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A Reflection on My Experience Working in a Group

• Categories: Self Reflection

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Words: 464 |

Published: Nov 8, 2019

Words: 464 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited

• Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An educational psychology success story: Social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. Educational researcher, 38(5), 365-379.
• Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological bulletin, 63(6), 384-399.
• Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2005). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
• Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Harvard Business Press.
• Lencioni, P. (2012). The advantage: Why organizational health trumps everything else in business. Jossey-Bass.
• Fisher, R., Ury, W., & Patton, B. (2011). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Penguin.
• Belbin, R. M. (2012). Team roles at work. Routledge.
• Charkoudian, L., & Moore, W. (2017). Building a strong team culture in a healthcare setting. Journal of Healthcare Leadership , 9, 9-20.
• Belbin, M. (2016). Team Roles and Team Performance: Is there “really” a link?. International Journal of Management & Business Studies, 6(2), 47-58.
• Smith, G. D. (2018). Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research. John Wiley & Sons.

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How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay

Here are the exact steps you need to follow for a reflection on group work essay.

• Explain what Reflection Is
• Explore the benefits of group work
• Explore the challenges group
• Give examples of the benefits and challenges your group faced
• Discuss how your group handled your challenges
• Discuss what you will do differently next time

Do you have to reflect on how your group work project went?

This is a super common essay that teachers assign. So, let’s have a look at how you can go about writing a superb reflection on your group work project that should get great grades.

The essay structure I outline below takes the funnel approach to essay writing: it starts broad and general, then zooms in on your specific group’s situation.

Disclaimer: Make sure you check with your teacher to see if this is a good style to use for your essay. Take a draft to your teacher to get their feedback on whether it’s what they’re looking for!

This is a 6-step essay (the 7 th step is editing!). Here’s a general rule for how much depth to go into depending on your word count:

• 1500 word essay – one paragraph for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion ;
• 3000 word essay – two paragraphs for each step, plus a paragraph each for the introduction and conclusion;
• 300 – 500 word essay – one or two sentences for each step.

Adjust this essay plan depending on your teacher’s requirements and remember to always ask your teacher, a classmate or a professional tutor to review the piece before submitting.

Here’s the steps I’ll outline for you in this advice article:

Step 1. Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is

You might have heard that you need to define your terms in essays. Well, the most important term in this essay is ‘reflection’.

So, let’s have a look at what reflection is…

Reflection is the process of:

• Pausing and looking back at what has just happened; then
• Thinking about how you can get better next time.

Reflection is encouraged in most professions because it’s believed that reflection helps you to become better at your job – we could say ‘reflection makes you a better practitioner’.

Think about it: let’s say you did a speech in front of a crowd. Then, you looked at video footage of that speech and realised you said ‘um’ and ‘ah’ too many times. Next time, you’re going to focus on not saying ‘um’ so that you’ll do a better job next time, right?

Well, that’s reflection: thinking about what happened and how you can do better next time.

It’s really important that you do both of the above two points in your essay. You can’t just say what happened. You need to say how you will do better next time in order to get a top grade on this group work reflection essay.

Scholarly Sources to Cite for Step 1

Okay, so you have a good general idea of what reflection is. Now, what scholarly sources should you use when explaining reflection? Below, I’m going to give you two basic sources that would usually be enough for an undergraduate essay. I’ll also suggest two more sources for further reading if you really want to shine!

I recommend these two sources to cite when explaining what reflective practice is and how it occurs. They are two of the central sources on reflective practice:

• Describe what happened during the group work process
• Explain how you felt during the group work process
• Look at the good and bad aspects of the group work process
• What were some of the things that got in the way of success? What were some things that helped you succeed?
• What could you have done differently to improve the situation?
• Action plan. What are you going to do next time to make the group work process better?
• What? Explain what happened
• So What? Explain what you learned
• Now What? What can I do next time to make the group work process better?

Possible Sources:

Bassot, B. (2015).  The reflective practice guide: An interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection . Routledge.

Brock, A. (2014). What is reflection and reflective practice?. In  The Early Years Reflective Practice Handbook  (pp. 25-39). Routledge.

Gibbs, G. (1988)  Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods . Further Education Unit, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford.

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Extension Sources for Top Students

Now, if you want to go deeper and really show off your knowledge, have a look at these two scholars:

• John Dewey – the first major scholar to come up with the idea of reflective practice
• Donald Schön – technical rationality, reflection in action vs. reflection on action

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Step 2. Explore the general benefits of group work for learning

Once you have given an explanation of what group work is (and hopefully cited Gibbs, Rolfe, Dewey or Schon), I recommend digging into the benefits of group work for your own learning.

