Introduction: understanding why reflection is important

Knowing how you learn makes you a more effective learner. Thinking about your learning and writing things down helps to clarify your thoughts and emotions in this regard. Reflection also helps you to focus and actively participate in your development as an effective independent and critical learner. Your journal will become a record of your progress throughout your study and will help you to discover the strategies and processes that work well for you. Reflection is itself a way of learning and helps you to evaluate your performance as a learner. Remember that reflective practice is a life skill, not just a university requirement. By engaging in reflective learning you are taking an active role in learning and recognising your personal responsibility for your own lifelong learning.

Thinking and writing are closely connected processes and in order to write reflectively you need to think carefully about yourself as a learner. This process is sometimes referred to as metacognition, in other words, thinking about your own thought processes. This unit will suggest some strategies for writing a personal reflective journal and will demonstrate the differences between diaries, logs and reflective journals.

What do you think reflective learners might consider and reflect upon? Write a sentence or two before continuing.

Learning objectives

At the end of this unit, you will:

• understand why reflective learning is important
• know how to engage in the reflective process and write a personal reflective learning journal
• be able to discriminate between a learning log, a diary and a reflective learning journal
• understand that any on-line journals, diaries, etc. must comply with DCUs appropriate usage policy.

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