Professional Development
Reflection: Reflection: from from staff staff nurse nurse to to nurse nurse consultant consultant
Part 12: Series summary John Fowler
818
Part 4: Reflective feedback. Receiving feedback is one of the most powerful tools you can use to develop your skills and move from novice to expert. You need to obtain the feedback in a way that you can use it positively. This means finding a person whose skills you respect and who will give you honest feedback. It means asking for feedback on specific areas of your practice, listening to what is said, processing it and then acting on it. Part 5: Reflective practice. As practitioners in busy areas it is all too easy to become so busy and rushed that we lose the ability to step back and think about what we are doing. The first step in becoming a reflective practitioner is making the time to step back. This article gave some ideas on how you can create that time in a busy environment, and on how to develop a two-minute reflection in the middle of a busy shift. Part 6: Reflective teaching. If we want to enhance our teaching in the clinical area, we need to make time to reflect on what we are teaching, when it is happening, and what our role is. The first thing to do is to recognise when we are taking on a teaching role. This does not mean when we stand up in front of someone and start delivering a lecture.Teaching patients and staff is far more about supporting them to learn from their experiences. Part 7: Reflective management. Management is about assessing and planning, it is not about jumping in without thinking. So the first stage in the reflective management process occurs before you do anything. Think about what needs to be done and why. What are the key objectives and how can they be achieved? A list can help clarify issues and is a great reflective tool. Having identified what you need to do, think through what the implications will be for the other people who will be affected by your decisions. Part 8: Learning from reflection. For learning to occur, we need to combine experience with reflection. Think of it as an equation: experience + reflection = learning. Now see if
that equation holds true in your experience of learning, not only with regards to your nursing skills, but in all aspects of your life. Part 9: Portfolios and reflection. This article examined the NMC guidelines on what to keep in a portfolio and went on to explore how you might expand your portfolio for different aspects of your work and career. Part 10: Helping others to reflect. Helping people reflect and then learn from that reflection requires you to develop skills of encouragement, facilitation and coordination. Instead of seeing people as empty boxes that need to be filled with numerous facts, try seeing them as people who already have a jumble of facts inside them—your role is to help them organise those facts together, joining the ones that connect and pointing them to where they can fill in the gaps. Part 11: Reflection in life. If the skills and techniques of reflection are good for our patients, why shouldn’t we use them for ourselves and our own friends and families? Take a step back from your life, sit down and have a cup of tea or glass of wine, turn the TV off and reflect a little on what is happening in your life. Ask the simple questions: what? why? and the way forward? But most of all, try to be BJN honest with yourself. Schon D (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Dr John Fowler is a general and mental health nurse. He has worked as an Educational Consultant to primary care trusts and as a Principal Lecturer in Nursing for many years. He has published widely on educational and professional topics and is series editor of the Fundamental Aspects of Nursing Series and the Nurse Survival Guide Series for Quay Books
© 2014 MA Healthcare Ltd
O
ver the past 11 issues of BJN this column has explored reflection and its implications for the clinically based nurse. If you have not managed to read all of the series, this is a short summary of the areas covered. Part 1: The importance of reflection. There are a number of generally accepted concepts that are used in nursing but if asked to describe what they mean, how they work or why they are important, we may find ourselves struggling. I am sure that every nurse is familiar with terms such as evidence-based practice, patient-centred care, holistic care and reflective practice, but to what extent do these ideas really underpin our daily practice? Reflective practice is often complicated by complex models but, like most skills, it is learnt through usage and practice. Part 2: What is reflection? This article started by identifying how many times in a day we use a mirror to adjust what we are doing, from combing hair to driving a car. If we tried to live without using the reflection of mirrors, then life would be quite difficult. The work of Schön (1983) identified two types of reflection: ‘reflection on action’, when we look back on an event and think about what happened and why; and ‘reflection in action’, the ability of a skilled practitioner to reflect on what is happening while it is happening and adjust actions accordingly. Part 3: Ways to aid reflection. Although the idea of a mirror is a useful analogy for reflection, it does give the impression that reflection is a quick and superficial look at what you have done. Superficial reflections have the danger of reinforcing the person’s own thoughts rather than bringing in fresh ideas and alternative solutions. Therefore, we have to use the idea of the mirror as a reflective tool with some degree of caution. Another way of looking at reflection it to see it as a microscope, a tool that allows you to view something in depth. If you combine a mirror and a microscope then you have two good reflective tools.
British Journal of Nursing, 2014, Vol 23, No 14
British Journal of Nursing. Downloaded from magonlinelibrary.com by 137.189.170.231 on November 20, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.
