reflective practice reflective practice reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one's actions so as to take a critical stance or attitude towards one's own practice and that of one's peers, engaging in a process of continuous adaptation and learning. according to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practice reflectively and reflexively. this leads to developmental insight". a key rationale for reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning; deliberate reflection on experience is essential. reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based professional learning settings where people learn from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal learning or knowledge transfer. it may be the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. it is also an important way to bring together theory and practice; through reflection a person is able to see and label forms of thought and theory within the context of his or her work. a person who reflects throughout his or her practice is not just looking back on past actions and events, but is taking a conscious look at emotions, experiences, actions, and responses, and using that information to add to his or her existing knowledge base and reach a higher level of understanding. history and background donald schön donald schön's 1983 book the reflective practitioner introduced concepts such as reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action which explain how professionals meet the challenges of their work with a kind of improvisation that is improved through practice. however, the concepts underlying reflective practice are much older. earlier in the 20th century, john dewey was among the first to write about reflective practice with his exploration of experience, interaction and reflection. soon thereafter, other researchers such as kurt lewin and jean piaget were developing relevant theories of human learning and development. some scholars have claimed to find precursors of reflective practice in ancient texts such as buddhist teachings and the meditations of stoic philosopher marcus aurelius. central to the development of reflective theory was interest in the integration of theory and practice, the cyclic pattern of experience and the conscious application of lessons learned from experience. since the 1970s, there has been a growing literature and focus around experiential learning and the development and application of reflective practice. as adult education professor david boud and his colleagues explained: "reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it. it is this working with experience that is important in learning." when a person is experiencing something, he or she may be implicitly learning; however, it can be difficult to put emotions, events, and thoughts into a coherent sequence of events. when a person rethinks or retells events, it is possible to categorize events, emotions, ideas, etc., and to compare the intended purpose of a past action with the results of the action. stepping back from the action permits critical reflection on a sequence of events. the emergence in more recent years of blogging has been seen as another form of reflection on experience in a technological age. models many models of reflective practice have been created to guide reasoning about action. however, they are not without their criticisms, and need to be understood within the context within which they were written. borton 1970 terry borton's reflective model (1970), as adapted by gary rolfe and colleagues (2001) terry borton's 1970 book reach, touch, and teach popularized a simple learning cycle inspired by gestalt therapy composed of three questions which ask the practitioner: what, so what, and now what? through this analysis, a description of a situation is given which then leads into the scrutiny of the situation and the construction of knowledge that has been learnt through the experience. subsequently, practitioners reflect on ways in which they can personally improve and the consequences of their response to the experience. borton's model was later adapted by practitioners outside the field of education, such as the field of nursing and the helping professions. kolb and fry 1975 adaptation of kolb's reflective model learning theorist david a. kolb was highly influenced by the earlier research conducted by john dewey and jean piaget. kolb's reflective model, which also draws from the works of kurt lewin, highlights the concept of experiential learning and is centered on the transformation of information into knowledge. this takes place after a situation has occurred, and entails a practitioner reflecting on the experience, gaining a general understanding of the concepts encountered during the experience, and then testing these general understandings in a new situation. in this way, the knowledge that is formed from a situation is continuously applied and reapplied, building on a practitioner's prior experiences and knowledge. argyris and schön 1978 management researchers chris argyris and donald schön introduced the "theory of action", which emerged out of their previous research on relationship between people and organizations. this theory defines learning as detection and correction of error. it included the distinction between single-loop learning and double-loop learning in 1978. single-loop learning is when a practitioner or organisation, even after an error has occurred and a correction is made, continues to rely on current strategies, techniques or policies when a situation again comes to light. double-loop learning involves the modification of objectives, strategies or policies so that when a similar situation arises a new framing system is employed. schön claimed to derive the notions of "reflection-on-action, reflection-in-action, responding to problematic situations, problem framing, problem solving, and the priority of practical knowledge over abstract theory" from the writings of john dewey, although education professor harvey shapiro has argued that dewey's writings offer "more expansive, more integrated notions of professional growth" than do schön's. schön advocated two types of reflective practice. firstly, reflection-on-action, which involves reflecting on an experience that you have already had, or an action that you have already taken, and considering what could have been done differently, as well as looking at the positives from that interaction. the other type of reflection schön notes is reflection-in-action, or reflecting on your actions as you are doing them, and considering issues like best practice throughout the process. for schön, professional growth