The teacher gave you a group work task for a reason: what is that reason?

You’ll need to explain the reasons group work is beneficial for you. This will show your teacher that you understand what group work is supposed to achieve. Here’s some ideas:

• Multiple Perspectives. Group work helps you to see things from other people’s perspectives. If you did the task on your own, you might not have thought of some of the ideas that your team members contributed to the project.
• Contribution of Unique Skills. Each team member might have a different set of skills they can bring to the table. You can explain how groups can make the most of different team members’ strengths to make the final contribution as good as it can be. For example, one team member might be good at IT and might be able to put together a strong final presentation, while another member might be a pro at researching using google scholar so they got the task of doing the initial scholarly research.
• Improved Communication Skills. Group work projects help you to work on your communication skills. Communication skills required in group work projects include speaking in turn, speaking up when you have ideas, actively listening to other team members’ contributions, and crucially making compromises for the good of the team.
• Learn to Manage Workplace Conflict. Lastly, your teachers often assign you group work tasks so you can learn to manage conflict and disagreement. You’ll come across this a whole lot in the workplace, so your teachers want you to have some experience being professional while handling disagreements.

You might be able to add more ideas to this list, or you might just want to select one or two from that list to write about depending on the length requirements for the essay.

Scholarly Sources for Step 3

Make sure you provide citations for these points above. You might want to use google scholar or google books and type in ‘Benefits of group work’ to find some quality scholarly sources to cite.

Step 3. Explore the general challenges group work can cause

Step 3 is the mirror image of Step 2. For this step, explore the challenges posed by group work.

Students are usually pretty good at this step because you can usually think of some aspects of group work that made you anxious or frustrated. Here are a few common challenges that group work causes:

• Time Consuming. You need to organize meetups and often can’t move onto the next component of the project until everyone has agree to move on. When working on your own you can just crack on and get it done. So, team work often takes a lot of time and requires significant pre-planning so you don’t miss your submission deadlines!
• Learning Style Conflicts. Different people learn in different ways. Some of us like to get everything done at the last minute or are not very meticulous in our writing. Others of us are very organized and detailed and get anxious when things don’t go exactly how we expect. This leads to conflict and frustration in a group work setting.
• Free Loaders. Usually in a group work project there’s people who do more work than others. The issue of free loaders is always going to be a challenge in group work, and you can discuss in this section how ensuring individual accountability to the group is a common group work issue.
• Communication Breakdown. This is one especially for online students. It’s often the case that you email team members your ideas or to ask them to reply by a deadline and you don’t hear back from them. Regular communication is an important part of group work, yet sometimes your team members will let you down on this part.

As with Step 3, consider adding more points to this list if you need to, or selecting one or two if your essay is only a short one.

8 Pros And Cons Of Group Work At University

You’ll probably find you can cite the same scholarly sources for both steps 2 and 3 because if a source discusses the benefits of group work it’ll probably also discuss the challenges.

Step 4. Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced

Step 4 is where you zoom in on your group’s specific challenges. Have a think: what were the issues you really struggled with as a group?

• Was one team member absent for a few of the group meetings?
• Did the group have to change some deadlines due to lack of time?
• Were there any specific disagreements you had to work through?
• Did a group member drop out of the group part way through?
• Were there any communication break downs?

Feel free to also mention some things your group did really well. Have a think about these examples:

• Was one member of the group really good at organizing you all?
• Did you make some good professional relationships?
• Did a group member help you to see something from an entirely new perspective?
• Did working in a group help you to feel like you weren’t lost and alone in the process of completing the group work component of your course?

Here, because you’re talking about your own perspectives, it’s usually okay to use first person language (but check with your teacher). You are also talking about your own point of view so citations might not be quite as necessary, but it’s still a good idea to add in one or two citations – perhaps to the sources you cited in Steps 2 and 3?

Step 5. Discuss how your group managed your challenges

Step 5 is where you can explore how you worked to overcome some of the challenges you mentioned in Step 4.

So, have a think:

• Did your group make any changes part way through the project to address some challenges you faced?
• Did you set roles or delegate tasks to help ensure the group work process went smoothly?
• Did you contact your teacher at any point for advice on how to progress in the group work scenario?
• Did you use technology such as Google Docs or Facebook Messenger to help you to collaborate more effectively as a team?

In this step, you should be showing how your team was proactive in reflecting on your group work progress and making changes throughout the process to ensure it ran as smoothly as possible. This act of making little changes throughout the group work process is what’s called ‘Reflection in Action’ (Schön, 2017).

Scholarly Source for Step 5

Schön, D. A. (2017).  The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action . Routledge.

