INTRODUCTION

 

Three purposes of reflection as found in literature are-first to re-think our own

understanding of professional knowledge; second to develop personal knowledge and

third to evaluate the appropriateness of our actions. Hence reflection becomes a process

that invites the practitioner to become a thinker first and use reflection as a bridge from

tacit knowledge to conscious efforts of enhance the quality of action . Reflection also

becomes the source of increased accountability and to enable us to question established

professional knowledge by our predecessors in the field. As teachers unless we learn to

engage in critical reflection and ongoing discovery, we shall remain trapped in the status

quo, predetermined interpretations, assumptions and expectations. Gibbs’ reflective cycle

is a theoretical model that is extensively used by teachers and students as a framework

wherever they require reflective writing.

 

 

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

 

At the end of this unit the prospective you will be able to:

 

1. work and practice according to the Gibb’s Reflective Cycle

2. use the six stages of this cycle effectively to manage their own reflective practices

for the purpose of teaching and learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.1 GIBB'S REFLECTIVE CYCLE

 

Gibbs' reflective cycle is found very useful in making people think through all the phases

of an experience or activity. Professor Graham Gibbs published his Reflective Cycle in

his book titled "Learning by Doing"(1988). It is a guide book for the teachers for teaching

methods and techniques. The reflective learning cycle presented in the book models how

learners can link theory and practice through engaging in a cyclical sequence of activities

named as: describing, feeling, evaluating, analysing, concluding and action planning.

This model known as the Gibbs’ Cycle has been particularly influential in teacher

education programs. Generally speaking the Gibb's Cycle has its basic utility and benefit

is for the people who learn from different situations from which they go through, most

probably when they are unable to go about with their plans. Hence the reflective

practitioners tend to follow similar patterns of reflection and reflective writing

(Reflective Cycle, 2015).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gibbs’ (1988) reflective cycle includes six phases of reflection and is presented below. Gibb's Cycle of Reflective Cycle (Reflective Cycle, 2015)

 

To Understand the cycle it is important to ensure that you learn about each section; for

example each section should limit you to write and think only about one aspect at a time

and nothing more.

 

 

Description: briefly describe the event; this should be one of the smallest sections of your

reflection. Include important details to indicate what happened; such as the reason for

your involvement, what you did and who was there and what they did (if appropriate).

Whilst it is important that you include information that is necessary to make sense of the

event, the key point here is on keeping it brief.

 

 

Feelings: give you the opportunity to explore any thoughts or feelings that you were

having at the time of the event in isolation from the other components. In order to achieve

this, it is important that you do not include any further description and do not try to

evaluate them. An important component in this section is that you expand to tell how the

thoughts and feelings that you were having have impacted on the event.

 

 

Evaluation: The evaluation section gives you the opportunity to explore what was good

about the event and what did not go well. It is important that you try to consider both the

good and the bad, even if the incident seemed totally negative or positive.

 

Please note, that the previous components of this cycle all concern what happened, the

components that follow relate to making sense of the incident and how you could

improve on the situation if it happened again.

 

 

Description Stage II: is where you make sense of the event and should be the largest

section of your reflection. It is useful to take all the issues that you have highlighted

previously in the reflection and consider them separately. It is important in this section

that you consult relevant academic literature to help you make sense of the incident

 

Conclusion: includes being honest about your contribution and feelings; you bring them

all together so that you can sensibly conclude from examining the incident and consulting

the relevant literature, how what you did led up to the incident. From this, you should be

able to make a logical alternative about how you can overcome such situations.

 

 

Action plan: is where taking into account the previous elements of the cycle, you suggest

a plan for if this event (or similar) were to happen again. What would you do differently

or keep the same? This is the final section of the cycle and the end of this particular

reflection.

 

 

Now let’s practice

 

 

 

5.1.1 Description (Stage I): This is the first step of reflection. Remember that everyone

reflects in different ways, styles and means. According to Gibbs first of all you need to

explain what you are reflecting on to. You may include background information, such as

 

what it is you’re reflecting on and tell explicitly who, what, where, questions. It’s

important to remember to keep the information provided relevant and to-the-point. Do

not drivel on about details that aren’t required in the description such as guessing the

causes, and consequences. Keep the description as simple as possible.

