Reflective Writing

Imagine tripling the amount you learn from experience! Now that's cool!

Reflective writing is a purposeful process for learning from experience by:

  • Formulating one or more prompt questions that generate creative and critical thinking
  • Writing and developing thoughtful responses to the question(s):

Example

A team has just completed a meeting and they decide to use reflective writing for a few minutes following the meeting. The team is interested in meetings that are more engaging

The team selects two prompt questions. What aspects of this meeting caused you to feel the most energized and excited? What other ideas do you have that will cause all of us to be more energized? Notice that these questions are related to a result (i.e. higher levels of engagement) that is desirable to the team.

In response to the prompt question, each team member spends 5 minutes to write down and develops their thoughts. Some of the results that are written down include.

Team member 1. I really liked how we identified great goals for our meeting and how we reached these goals! This energized me because I felt the meeting was productive.

Team member 2. When I presented my project ideas, Bob let me know that he genuinely appreciated the work I had done in preparation for the meeting. This motivates me to come to meetings prepared.

Team member 3. Another team I am on spends five minutes before the start of the meeting checking on how each other are doing. This makes me feel like my team members care about me as a person. We may want to consider doing this on our team.

After the writing, each team member presents one or two of their most beneficial ideas. The team discusses ideas and learns from each other. Overall, the benefits to the team are large compared to the time (10 minutes) spent.

Connections to the Literature

Reflective writing is described in MANY references on learning. Prof. Elger's hypotheses about why reflective writing works is that the writing process itself causes the brain to process and connect ideas.

Process

Prompt Question (step 1). Ask one or more creative questions or critical thinking questions.

Writing (step 2). Spend 3 to 10 minutes developing useful and insightful responses to the question(s). Identify your most important ideas. Develop your ideas in depth. Connect your ideas to things you already know.

If you are in a social context, then sharing of ideas and building of collective knowledge can be beneficial.

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