Reflective practice in professional development and learning

Nursing

Reflective Practice

Identify what reflective practice is.

Reflective practice features the individual and his or her experiences that lead to a new conceptual perspective or understanding. These included the component of learning, as well as involvement of the self. Reflection is an opportunity of response for the learner to experience. An understanding of the reason of reflective practice and its workings can be gained by considering that reflection involves the individual and an exploration of experience (Using reflective practice as a learning instrument in clinical supervision, 2005). Reflective practice consists of a set of abilities and skills, used to indicate the taking of a critical stance, an orientation to problem solving state of mind. This summarizes the broad range of activities associated with thinking about learning. Reflection used in professional practice, returns not what necessarily is, but what might be, an improvement on the original situation (What is reflective practice, 2010).

2. Explore the process of reflective practice.

Even though a framework of reflection is not necessary, it can provide a useful starting point to resolving a situation. An experimental learning cycle involves reflection as a key part and provides a structure that is used broadly in educational settings. Reflection encourages the evolving of ideas. A person should reflect in order to learn from an experience during a period of de-briefing. This is where a person is asked to reflect on feelings, evaluate the experience, analyze the situation and develop an action plan (Using reflective practice as a learning tool in clinical supervision, 2005).

The reflective model is predominantly useful for contributing to a change in practice, as the sequence can be used after the action plan has been implemented to aid reflection on the changed practice. A model of reflection encourages the learner to replay an experience and take feelings into account. This is often concentrated on utilizing constructive feelings to provide a useful simplification of the key stages of the reflective process:

an awareness of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts critical analysis, including attending to feelings development of a new perspective on the situation (Using reflective practice as a learning tool in clinical supervision, 2005).

It is during the third stage that the reflector can develop an action plan. This is when reflection can enlighten and guide the development of alternative approaches. When choosing a structure it is important the learner and teacher clearly understand what they are trying to achieve. If they are puzzled by the wealth of varied terminology, it is possible that both parties will aim for different outcomes by implementing slightly different variations of a process. Therefore, it would be very useful, to talk about the stages of reflection with reference to a particular framework before commencing a guided reflection (Using reflective practice as a learning tool in clinical supervision, 2005).

3. Identify the importance and benefits of reflective practice to nursing as a profession and to your self as reflective practitioners.

For the past twenty years, educators have stressed the significance of critical thinking as a basic part of nursing practice. Nurses often employ critical thinking without recognizing that they are using those skills because, for many, the process is an automatic one. As the health care environment becomes more multifaceted and nurses are faced with distinctive patient care situations on a daily basis, critical thinking skills are a must. They have to be excellent and become a routine process that is used. Reflection has been accepted as a tool that nurses can use to enhance critical thinking and evaluate the outcomes of nursing interventions as part of a personal improvement procedure. These tools are appropriate in any nursing setting and are easy to implement. Critical thinking with reflection is a natural forerunner to the evidence-based practice initiatives that are a fundamental part of improved patient care (Pierce, 2007).

4. Using the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council (ANMC) competency standards for nurses (available at http://www.anmc.org.au) apply these identified benefits.

According to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Councils competency standards for nursing, critical thinking and analysis is important not only for professional development but for the value of evidence and research for practice as well. An important professional bench-mark consists of reflecting upon practice, feelings and beliefs and the costs that these have for individuals and groups. Reflection helps to identity the relevance of research to improving individual/group health outcomes. It helps to identify problems/issues in nursing practice, which can then be investigated through research.