for teaching interaction skills for law students,” The Law Teacher, vol. 36, 2002, p. 295

 Bell, J, “Key Skills in the Law Curriculum and Self Assessment,” The Law Teacher, vol. 34, 2000,

Document Details

• Word Count 1682
• Page Count 3
• Level University Degree
• Subject Education and Teaching

Related Essays

Work Experience Report.

Is work experience of value?

Work Experience at Warwickshire County Music Services.

Learning and Teaching Mathematics - Assessment - Diary of Reflection.

• Jump to menu
• Student Home
• Accept your offer
• How to enrol
• Student ID card
• Set up your IT
• Orientation Week
• Fees & payment
• Academic calendar
• Special consideration
• Transcripts
• The Nucleus: Student Hub
• Referencing
• Essay writing
• Learning abroad & exchange
• Professional development & UNSW Advantage
• Employability
• Financial assistance
• International students
• Equitable learning
• Postgraduate research
• Health Service
• Events & activities
• Emergencies
• Volunteering
• Clubs and societies
• Accommodation
• Health services
• Sport and gym
• Arc student organisation
• Security on campus
• Maps of campus
• Careers portal
• Change password

Examples of Reflective Writing

Types of reflective writing assignments.

A journal  requires you to write weekly entries throughout a semester. May require you to base your reflection on course content.

A learning diary is similar to a journal, but may require group participation. The diary then becomes a place for you to communicate in writing with other group members.

A logbook is often used in disciplines based on experimental work, such as science. You note down or 'log' what you have done. A log gives you an accurate record of a process and helps you reflect on past actions and make better decisions for future actions.

A reflective note is often used in law. A reflective note encourages you to think about your personal reaction to a legal issue raised in a course.

An essay diary  can take the form of an annotated bibliography (where you examine sources of evidence you might include in your essay) and a critique (where you reflect on your own writing and research processes).

a peer review  usually involves students showing their work to their peers for feedback.

A self-assessment task  requires you to comment on your own work.

Some examples of reflective writing

Social science fieldwork report (methods section).

Engineering Design Report

Learning Journal (weekly reflection)

Brookfield, S 1987, Developing critical thinkers: challenging adults to explore alternative ways of thinking and acting , Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Mezirow, J 1990, Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transformative and emancipatory learning , Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Schön, DA 1987, Educating the reflective practitioner , Jossey-Bass. San Francisco.

We thank the students who permitted us to feature examples of their writing.

Prepared by Academic Skills, UNSW. This guide may be distributed or adapted for educational purposes. Full and proper acknowledgement is required. 

Essay and assignment writing guide

• Essay writing basics
• Essay and assignment planning
• Answering assignment questions
• Editing checklist
• Writing a critical review
• Annotated bibliography
• How do I write reflectively?
• Examples of reflective writing
• ^ More support

Starting Where the Student Is: Reflections of a First-Year Social Work Graduate Student

Students With Questions

by Katherine Freeman

We sit down. “My name is Katherine Freeman, and I’m the social work intern at the clinic.” She can hear my voice shaking. Is her eyebrow raised in suspicion, or am I just imagining that? “What can I help you with today?” Just dive in. There’s no other way, I think to myself. I lean forward onto the desk, smile, and am sure that I sit with an open posture to the client, giving her my undivided attention as we were taught in our Social Work Practice Lab.  

    I’m not sure if my experience as a first-year social work graduate student exactly mirrors that of others. Actually, I believe it unfair to assume that there is one “standard” experience of a student in this field, as the beauty of this profession is that it attracts people with such a rich and diverse array of experience that it is impossible to identify a “typical” student.

    The one thing that binds us all together is the opportunity we were offered to recreate ourselves as professional social workers—delicately, and at times clumsily, weaving together our experiences, worldview, compassion, and sense of self into the work we do. With the best of intentions, we learn to apply the principles of social work, while at the same time we are still diligently taking notes late at night on exactly what those principles are.

    As I finish my first year of graduate school, I would like to reflect and share the experiences I have had with those entering the field. The challenges that I have faced have been internal as well as external, as at times I have found myself in the position of examining where I come from and how I view the world, to learning the seemingly endless implications of providing physical and emotional care to those in need. I would like to give a voice to first-year graduate students, and shed light and calm anxieties about what this experience might be like for incoming students, as well as serve as a validation for students in their first few months of field work that it’s okay to not have all the answers.

