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What is a Reflective Journal?

A reflective journal is a place to write down your daily reflection entries. It can be something good or bad that has happened to you that you can self-reflect on and learn from past experiences.

A reflective journal can help you to identify important learning events that had happened in your life. The events include your relationships, careers and personal life. By writing a reflective diary, you can find the source of your inspiration that defines you today. A reflective journal also provides a better understanding of your thought process.

Reasons to Write a Reflective Journal

1. To understand the things that have happened.

2. To reflect on why it happened this way.

3. To align future actions with your values and lessons learned from your past experiences.

4. To share and get your thoughts and ideas out of your head.

How to Reflect Effectively

According to Schön, there are two types of reflection, one during and one after an activity or event.

Reflection In-Action

When you are thinking about or reflecting while you are in an activity, you are using reflection in-action. Some reflection include:

Experiencing

Thinking on your feet

Thinking about what to do next

Acting straight away

Reflection On-Action

You can do reflect-on-action once the activity has finished based on what you can remember about it. Step back into the experience, explore your memory and retrieve what you can recall. Reflect and understand what has happened and draw lessons from the experience.

Thinking about something that has happened

Thinking what you would do differently next time

Taking your time

Examples to Reflect Effectively

Before the Experience

Think about the things that could have happened.

What are the things that you feel might be a challenge?

The things that you can do to prepare for these experiences.

During the Experience

Observe what is happening at the moment, as you make a particular decision.

Is it working out as expected? Are you dealing with the challenges well?

Is there anything you should do, say or think to make the experience successful?

After the Experience

Describe your thoughts immediately after, and/or later when you have more emotional distance from the event.

Is there anything you would do differently before or during a similar event?

What are the takeaways from this experience/lesson?

How to Write Reflectively

Use the three "W"s to write reflectively. The three "W"s are What, So What and What next.

What (Description)

Recall an event and write it down descriptively.

So what? (Interpretation)

Take a few minutes to reflect and interpret the event.

What is most important / interesting / relevant / useful aspect of the event, idea or situation?

How can it be explained?

How is it similar to/different from others?

What's next? (Outcome)

Conclude what you can learn from the event and how you can apply it next time.

What have I learned?

How can it be applied in the future?

Reflective Journal Prompts

Here are the 10 writing prompts to guide you in self-reflection and self-discovery.

1. What makes you unique?

2. Name someone that means a lot to you and why?

3. Write a letter to your younger self.

4. What is something you can do to focus more on your health and well-being?

5. What makes you feel at peace?

6. List 10 things that make you smile.

7. What does it mean to live authentically?

8. What is your favourite animal, and why?

9. How do you maintain your physical/mental health? What can you do to improve the methods of recovery?

10. List the things that you want to achieve this week.

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Journey.Cloud - Free Online Journal & Diary

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A reflective journal is a place to write down your daily reflection entries. It can be something good or bad that has happened to you that you can self-reflect on and learn from past experiences. A reflective journal can help you to identify important learning events that had happened in your life.

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One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.

Below is further information on:

The model

Gibbs' reflective cycle

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either a stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally advocated its use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply equally well for single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you can apply your conclusions in the future.

For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined below. You don't have to answer all of them but they can guide you about what sort of things make sense to include in that stage. You might have other prompts that work better for you.

Description

Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come later.

Helpful questions:

Example of 'Description'

Feelings

Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how they may have impacted the experience.

Helpful questions:

What were you feeling during the situation?

Example of 'Feelings'

Evaluation

Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn't work in the situation. Try to be as objective and honest as possible. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other.

Helpful questions:

What was good and bad about the experience?

Example of 'Evaluation'

Analysis

The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. Up until now you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to include it.

Helpful questions:

Example of 'Analysis'

I think the reason that our initial division of work went well was because each person had a say in what part of the assignment they wanted to work on, and we divided according to people's self-identified strengths. I have experienced working this way before and discovered when I'm working by myself I enjoy working in areas that match my strengths. It seems natural to me that this is also the case in groups.

I think we thought that this approach would save us time when piecing together the sections in the end, and therefore we didn't think it through. In reality, it ended up costing us far more time than expected and we also had to stress and rush through the rewrite. I think the fact we hadn't planned how we were writing and structuring the sections led us to this situation.

I searched through some literature on group work and found two things that help me understand the situation. Belbin's (e.g. 2010) team roles suggests that each person has certain strengths and weaknesses they bring to a group. While we didn't think about our team members in the same way Belbin does, effective team work and work delegation seems to come from using people's different strengths, which we did.

