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How To Write A Reflection Paper Academic

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36 views2 pages

How To Write A Reflection Paper Academic

Uploaded by

Mohammed Galib
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ACADEMIC SKILLS
TRENTU.CA / ACADEMIC SKILLS / HOW TO GUIDES / HOW TO WRITE IN UNIVERSITY / HOW TO APPROACH ANY ASSIGNMENT
/ HOW TO WRITE A REFLECTION PAPER

How to Write a Re ection Paper


1. Why Re ective Writing?
2. Types of Re ective Writing
Experiential Re ection
Reading Re ection
3. Approaches to Re ective Inquiry
Experiential Re ection
Reading Re ection
4. A note on mechanics

Why Reflective Writing?


Re ection o ers 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 re ections.
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. Re ective writing can help you to improve your analytical skills because
it requires you to express what you think, and more signi cantly, how and why you think that way. In
addition, re ective 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


Experiential Re ection
Popular in professional programs, like business, nursing, social work, forensics and education, re ection is
an important part of making connections between theory and practice. When you are asked to re ect 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 eld. This opportunity to take the time to think
about your choices, your actions, your successes and your failures is best done within a speci c framework,
like course themes or work placement objectives. Abstract concepts can become concrete and real to you
when considered within your own experiences, and re ection on your experiences allows you to make
plans for improvement.

Reading Re ection
To encourage thoughtful and balanced assessment of readings, many interdisciplinary courses may ask you
to submit a reading re ection. Often instructors will indicate to students what they expect of a re ection,
but the general purpose is to elicit your informed opinions about ideas presented in the text and to
consider how they a ect your interpretation. Reading re ections o er 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 re ective 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 di cult to know where to begin when writing a critical re ection. First, know that – like any other
academic piece of writing – a re ection requires a narrow focus and strong analysis. The best approach for
identifying a focus and for re ective analysis is interrogation. The following o ers suggestions for your line
of inquiry when developing a re ective response.

Experiential Re ection
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 re ective writing it is important to balance reporting or descriptive writing with critical
profession. For re ective writing, it is important to balance reporting or descriptive writing with critical
re ection and analysis.

Consider these questions:


1. Contextualize your re ection: What are your learning goals? What are the objectives
of the organization? How do these goals t with the themes or concepts from the
course?
2. 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?
3. Analytical Re ection: What did you learn from this experience? About yourself?
About working in the eld? About society?
4. Lessons from re ection: Did your experience t 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 di erently? Why? How will you
prepare for a future experience in the eld?

Consider the purpose of re ection: to demonstrate your learning in the course. It is important to actively
and directly connect concepts from class to your personal or experiential re ection. 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 classi ed as lower-order skills in Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Reading Re ection
Critical re ection 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):


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

Develop your ideas:


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

Make connections:
1. How does this text reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How does this text
challenge my existing ideas or assumptions?
2. How does this text help me to better understand this topic or explore this eld 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 re ective 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 re ection. You may nd 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 rst person and to use personal
pronouns. Note, however, that it is important that you maintain con dentiality and anonymity of clients,
patients or students from work or volunteer placements by using pseudonyms and masking identifying
factors.

The value of re ection: Critical re ection 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.

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