Step 6. Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Step 6 is the most important step, and the one far too many students skip. For Step 6, you need to show how you not only reflected on what happened but also are able to use that reflection for personal growth into the future.

This is the heart and soul of your piece: here, you’re tying everything together and showing why reflection is so important!

This is the ‘action plan’ step in Gibbs’ cycle (you might want to cite Gibbs in this section!).

For Step 6, make some suggestions about how (based on your reflection) you now have some takeaway tips that you’ll bring forward to improve your group work skills next time. Here’s some ideas:

• Will you work harder next time to set deadlines in advance?
• Will you ensure you set clearer group roles next time to ensure the process runs more smoothly?
• Will you use a different type of technology (such as Google Docs) to ensure group communication goes more smoothly?
• Will you make sure you ask for help from your teacher earlier on in the process when you face challenges?
• Will you try harder to see things from everyone’s perspectives so there’s less conflict?

This step will be personalized based upon your own group work challenges and how you felt about the group work process. Even if you think your group worked really well together, I recommend you still come up with one or two ideas for continual improvement. Your teacher will want to see that you used reflection to strive for continual self-improvement.

Scholarly Source for Step 6

Step 7. edit.

Okay, you’ve got the nuts and bolts of the assessment put together now! Next, all you’ve got to do is write up the introduction and conclusion then edit the piece to make sure you keep growing your grades.

Here’s a few important suggestions for this last point:

• You should always write your introduction and conclusion last. They will be easier to write now that you’ve completed the main ‘body’ of the essay;
• Use my 5-step I.N.T.R.O method to write your introduction;
• Use my 5 C’s Conclusion method to write your conclusion;
• Use my 5 tips for editing an essay to edit it;
• Use the ProWritingAid app to get advice on how to improve your grammar and spelling. Make sure to also use the report on sentence length. It finds sentences that are too long and gives you advice on how to shorten them – such a good strategy for improving evaluative essay  quality!
• Make sure you contact your teacher and ask for a one-to-one tutorial to go through the piece before submitting. This article only gives general advice, and you might need to make changes based upon the specific essay requirements that your teacher has provided.

That’s it! 7 steps to writing a quality group work reflection essay. I hope you found it useful. If you liked this post and want more clear and specific advice on writing great essays, I recommend signing up to my personal tutor mailing list.

Let’s sum up with those 7 steps one last time:

• Explain what ‘Reflection’ Is
• Explore the benefits of group work for learning
• Explore the challenges of group work for learning
• Explore the specific benefits and challenges your group faced
• Discuss how your group managed your challenges
• Conclude by exploring what you will do differently next time

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

2 thoughts on “How to write a Reflection on Group Work Essay”

Great instructions on writing a reflection essay. I would not change anything.

Thanks so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it. – Chris.

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Home Essay Samples Business Teamwork

My Experience Working in a Group: a Reflection

Table of contents, challenges of group work, benefits and learning opportunities, lessons learned.

• Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An educational psychology success story: Social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. Educational researcher, 38(5), 365-379.
• Belbin, R. M. (2012). Team roles at work. Taylor & Francis.
• Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-399.
• Forsyth, D. R. (2014). Group dynamics (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (2015). The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press.

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• A Guide on How to Write a Teamwork Reflection with Examples

“The strength of the team is each individual member and the strength of each member is the team.” Phil Jackson

Reflective practices have always been a great way to look back on your experience and improve your actions for the future. For those who are not aware of the term reflection, it refers to an examination of one’s actions, experiences, and perspectives in order to find critical areas for improvement. Simply put, it is more like learning from the past in order to enhance future scenarios.

Table of Contents

Step 1 - describe the main focus of the reflection, step 2 - elaborate on the objective of the project, step 3 - elucidate the responsibilities of the team, step 4 - highlight the status of the objective, step 5 - underline the challenges, step 6 - emphasize learnings, step 7 - accentuate changes in future endeavors.

• Teamwork reflection examples

Reflecting on our actions or decisions is our path to enlightenment and it does add immensely to our vision and future goals. From students to employees, everyone needs to work in teams quite often in their pursuit of meeting their goals. Having said that, it is essential for you to know how to write a teamwork reflection.

This is your complete guide on writing a teamwork reflection that is inclusive of a stepwise approach to writing a reflection of your participation in a team project. Besides, the guide includes three effective examples for greater understanding. So, to begin with, let us get started with the process of writing a teamwork reflection. To assist you with a better comprehension of the writing of a teamwork reflection, every step covers the same example elaborating on the teamwork reflection of performing surgery in the operations room.