Another theory that might help explain why we didn't predict the plan wouldn't work is 'Groupthink' (e.g. Janis, 1991). Groupthink is where people in a group won't raise different opinions to a dominant opinion or decision, because they don't want to seem like an outsider. I think if we had challenged our assumptions about our plan - by actually being critical, we would probably have foreseen that it wouldn't work. Some characteristics of groupthink that were in our group were: 'collective rationalisation' - we kept telling each other that it would work; and probably 'illusion of invulnerability' - we are all good students, so of course we couldn't do anything wrong.

I think being aware of groupthink in the future will be helpful in group work, when trying to make decisions.

Conclusions

In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future. It should be a natural response to the previous sections.

Helpful questions:

What did I learn from this situation?

Example of a 'Conclusion'

Action plan

At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the future. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act differently - such that you don't only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders might be helpful.

Helpful questions:

If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?

Example of 'Action Plan'

Different depths of reflection

Depending on the context you are doing the reflection in, you might want use different levels of details. Here is the same scenario, which was used in the example above, however it is presented much more briefly.

Short example of Gibbs' reflective cycle:

Feelings:

Adapted from
Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

This article was published on

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One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.

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York Award - Student home, University of York

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What does leadership mean to you? Would you like to develop your leadership skills? Could you be a 'York Leader'?
York Leaders is an exciting opportunity for second (or middle) year undergraduate students from all academic disciplines to gain exclusive access to an intensive training course. York Leaders aims to advance your understanding of what it means to be a leader and explore and develop your own leadership skills.

You don't have to have experience in a leadership role already to apply - we're looking for enthusiastic students who can show us their potential to take part. York Leaders is much more than simply learning about leadership - our unique programme offers the opportunity to put what you learn into practice through a group project, working with others on real-world issues to discover what leadership means to you.

York Leaders is a selective programme with only 90 available places available, running weeks 8 and 9 of Spring term 2022.
The application deadline for York Leaders 2022 has been extended and will now close Thursday 3 February 2022 (5pm GMT) - application details in the 'How to Apply' tab.

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What does leadership mean to you? Would you like to develop your leadership skills? Could you be a 'York Leader'? York Leaders is an exciting opportunity for second (or middle) year undergraduate students from all academic disciplines to gain exclusive access to an intensive training course.

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Feel happier, learn faster, have more energy

When you use your strengths - the things you are good at, and love to do - it doesn't feel like work. Strengths are who we are at our best. Research suggests that when individuals play to their strengths they are happier, more confident, more resilient, perform better and are more effective at developing themselves and growing as individuals.

York Strengths can help you:

Find out more about yourself, and how to make the most of what you have to offer

Support your personal development and make the most of your time at University

Identify careers that suit you, and make better decisions for your future

Build your confidence in talking about your strengths, and demonstrating them to employers.

Introducing York Strengths
https://youtu.be/L9PMkGa5CCM

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When you use your strengths - the things you are good at, and love to do - it doesn't feel like work. Strengths are who we are at our best. Research suggests that when individuals play to their strengths they are happier, more confident, more resilient, perform better and are more effective at developing themselves and growing as individuals.

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Subject Guides: Academic writing: a practical guide: Reflective writing

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Subject Guides: Academic writing: a practical guide: Reflective writing

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Learning how to capture, reflect on and evidence your experiences and skills will support you in your ongoing development, prepare you for future applications for employment or further study and help you manage your career over your entire working life. This guide provides information and tools to assist you in this.

Reflecting on an experience is a way of evaluating your own reactions and capabilities. It can help you to learn from your experiences, improve your approaches in the future and evidence your skills and strengths to others. It can also boost your confidence and make you feel good about your achievements! Plus it's a great way to impress employers, as Iain Menneer, Chief Executive Officer of Animalcare Group PLC tells us, "Employers are looking for something quite special in a graduate, someone who has gone beyond their studies, is very proactive and can reflect on their experiences."

These resources are aimed at everyone, but will be particularly useful for students who want to do some or all of the following:

capture their transferable skill learning from work experience, extra curricular activities and academic course content

prepare for a job or further study application

apply for the York Award.

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Subject Guides: Skills Guides: Reflective practice: employability skills

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Learning how to capture, reflect on and evidence your experiences and skills will support you in your ongoing development, prepare you for future applications for employment or further study and help you manage your career over your entire working life.