 

Now let’s practice this. Think of what made you happy, excited, or disturbed during a

school day. This can be an event that happened in the school last week, or even today. If

you think you don’t have anything to write about then wait for a couple of days until you

find something really interesting to write about during the day. Make use of the following

questions while writing your first stage description:

 

 

1. When did this happen?

 

2. Where did it happen?

 

3. Why were you there?

 

 

 

4. Who else was there?

5. What happened?

 

6. What did you do?

 

 

7. What did others do?

 

 

8. What was the result?

 

 

5.1.2 Feelings:

 

You are bound to have feelings about what happened. You may have felt anxious,

especially if what happened was new to you. The important thing is to show how you

managed to do what was expected of you despite your anxiety. Try to describe/explain

your feelings. Whenever we are involved in particular situation, after narrating it the next

step is to ask ourselves about the feeling. This particular stage is the analytical stage in

the Bloom's Taxonomy. This will help in the development of cognitive abilities,

communication skills and expression of thoughts. This also brings the inside out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s practice how to write our feelings

 

1. What were your initial feelings when the incident happened?

 

2. Did your feelings change during the event?

 

3. Did your feelings affect the situation?

 

4. What are your feelings now as you are thinking back?

 

 

5.1.3 Evaluation:

 

The third and the higher level job for the you now is to evaluate. What was good? and

what was bad? –these are two umbrella questions. It all depends what you count as good

and what as bad. Your values, ideological background, context and the environment as

well as situation influences your evaluative judgments. For a conscious effort to evaluate

an incident practice to answer the following questions:

 

1. What do you think went well in the situation?

 

2. Did you learn anything useful as a result of what went on?

 

3. Did anything give you cause for concern – either in what others did or what you did?

 

4. Was there something which you would not wish to experience again?

 

 

 

5.1.4 Description (Stage II): This stage is more of synthesis of the above three stages

and in the light of knowledge. Here it is suggested that you may re-write the description

of the event but this time you may make use of your knowledge regarding this. You have

the knowledge of child psychology, you have the knowledge of teachers professional

development, you have the knowledge of school management and supervision; etc. Using

the specific knowledge you now need to re-write the whole description.

 

5.1.5 Conclusion: Human being are the best of all creations on the basis of their thinking

abilities and choosing the best options out of the available options. The quality of the

option that they choose, tell us the quality of thinking of that particular person. Now the

big question to answer at this stage is What else could be done? Let’s exercise to write

alternative options. You might not be able to fill in all the boxes but try to fill as many as

possible:

 

 

 

5.1.6 Action Plan: Then it is expected that

you will use the best option along with the reason of choosing it and also its pros and

cons. So draft an action plan what will you do if this situation arises again.

 

 

Do not forget!!!

 

Gibb's cycle is not only limited to the curriculum, it is not confined in teaching only; It is

actually the preparation for life. You should go through extensive thinking process. Think

and re-think. Then take decision, discuss the matter, rehash the decision, feel the situation

and then come up to some conclusion. Be open to talk to someone and doubt your own

 

judgments. During this process you should learn to argue peacefully; justify your own

selected option at the first place and then through a process of reflective thinking come

up with alternatives. So this all hectic mental process prepare you for life, which brings

an individual to different situations, jobs and environment. Feeling, thinking and

rethinking practice will surely help you in making decisions later in personal and

professional life.

 

 

 

5.2 SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

 

Q.1 How practical is the Gibb's Cycle for the perspective teachers?

 

Q.2 How will you relate the Gibb's cycle with Bloom's Taxonomy? How are they same

and what are the differences in them.

 

Q.3 How the Gibb's Reflective Cycle can develop the blocked mental faculties?

 

5.3 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Learning for Skills. (2015, Feb 5). Retrieved from Leeds Beckett University Web Site:

http://skillsforlearning.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/preview/content/models/03.shtml

 

Reflective Cycle. (2015, October 21). Retrieved from Mind Tools:

http://www.mindtools.com

 

 

 

5.4 WEB REFERENCES

 

1. https://hhs.hud.ac.uk/lqsu/Sessionsforall/supp/Gibbs%201988%20reflective%20cycle.pdf

2. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/campuslife/services/disability/service/Using-Gibbs-

Reflective-Cycle-in-Coursework.pdf

3. http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/Public/LISS/Documents/skillsatcumbria/ReflectiveCycleGibbs.pdf