really begins when a person starts to view things with a critical lens, by doubting his or her actions. doubt brings about a way of thinking that questions and frames situations as "problems". through careful planning and systematic elimination of other possible problems, doubt is settled, and people are able to affirm their knowledge of the situation. then people are able to think about possible situations and their outcomes, and deliberate about whether they carried out the right actions. gibbs 1988 adaptation of the gibbs reflective model learning researcher graham gibbs discussed the use of structured debriefing to facilitate the reflection involved in kolb's experiential learning cycle. gibbs presents the stages of a full structured debriefing as follows: (initial experience) description "what happened? don't make judgements yet or try to draw conclusions; simply describe." feelings "what were your reactions and feelings? again don't move on to analysing these yet." evaluation "what was good or bad about the experience? make value judgements." analysis "what sense can you make of the situation? bring in ideas from outside the experience to help you." "what was really going on?" "were different people's experiences similar or different in important ways?" conclusions (general) "what can be concluded, in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you have undertaken?" conclusions (specific) "what can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or way of working?" personal action plans "what are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time?" "what steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?" gibbs' suggestions are often cited as "gibbs' reflective cycle" or "gibbs' model of reflection", and simplified into the following six distinct stages to assist in structuring reflection on learning experiences: description feelings evaluation analysis conclusions action plan johns 1995 adaptation of the johns reflective model professor of nursing christopher johns designed a structured mode of reflection that provides a practitioner with a guide to gain greater understanding of his or her practice. it is designed to be carried out through the act of sharing with a colleague or mentor, which enables the experience to become learnt knowledge at a faster rate than reflection alone. johns highlights the importance of experienced knowledge and the ability of a practitioner to access, understand and put into practice information that has been acquired through empirical means. reflection occurs through "looking in" on one's thoughts and emotions and "looking out" at the situation experienced. johns draws on the work of barbara carper to expand on the notion of "looking out" at a situation. five patterns of knowing are incorporated into the guided reflection: the aesthetic, personal, ethical, empirical and reflexive aspects of the situation. johns' model is comprehensive and allows for reflection that touches on many important elements. brookfield 1998 adult education scholar stephen brookfield proposed that critically reflective practitioners constantly research their assumptions by seeing practice through four complementary lenses: the lens of their autobiography as learners of reflective practice, the lens of other learners' eyes, the lens of colleagues' experiences, and the lens of theoretical, philosophical and research literature. reviewing practice through these lenses makes us more aware of the power dynamics that infuse all practice settings. it also helps us detect hegemonic assumptions—assumptions that we think are in our own best interests, but actually work against us in the long run. brookfield argued that these four lenses will reflect back to us starkly different pictures of who we are and what we do. lens 1: our autobiography as a learner. our autobiography is an important source of insight into practice. as we talk to each other about critical events in our practice, we start to realize that individual crises are usually collectively experienced dilemmas. analyzing our autobiographies allows us to draw insight and meanings for practice on a deep visceral emotional level. lens 2: our learners' eyes. seeing ourselves through learners' eyes, we may discover that learners are interpreting our actions in the way that we mean them. but often we are surprised by the diversity of meanings people read into our words and actions. a cardinal principle of seeing ourselves through learners' eyes is that of ensuring the anonymity of their critical opinions. we have to make learners feel safe. seeing our practice through learners' eyes helps us teach more responsively. lens 3: our colleagues' experiences. our colleagues serve as critical mirrors reflecting back to us images of our actions. talking to colleagues about problems and gaining their perspective increases our chance of finding some information that can help our situation. lens 4: theoretical literature. theory can help us "name" our practice by illuminating the general elements of what we think are idiosyncratic experiences. nguyen nhat quang's iceberg of reflection 2022 reflection is not linear, uniform, and homogeneous. nguyen nhat quang (2022) adopts fleck (2012)'s classification of reflective practices into an iceberg of reflection. that is, reflection consists of different layers representing four stages. descriptive reflection is the tip of the iceberg as it manifests as narratives of reality without any multilateral accounts and analyses to bring forward a change in individual perspective. dialogic reflection, just below water surface, represents the interdependence and correlations of experiences through iterative self- questioning cycles seeking reasons for an action. after identifying these reasons, this process can provide the reflectors with alternative interpretations. following repeated cycles of dialogic reflection, transformative reflection allows the reflective practitioners to revisit issues with alternative solutions that may create more transformative and welcomed outcomes compared to those in the past. critical reflection, the deepest level of reflection, goes beyond the reflection-on-action process by looking at what, why, and how an incident or series of incidents happened through an ecological well-rounded lens inclusive of social, historical, political, and cultural factors. it is important to note that not all reflective practices are able to reach all four layers as the depth of reflection is subjective to reflectors' cognitive, metacognitive ability as well as their sociocultural background. application reflective practice has been described as an unstructured or semi-structured approach