Reflective Writing for Professional Practice and Learning

Reflection is the connection between our daily experiences and how we interpret those experiences in the context of new information and perhaps a reaffirmation of what we already know but had forgotten.

Reflective writing should be more than simply a description of your observations or your thoughts. Reflective writing involves evaluating your impressions, or experiences, thinking about the strengths and limitations of theory or practice, and linking them with what you have learned from your coursework and reading. (Schon, 1987).

In this way you are engaged with the process of your own learning (Moon, 1999).

• Helps us to reflect on and articulate our experience and knowledge and increases our understanding of our professional practice.

• Enables us to examine taken-for-granted habitual ways of thinking and acting.

• Enables us to acknowledge our strengths and skills as well as our weaknesses.

• Initiates the process of looking for alternative ways of working professionally and improving our practice; in this case the way that we view human resources.

One simple way to think of this is to write about what aspects of the course resonate with you (hopefully some do!) and what aspects have application in the workplace.

• For Reflective Journal 1, you are to reflect on content from chapters 1-9, 13 or 14 that you found relevant or applicable to your workplace.

Theorizing goes beyond reflection in that it takes the writer beyond the context of their personal experience and links them with the broader theoretical underpinnings of their profession.

• Are there ways in which my experiences suggest ways of revising or developing these approaches and the theoretical perspectives that underpin them?

• What does my experience suggest about ways in which Human Resource Management practices needs to develop as a profession, especially as related to my own work place?

• How do I link or compare my experiences in the workplace with what I am reading as best practices or emerging issues in HR in the required readings of the course?

Moon (1999) outlines a map of the reflective writing process. She calls it a map to convey that the process is flexible rather than a linear sequence of activities.

• A purpose for journal writing that guides selection of topics;

• Description of events or issues (observations; comments on personal behavior, feelings, and context);

• Linkage to related material (further observations, relevant knowledge or experience, suggestions from others, theory, new information);

• Reflective thinking (relating, experimenting, exploring, reinterpreting from other points of view, theorizing);

• Other processes (testing new ideas, representing material in other forms such as through graphics or dialogue);

• Product (statement of something that has been learned or solved, identification of new issue or question);

•Further reflection leading to resolution or looping back to an earlier step.

Most peoples’ reflective professional journals start off as mostly describing and then evolve rapidly so that there is much more reflecting and theorizing. To facilitate this development, you need to give yourself the freedom to just write and let the process evolve using the above guidelines as prompts.

Page limit: Maximum of 5 pages, 12 pt. font, double spaced (nothing past 5 pages will be graded by the instructor).

We recognize that a reflective professional journal is a personal document. Your journal will be treated in the strictest confidence. No copy will be made once grading assessment is complete.

Add a sentence or two to each journal that tells “What did you learn by doing this journal assignment?”

Journaling is akin to writing a personal diary. Be honest and open and write as if the only audience is you. Reflection is both recognition for what you did well and a reminder for what you could have done differently. For example, a good journal would include thoughts on the value of new material and how you might use this in the classroom.