How to write a teamwork reflection in 7 easy steps

The first and foremost step in writing a teamwork reflection is to describe the main focus of the reflection i.e. describing the experience you want to reflect upon. Along with this, you will also describe whether your reflection talks about teamwork or it is a self-reflection. To simplify, this section in-depth will talk about the whole central idea of reflection on the event including all the main aspects that contributed to the occurrence of the event. While describing the main focus of the reflection, you need to keep 5Ws and 1H in mind where 5Ws and 1H stand for

When - In this, you will describe the time of the occurrence of the event.

Where - This will focus on the location where the event took place.

What - Through this, you will describe what exactly happened during the event.

Why - While answering why, you will focus on highlighting the reasons things happened in the way they did.

Who - Who part will answer the question by describing which all people were involved in the event.

How - Lastly, you will include how everyone including you contributed to the occurrence of the event

Effectively answering the 5Ws and 1H will give you a detailed description of the whole incident you want to express in terms of an engaging reflection write-up. However, you have to ensure that the main focus of the reflection should be concise and meticulous enough that it should clearly highlight the central idea to the readers.

Introduction

This teamwork reflection is regarding a leg surgery we performed at The Alfred last month. We needed to perform surgery on a patient who got an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury on his leg in a car accident. We were a team of 5 including nurses and doctors. The surgery was successful because everyone performed their tasks responsibly.

After describing the main focus of the reflection, you are ready to move on to the next step i.e. elaborating on the objective of the whole project. Simply put, you have to describe the key objectives of the project that you wish to achieve through your teamwork.

The main objective of the surgery was to rebuild the ligament with a tissue graft in order to ensure that the patient can smoothly perform his regular day to day basis tasks on his own.

Succeeding that, you will elaborate on the responsibilities of the team in detail. To elaborate, you will effectively define which team member of your group was assigned which task. Here, you can also elaborate on the various leadership theories that were applied at the team level. Following that, you will also provide detailed information on whether your team members were successful in completing their responsibilities on an individual level and the team level.

We were a total of five members were responsible for performing the surgery

1. Surgeon - He was responsible for taking out the graft from other tendons in the knee or thigh areas.

2. Anesthesiologist - I was responsible for deciding the level of anesthesia that needs to be given to the patient from time to time.

3. Nurse anesthetist - She was the assistant to the anesthesiologist and was supposed to take care of the temperature of the patient and other functional changes occurring in the body.

4. Circulating nurse - He was responsible for helping the surgeon throughout the process of surgery.

5. Surgical tech - Surgical tech was responsible for ensuring that all the tools are available in the surgery room and will hand them out as per the surgeon’s instructions.

In this section, after describing the roles and responsibilities, you will further elaborate on the status of the objective. In this section, you will highlight the correlation between the efforts of your team members and how their efforts contributed to the successful completion of your overall objective. Along with this, you will also highlight the reason why the objective was achieved or why it was not achieved.

The operation was successful and we were successfully able to remove the graft from a cadaver and deposit it in the injured area. The reason that the operation was successful was that everybody knew their responsibility beforehand and the whole surgery was performed with cordiality.

Coming to the next step, next you will emphasize the challenges that you faced during the completion of the team task. In this, challenges will be described in both the senses mentioned below.

The challenges you faced at the individual level

The challenges you encountered at the team level.

For instance, if ethical issues proved to be a hindrance to the accomplishment of the objectives, you ought to highlight them. Underlining the challenges will assist you in further indicating the key pitfalls that would have contributed to delay or inefficient results. After this, you can significantly conduct a gap analysis that will highlight the major reason why pitfalls occurred. Results of the gap analysis will also assist you in making future strategies to avoid these challenges.

During the surgery, we were a group of diverse teams in which the members were of different social groups. Hence, during the operation, we faced the challenge of understanding each other’s non-verbal language signs. On a personal level, as I was an intern in nursing, I faced the challenge of coping with the senior members’ speed. They were moving really fast with every step during the surgery, so, I got a little anxious through the whole surgery.

After underlining the challenges, comes another crucial step in reflection writing. In this step, you will significantly elaborate on the learnings of the whole experience. Again, one of the crucial notable points over here is that you need to accentuate both the learnings at a personal level and at the group level. Highlighting your learnings will assist you in creating a roadmap on how you can improve for the future.

Through this surgery, we all learned irrespective of our different backgrounds, that if you have cordiality and collaboration in the team, you can carry out any major operation successfully. Personally, I learned that with time and experience, people gradually build their speed in performing different tasks. Additionally, I also got to learn how to work professionally with a team of highly skilled surgeons.

With this, we have come to our last but definitely not the least step of the writing teamwork reflection is focusing on the changes that you will make for the future. To elaborate, lastly, you will focus on how you need to change your strategies in order to come up with more efficient results. On the other side of it, you are done with your well-written reflection on teamwork.

