Thing 5: Reflective Practice

Even though I’m working towards my Certification I don’t consider myself to have done much reflective writing. After courses and training days I often make notes for myself (and have even used these as a basis for writing articles of the CDG West Midlands newsletter) but I haven’t considered it reflective writing as such, more a reminder for myself for the future.

In preparation for this Thing I found a Portfolio Building guide on the WiSH (West Midlands Information Service for Health) website – a site for sharing resources for the West Midlands Health Libraries Network (WMHLN) – which very helpfully included a section on reflective writing. There seems to be two approaches, one is to write it all out, starting with the context/description of what it was, writing out your thoughts and feelings and how this changed your behaviour. Another example given is a table for a reflective record starting with the date and activity at the top and then filing in the following sections:

• What I enjoyed
• What I found difficult
• What I learned
• What this learning connects with
• Ways in which I intend to follow up this activity are
• Other things I need to record

This seems like an easy way to start off reflective writing – answering the questions on the sheet to help you get the feel for it before you let yourself loose on the first style. I can’t shake the feeling that I should go back over my previous notes and make sure these questions have been answered; maybe that’s a job for the long weekend … or maybe not!.