Anxieties of the Unknown         

    Prior to starting my field work in the fall, I had no idea what to expect. I knew my placement was at a community health center in West Harlem, New York City, and that I would be working with two social workers to provide case management and therapeutic support to the clinic’s patients. When classes started and I began to meet my fellow students, the second question out of everyone’s mouth after “What’s your name?” was “Where’s your field placement?” It felt reassuring to know I wasn’t the only one with anxieties. However, the constant assurances from faculty members to relax and learn to “sit with your discomfort” seemed to simply mock my sweaty palms and beating heart.

    My first few weeks at the clinic, I was guided through the roles and responsibilities that the social workers carry out and what was expected of me. I spent a great deal of time sitting in on assessments that my supervisors would carry out, and observing the kinds of questions they would ask, and the way they would respond to patients’ differing attitudes, questions, and presenting problems. I was grateful that I was given this time to observe, process, and ask questions.

    In this time, I learned that the clinic serves members of the surrounding community, which predominantly consists of first- or second-generation Latino immigrants. I began to learn just how pivotal the role of a social worker is in securing benefits for our patients, and also just how much the patients depend on our assistance in navigating the system to receive them.

    The myriad of needs that our patients presented with was overwhelming to me at first. I feverishly took notes after observing every session, and I did my best to remember the exact dialogue that was carried out between my supervisors and the patients to report in my process recordings. My supervisors and I would discuss the details of the session afterwards, and I felt a rise in my confidence in how I would eventually carry out such a session on my own.

Working Through the Discomfort

    When I began to carry out my first assessments independently, I experienced countless emotions. I felt excited and eager to delve into the work, but also nervous and questioning about how much I would really be able to do on my own. My supervisors were close by if I had a question, and I utilized their guidance often.

    Reflecting upon my first few months at the clinic, I recognize that I felt very unsure of myself and conflicted over the way I felt I was perceived, and how I would be able to relate to patients. I felt it possible that there were judgments being passed on me in regard to my appearance and what that seemed to symbolize to the population I was working with. Given that I was a young, white American female seemingly in this position of power, I felt that many of the patients were wary of me and had guarded responses to my questions.

    At times, I began to feel a sense of inadequacy to help, given that the presenting problems of many of our patients are ones that I personally have not experienced. Being in a position in which you are expected to be of help, but have absolutely no idea really how to do so, can be quite disconcerting.

    Furthermore, I also realized that the position I held often allowed me to provide patients what they needed, despite the fact that I often felt unworthy of being privy to the very personal aspects of the patients’ lives that they discussed with me. Given that I personally did not view myself as being in a position of power, as I was a student who felt as though she was stumbling along the helping process herself, it was a very uncomfortable situation to be in.

    On top of this, at times there seemed to be cultural and linguistic barriers. Although I can speak Spanish fluently and lived abroad for years, all the cultural competency and ability to connect through shared experiences that I thought I had prior to starting this work seemed inadequate. The concept that in certain situations I could be perceived as being part of the dominant majority group, instead of someone who can connect and understand based on shared cultural experiences, was unsettling to me.

    It was through the process of working through this discomfort and acknowledging the systemic context of identity and culture that I was able to come to terms with my position. As stated by Mo (2003), especially when the clinician belongs to the dominant majority group and the client to a minority group, it is important for the clinicians to explicitly address and acknowledge the dynamics of power as an integral part of the therapeutic process. After all, it is of paramount significance for social workers to engage in mindful practice meaningfully with people of different and multiple identities, while also examining one’s own social location in the “web of these power relations” (Wong, 2004).

    I began to understand that my anxiety about how I was perceived and in what ways I could help our patients was a necessary part of the learning process that propelled me toward understanding myself as an aspiring professional as well as the needs of those I was serving. As stated by Shulman (2005), students must experience “adaptive anxiety” as a necessary feature of their learning experience, as “uncertainty, visibility, and accountability inevitably raise the emotional stakes of the pedagogical encounters” (p. 57). Students must be emotionally invested in their work and experience some anxiety, as it serves as a motivating factor that stimulates students to work harder (Shulman, 2005).

    I also found that if I ally myself with the patient, who in essence is the expert on his or her own life situation, and work toward finding a solution together by combing both our knowledge on the subject, we are able to make progress. As stated by Ann Hartman (2000), “knowledge and power are one, and when clients and subjects are collaborators in the discovery process, if their expertise is valued and affirmed, they are empowered” (p. 22).

The Year Draws to a Close

    Since beginning my work at the health center, I have learned how to find the balance between empowering the patients we work with and making them active participants in the problem solving process. Simultaneously, I also learned that meeting agency demands, as well as the expectations of professional and practice etiquette as a social worker, is a difficult and ongoing process. It has taken hours of supervision with my mentors, as well as a great deal of self reflection, to understand that it is an ongoing process and one that is inherent in the professional life of a social worker.