During future operations, we will ensure to cross-check whether everyone has been very well prepared for the operation and all the apparatus are available for the operations. On the other hand, in the future, I will ensure that I come with a free mind in the operation room. Besides, if anything goes wrong, I would take deep breaths to calm myself down and continue the progress to complete the assigned task.

At last, another important consideration in writing a reflection using the above-given steps is subject to change until you are not using any particular reflection out of several prominent reflection models .

To continue, to give you a better comprehension of how to write a reflection about teamwork, we have two completely different samples of teamwork reflection. Firstly, an example of teamwork reflection will be about teamwork and collaboration in nursing. Following that, an example of teamwork reflection as a nursing student is highlighted. Lastly, an effective example of teamwork reflection in the workplace will be provided.

Group teamwork reflection examples

Example 1 - sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing practitioner.

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by nursing practitioners

For - Nursing practitioners

Task - Team reflection on the duties performed in the context of nursing practices for old age care

Working center - Berengarra Residential Aged Care Facility

Step 1 - Describe the main focus of reflection

Gone are the days when a single doctor or dentist or other health organization practitioners could solely deliver high-quality care that could easily satisfy their patients. Today, it requires a good tea to offer satisfactory service to the patients. The complexity of the care that patients need today highlights the need for health professionals to collaborate and communicate clearly with each other (Eddy, Jordan & Stephenson, 2016). We learned this through our recent experience which will be described in this reflection.

This teamwork reflection will confer our experience of taking care of old age people about a week ago. We were 4 team members that were supposed to visit Berengarra Residential Aged Care Facility and take care of old aged people. The reason that we were assigned this job was that the previously assigned team failed in performing their duty due to a lack of responsibility. Although we also faced some challenges, eventually we took care of everything and successfully performed our duty because of our collaboration and teamwork.

Step 2 - Elaborate on the objectives of the project

The main objective of this project was to effectively take care of the elderly people that need the utmost care and support because of a lack of energy to even perform basic daily tasks. Moreover, most of the people in old age care centers are suffering from worry or distress due to leaving their homes because of ample reasons such as abandonment from their homes. People living in the old age care center often experience depression and in old age. This is either the result of living alone or due to a lack of connection breakage with their culture of origin. This results in an incapacity to actively participate in the activities of the community (Singh & Misra, 2009). Hence, another objective of this project was to connect with the old age people and give them the support and care they deserve at this age.

We were a team of 5 people and we all divided our responsibilities as per the handling of different essential activities every day. To maintain confidentiality, I will address each member as members 1, 2, 3, and 4. Team member one was responsible for the food committee and was supposed to look after all the meals in terms of their quality and the timely serving of the meals. In different old age centers, old people often lack the energy to perform daily personal tasks such as changing and bathing.

So, team member 2 was responsible for taking care of the bathing and dressing assistance of elderly people. Team member 3 was me and I was accountable for medication assistance for the elderly people and for ensuring that every patient gets their medications on time. Lastly, team member 5 was responsible for coordinating with the housekeeping team and ensuring proper sanitation at the whole place, and keeping the place disinfected.

Step 4 - Final status of the objective

After a month, we were relieved from the duty, and in our final evaluation our supervisors evaluated the place and took the feedback and we got good feedback and ratings. This implies that we were successful in achieving our ultimate goal and providing efficient service to the old age center. Secondly, we got blessings from the elderly and this indicated that we were successful in achieving the second objective of providing a satisfactory service to the old age people.

Step 5 - Highlight the main challenges

Through the whole tenure we worked at that old age center, we encountered a few challenges. Firstly, as it was a completely new place to us, So, it was challenging for all of us to adjust to the new environment. So, it took us some time to adjust to their daily routines and learn their daily routines. Besides, the last team that was in charge was accused of a lack of responsibility, so it was pressure on us to avoid that tag for us.

On a personal level, as I was in charge of medication for the patient, there were 20 patients under my supervision. Hence, it was quite challenging for me to keep a record of all the patients and the time and name of the medicines that were supposed to get delivered to the target audience. So, I took assistance from team member 1 who was in charge of the food committee. He had this tool on his iPad where he stored all the data and kept a track of all the medication easily and suggested the same to me. He assisted me effectively and we divided up the number of patients to effectively maintain the record.

Through this whole experience we learned how crucial coordination and collaboration are in the healthcare sector. If we would have not divided our work or assisted each other, it would not have been possible for us to successfully take care of the old age people. It was our collaboration and trust in each other as a team that made us successful in achieving the target and getting good feedback from our superiors.