Reflection: Reflection: from from staff staff nurse nurse to to nurse nurse consultant consultant
Part 12: Series summary John Fowler
818
Part 4: Reflective feedback. Receiving feedback is one of the most powerful tools you can use to develop your skills and move from novice to expert. You need to obtain the feedback in a way that you can use it positively. This means finding a person whose skills you respect and who will give you honest feedback. It means asking for feedback on specific areas of your practice, listening to what is said, processing it and then acting on it. Part 5: Reflective practice. As practitioners in busy areas it is all too easy to become so busy and rushed that we lose the ability to step back and think about what we are doing. The first step in becoming a reflective practitioner is making the time to step back. This article gave some ideas on how you can create that time in a busy environment, and on how to develop a two-minute reflection in the middle of a busy shift. Part 6: Reflective teaching. If we want to enhance our teaching in the clinical area, we need to make time to reflect on what we are teaching, when it is happening, and what our role is. The first thing to do is to recognise when we are taking on a teaching role. This does not mean when we stand up in front of someone and start delivering a lecture.Teaching patients and staff is far more about supporting them to learn from their experiences. Part 7: Reflective management. Management is about assessing and planning, it is not about jumping in without thinking. So the first stage in the reflective management process occurs before you do anything. Think about what needs to be done and why. What are the key objectives and how can they be achieved? A list can help clarify issues and is a great reflective tool. Having identified what you need to do, think through what the implications will be for the other people who will be affected by your decisions. Part 8: Learning from reflection. For learning to occur, we need to combine experience with reflection. Think of it as an equation: experience + reflection = learning. Now see if
that equation holds true in your experience of learning, not only with regards to your nursing skills, but in all aspects of your life. Part 9: Portfolios and reflection. This article examined the NMC guidelines on what to keep in a portfolio and went on to explore how you might expand your portfolio for different aspects of your work and career. Part 10: Helping others to reflect. Helping people reflect and then learn from that reflection requires you to develop skills of encouragement, facilitation and coordination. Instead of seeing people as empty boxes that need to be filled with numerous facts, try seeing them as people who already have a jumble of facts inside them—your role is to help them organise those facts together, joining the ones that connect and pointing them to where they can fill in the gaps. Part 11: Reflection in life. If the skills and techniques of reflection are good for our patients, why shouldn’t we use them for ourselves and our own friends and families? Take a step back from your life, sit down and have a cup of tea or glass of wine, turn the TV off and reflect a little on what is happening in your life. Ask the simple questions: what? why? and the way forward? But most of all, try to be BJN honest with yourself. Schon D (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Dr John Fowler is a general and mental health nurse. He has worked as an Educational Consultant to primary care trusts and as a Principal Lecturer in Nursing for many years. He has published widely on educational and professional topics and is series editor of the Fundamental Aspects of Nursing Series and the Nurse Survival Guide Series for Quay Books
© 2014 MA Healthcare Ltd
O
ver the past 11 issues of BJN this column has explored reflection and its implications for the clinically based nurse. If you have not managed to read all of the series, this is a short summary of the areas covered. Part 1: The importance of reflection. There are a number of generally accepted concepts that are used in nursing but if asked to describe what they mean, how they work or why they are important, we may find ourselves struggling. I am sure that every nurse is familiar with terms such as evidence-based practice, patient-centred care, holistic care and reflective practice, but to what extent do these ideas really underpin our daily practice? Reflective practice is often complicated by complex models but, like most skills, it is learnt through usage and practice. Part 2: What is reflection? This article started by identifying how many times in a day we use a mirror to adjust what we are doing, from combing hair to driving a car. If we tried to live without using the reflection of mirrors, then life would be quite difficult. The work of Schön (1983) identified two types of reflection: ‘reflection on action’, when we look back on an event and think about what happened and why; and ‘reflection in action’, the ability of a skilled practitioner to reflect on what is happening while it is happening and adjust actions accordingly. Part 3: Ways to aid reflection. Although the idea of a mirror is a useful analogy for reflection, it does give the impression that reflection is a quick and superficial look at what you have done. Superficial reflections have the danger of reinforcing the person’s own thoughts rather than bringing in fresh ideas and alternative solutions. Therefore, we have to use the idea of the mirror as a reflective tool with some degree of caution. Another way of looking at reflection it to see it as a microscope, a tool that allows you to view something in depth. If you combine a mirror and a microscope then you have two good reflective tools.
British Journal of Nursing, 2014, Vol 23, No 14
British Journal of Nursing. Downloaded from magonlinelibrary.com by 137.189.170.231 on November 20, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. . All rights reserved.