    Although there are still times when I find myself rolling my eyes when I hear my professors saying to sit with our discomfort, I begrudgingly have to admit that the concept holds weight. This experience is challenging, overwhelming, exciting, and fulfilling, all at once.

    What I can assure students entering this field is that you will be uncomfortable, and you will be forced to examine where you came from and what that signifies for the population with whom you are working. Not only will your supervisors, professors, and classmates be an integral source of support and understanding throughout this process, but I also believe the clients you work with will be, as well.

    I have learned that when I ally myself with clients, it is as if the environment in the room has changed. I have found that if I crack a smile, allow a chuckle, or feel comfortable in asking patients to elaborate on exactly what they mean, we are able to establish a working alliance that eventually will allow them to get what they need.

    I am a student, and I continue to be inexperienced in comparison to the multitudes of amazing and inspiring social workers I have met so far in my budding career. However, I still have the capacity to help, and I believe that keeping that truth alive inside of me, despite all of the inner and external conflicts that one faces in this situation, is the key to a successful and ongoing learning process.  

Hartman, A. (2000). In search of subjugated knowledge, Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, (11) 4, 19-23.

Mo, Y. L. (2003). A solution-focused approach to cross-cultural clinical social work practice: Utilizing cultural strengths. Families in Society, 84 (3), 385-395.

Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134 (3), 52–59.

Wong, Y. R. (2004). Knowing through discomfort: A mindfulness based critical social work pedagogy. Critical Social Work, 5 (1).      

Katherine Freeman is a second-year graduate student at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, City University of New York. Katherine has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Spanish from the State University of New York, College at Geneseo and has experience working with at-risk youth in the United States and Chile. Katherine’s current field placement is at an agency that provides trauma-focused therapy to children in the Bronx. She wrote this piece at the end of her first-year field placement.

All material published on this website Copyright 1994-2023 White Hat Communications. All rights reserved. Please contact the publisher for permission to reproduce or reprint any materials on this site. Opinions expressed on this site are the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Personal blogs

Think different

An example of critical reflection log (log 4): Reflection on learning

Share this:

Published by nassir hassan.

In this blog one can access articles written by myself which represent my interest and views. I have also included in my blog articles written by others authors. The views and opinions expressed in those articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect my views. Examples of analysis performed within those article are only for information . Assumptions made within the analysis of these articles, are not reflective of my views. View all posts by Nassir Hassan

One thought on “ An example of critical reflection log (log 4): Reflection on learning ”

• Pingback: Sample Reflection In Daily Lesson Log - Donation Portal

Leave a comment Cancel reply

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• About The British Journal of Social Work
• About the British Association of Social Workers
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic
• < Previous

Social Work Practice Placements: Critical and Reflective Approaches

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Carmel Halton, Rachel Rice, Social Work Practice Placements: Critical and Reflective Approaches, The British Journal of Social Work , Volume 45, Issue 6, September 2015, Pages 1940–1942, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcv060

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Social work lecturers recognise the essential learning that occurs for students on practice placement. This is a welcome opportunity to review a book that addresses important practice placement and practice concerns. The design template for this book is intended to be ‘highly interactive’ using case studies, activities, reflection points, commentaries and research summaries. The book is aimed at student social workers, practice educators and academic tutors and offers a practical resource for students and social work practitioners. The dilemmas, tensions, uncertainties and emotional challenges encountered by students while undertaking a practice placement. Jones explores the role of critical engagement by students during the practice placement learning processes by posing questions aimed at challenging thinking and reflection about decision-making, emotional resilience and the human elements involved in the practice of social work.

Variables that influence how social work is constructed and practised are identified and explored in some detail: ethical practice, organisational cultures, learning styles, application of theory, use of supervision, professional portfolio development, use of language and Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Jones, in acknowledging the complexity of social work, is a keen advocate for using critical and reflective thinking in practice. Students are encouraged to create their own ‘fertile learning environment’ (p. 58) adopting a curious approach in their quest for knowledge. Jones seeks to develop the reader's critical lens by inviting them to situate themselves as a ‘virtuous social worker’ abiding by a ‘highly moral code’ (p. xiv). In this way, she declares her belief that professional values and ethics provide the foundation stone for social work practice. The introduction to ‘what is critical’ is particularly useful, as is the suggestion that one's own sense of ‘restlessness’ (p. xvii) is a good indicator as to what is important for reflection.

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Short-term Access

To purchase short-term access, please sign in to your personal account above.

Don't already have a personal account? Register

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1468-263X
• Print ISSN 0045-3102
• Copyright © 2024 British Association of Social Workers
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.