On a personal level, I learned that there will always be difficulty in handling different situations and it is always good to ask for help if needed rather than handling it all on your own and messing it up by doing it alone. Besides, I also learned that technology can be a great helping hand if used effectively.

On a team level, for the future we would ensure that we calm ourselves down and try our best to adapt and blend the environment as soon as possible to effectively work on giving the best services. Besides, we would also have frequent team meetings every day to ensure that if any team member needs any sort of help or assistance with their tasks.

On the other hand, if similar situations occur again, on a personal level, I would definitely ensure that I would learn more about different applications that can offer assistance to me in managing different records.

Example 2 - Sample of group teamwork reflection as a nursing student

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by nursing students

For - Nursing students

Task - Team reflection on the PowerPoint presentation by nursing students

Working center - University of Texas Arlington

I have always believed that teamwork always brings out the dreamwork. But, in order for a team to give efficient results, every team member needs to collaborate and engage in teamwork (Schmutz, Meier & Manser, 2019). I learned this through the effective experience I had in my second year of doing a Master's in Nursing with a Specialty in Nursing Administration and Management at the University of Texas Arlington. I was in a group of 5 people and we were assigned the task of creating a PowerPoint presentation.

We all agreed on the topic, “How health practitioners can support families of children with autism spectrum disorders”. All the team members together decided and made me the team leader and on their suggestion only I distributed the tasks among the teams.

There were two major objectives of this project. Firstly, we wanted to find out the different ways through which we can support families of children dealing with autism spectrum disorders. The major reason for this objective was that as nurses there often comes a time when we would have to support the families of children dealing with different disorders. While preparing for this presentation, we would understand various methods through which we can offer support to the families of children dealing with ASD.

The second crucial objective of this task was our teachers wanted us to know how to work in teams effectively. The major reason behind the same is that nursing teams are often instructed to handle a bunch of patients or wards in different sections. Learning how to work in a team would give us clarity on how we can work together effectively to get the desired results.

We were in a group of 5 members and to maintain the confidentiality of the names, I would refer to each member as Student A, Student B, Student C, Student D, and me. While keeping in mind the capabilities and key skills of all my team members, I decided to give them the task that suited their capabilities. Student A - Student A was very good with research and had in-depth knowledge about how to find relevant and high authority-certified research papers. Besides, the topic of the presentation majorly required in-depth research about finding different ways to support families of children with ASD. Hence, student A was responsible for finding all the relevant research papers, theses, and dissertations related to the topic of the presentation.

Student B voluntarily decided to take the responsibility of digging out the relevant information because she liked reading. Once all the relevant literature had been selected, then Student B was responsible for shunting out all the relevant information that needed to be added to the PowerPoint presentation. For student C, we decided to give the responsibility of arranging the data in a presentable form. The major reason behind the same was that it was pre-decided that C might not be able to get the task done because of his interview round. So, as part of the contingency plan we decided to give student C the minimum work because even if the work doesn't get done, nobody has to bear an extra burden. Student D had a specialized certification in PowerPoint presentation so we decided to give him the duty of creating the final presentation. Me, as everybody decided, I would be the team lead so I was responsible to give the final presentation in front of the whole class.

Step 4 - Describe the final status of the objectives

Everybody in my team did proper work as per their assigned responsibilities. Although as a part of the contingency plan we decided to give student C minimal responsibilities possible he also finished his work on time before going to the interview. I believe this objective was successfully attained because we had everything planned in advance along with pre-decided responsibilities for everyone. As everyone knew what they had to do even when we faced challenges during the language barriers or lack of coordination, everybody did their part very well. However, when it was my turn to present the presentation in front of the whole class, I got a little nervous and even fumbled in some places during delivering my presentation. But in the end, we were successful in achieving the main objective of working together irrespective of some challenges we faced. Moreover, we also learn so much about how to support families of children with autism syndrome disorder.

We had to encounter various types of challenges that we had to face during this presentation. Even I personally had to experience some of the challenges. At the team level - as we were still studying under a remote structure, for the team level we faced communication challenges because there were many people who did not have high-quality internet connections in their homes. Besides, two of the team members belong to other nationalities so we also faced language barriers as a major challenge during communication with them. Language barriers in a multinational team often lead to reduced participation in team communication (Tenzer, Pudelko & Zellmer-Bruhn, 2021).

On a personal level, I am an introvert by nature and somehow also lacked confidence in public speaking. As I was the one who had to present it in front of the entire class, I was a little nervous and also thought that I would not be able to present it meticulously.

Through the whole experience, on a personal level, I learned how crucial communication skills are in my nursing profession. The reason is irrespective of this presentation in the future as well I would have to interact with the families of the patient or with the patient. Hence, I have to socialize and would have to work on my communication skills as well. Good communication skill does not only rely on the physical abilities of nurses, but also on education and experience (Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014).

On the team level, I gotta know that cordiality and planning are really crucial in any team for the successful accomplishment of the desired goal. Irrespective of the fact that we had a language barrier or connectivity issue, as everything was well-planned everybody did their part very well.

In the future, I personally feel that I would like to make two changes to the action plan that we followed in this experience. On an individual level, I would definitely take some of the communication skill courses from different learning apps and would even practice public speaking to socialize comparatively better to this experience. On the team level, if the situation occurs in the remote working structure again, then I would prefer to use various project management software or different applications that could help us with coordination and planning more effectively.

Example 3 - Sample of group teamwork reflection in the workplace

Assessment task - Teamwork reflection by employees in a workplace

For - Employees

Task - Team reflection on the achieving a target in a workplace

Workplace - AB Enterprises

The success of any workplace majorly depends on teamwork and collaboration between its employees. A group accomplishes the highest amount of accomplishments when it is completely focused on a task and completely utilizes every participant’s ability. The most important factor that impacts the success of team collaboration is trust. Without trust, the team significantly runs the risk of deteriorating over time (Bennett & Gadlin, 2012). I learned this from a recent experience I had in my company when we were assigned a task that we have to perform in a group.

Last month, the superiors of our AB enterprise company assigned us the target of making our website rank in the top 10 search engine results for some particular keywords in the span of 3 months. We were a total of 5 people in the marketing team that was assigned this task 4 months back. After effectively planning everything and using different strategies and tactics, we successfully achieved our target.

The main objective of this project was to convert our website into a revenue-generating website. The first step for achieving the same was it was essential that our website should rank on the first pages of the search engines. Secondly, we were a newly formed team, our employer wanted us to understand the true meaning of the team, collaboration, and trust. Hence, he assigned us this task to let us understand the true meaning of the team.

We were a team of 5 members and out of which I was the SEO content writer with another junior content writer. Along with this, we had 2 members of the technical SEO team and 1 member was from the development team. Both of the content writers including me were responsible for creating engaging content for the website. Technical SEO members were responsible for optimizing the content and pitching for gaining backlinks in order to make the website rank higher. Besides, the responsibility of the developer was to upload the content, set the structure, and ensure that there remains no errors in the development phase so that the target can be achieved.

After working hard for 3 months and working overtime as well, we finally achieved the target and made our website rank for 10 keywords that were related to our niche. Moreover, when we worked together for three months as a team, we bonded and collaborated effectively to get the desired results. We trusted and assisted each other in understanding things and getting the work going so that we can achieve the target by the assigned deadline.

Throughout the whole process, we faced many challenges down the line. On a team level, the senior technical SEO got a stomach infection and was on leave for almost 15 days. In her absence, the other member faced many issues in handling the work alone. But here he asked for my assistance and for this, I had to learn about technical SEO first, and then I assisted him with all his doubts.

On a personal level, as I was leading this project, I also had other responsibilities along with writing the content. So, I faced challenges in managing my work of content writing and other responsibilities. Hence to ensure a proper balance and clear my pendencies, I did work some of the work after office hours as well.

Through this whole project, we all learned that if we collaborate effectively and work together, we can easily achieve any target. Moreover, we realized that trust is really important for the successful accomplishment of the project. Trusting teams can effectively assist in enhancing cooperation and collaboration in processes. Furthermore, this will assist them in managing their interdependencies among their respective areas of expertise (Bond-Barnard, Fletcher & Steyn, 2018). We had three subteams in a bigger circle of the marketing team. None of the subteams interfered with each other’s tasks and everyone took accountability for performing their assigned tasks with utmost efficiency.

On a personal level, I learned that although we together achieved the desired results, taking over responsibilities disrupted my work-life balance and I felt stressed from time to time due to this. Hence, I learned that I need to manage my time during working hours more effectively so that I would not have to do work from home.

On a group level, in the planning phase only, we will break our bigger target into smaller ones. So that, we would effectively be able to keep track of our overall levels of accomplishments. Moreover, in the future, if similar situations occur, we would create contingency plans as well. For example, in this situation, our team member got sick, and the burden of the same was on the other members. So, we would learn little of everything from the next time onward. So that, if anything goes wrong, we would have each other’s support to handle the crisis.

On a personal level, as I have too many responsibilities to handle, I would try to delegate some of my tasks to my juniors. So that, I would be able to focus more on the tasks that need my most attention. The next time, I would also take help from various productivity and time management tools to keep a track of all time I am spending on all the necessary and unnecessary tasks.

To conclude, teamwork is an important part of the work irrespective of the industry you work in. Hence, it is really essential to look back and reflect on the incidents to learn something every time that can assist in enhancing your efficiency. Moreover, the above-given information will effectively assist you in writing a good teamwork reflection as well.

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How important is self-assessment in a teamwork reflection?

Self-assessment is a crucial aspect of a teamwork reflection. It allows you to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a team member, leading to personal growth and development in future collaborative endeavors.

Should I include any references or citations in my teamwork reflection?

In most cases, teamwork reflections do not require formal references or citations unless you are referring to specific external sources. The reflection is a personal account of your experiences and insights rather than an academic or research paper.

Schmutz, J., Meier, L., & Manser, T. (2019). How effective is teamwork really? The relationship between teamwork and performance in healthcare teams: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open, 9(9), e028280. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028280

Tenzer, H., Pudelko, M., & Zellmer-Bruhn, M. (2021). The impact of language barriers on knowledge processing in multinational teams. Journal Of World Business, 56(2), 101184. doi: 10.1016/j.jwb.2020.101184

Kourkouta, L., & Papathanasiou, I. (2014). Communication in Nursing Practice. Materia Socio Medica, 26(1), 65. doi: 10.5455/msm.2014.26.65-67

Singh, A., & Misra, N. (2009). Loneliness, depression and sociability in old age. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 18(1), 51. doi: 10.4103/0972-6748.57861

Bond-Barnard, T., Fletcher, L., & Steyn, H. (2018). Linking trust and collaboration in project teams to project management success. International Journal Of Managing Projects In Business, 11(2), 432-457. doi: 10.1108/ijmpb-06-2017-0068

Bennett, L., & Gadlin, H. (2012). Collaboration and Team Science. Journal Of Investigative Medicine, 60(5), 768-775. doi: 10.2310/jim.0b013e318250871d

Eddy, K., Jordan, Z., & Stephenson, M. (2016). Health professionals’ experience of teamwork education in acute hospital settings. JBI Database Of Systematic Reviews And Implementation Reports, 14(4), 96-137. doi: 10.11124/jbisrir-2016-1843

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• Introduction
• Benefits of Group Work
• How to Be a Good Group Member
• How to Improve Group Dynamics

Start with Self Reflection

• Understand Your Group
• Writing a Group Contract
• Communicating with Your Group
• Planning Effective Group Meetings
• Group Work Challenges
• Group Conflict Resolution
• Group Projects in Online Courses
• Feedback Form
• Co-Curricular Recognition Form
• Faculty Resources

To grow as an individual, we need to have a deep understanding of ourselves and our personalities. Self reflection helps us to realize what we're naturally good at doing, identify what we want to improve on, and understand how we respond in different situations. It can also help us use feedback from others to make changes.

In this section, we'll explore different tools you can use to reflect on your work style, communication preferences, and other individual factors that can affect how you'll contribute to a group project. We'll also share a group inventory tool you and your group should fill out during your first meeting!

Self-Reflective Group Communication Activity

• Self-Reflective Group Communication Activity [Word]
• Last Updated: Jan 12, 2024 2:29 PM
• URL: https://sheridancollege.libguides.com/groupwork

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Personal Reflection On Group Work

Personal Reflection “Group work is a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative learning that enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually”. Working in a group can be very difficult at times. Different people with different views may not always agree which one another. Throughout the various task I played the communicator. I made sure everyone was on track on what we wanted to do. I also made sure people was okay and happy in the role they was playing in the group. My group worked together in collecting ideas from one another and making it into one. My feelings about the group process was a little mix at first but, at the end I felt like we actually brought it together. Beginning of the group member were all over the place and had no direction, when we were able to take a breather in just think ideas started to flow. I felt like that took the communicator to make it happen. By reinsuring the other group members that everything will go smoothly if we just don’t overthink everything. The things I will have done differently in the group was to use my time wisely. I believe because we were on a time frame, I tended to rush things just to say okay where done. Also, more support and trust at a point of time I was kind of second guessing another idea. I feel that you have to have trust in your group member to make it effective. Group Dynamics “Social integration can be seen as a dynamic and structured process in which all

Group Analysis Project

In my small group for the film project analysis project I worked with four other students, Deonte, Frank, Osama, and Stephen. The specific purpose that we came together for was to analyse the film, Oz, The Great and Powerful and identify the different properties of communication in the film and how they were used. We held our group meetings after class three times and once before class. Our group had no clear leader, and instead each member was self-directed, and instead our group came to a general consensus at each meeting as to how tasks should be divided and what should be done before the next meeting. While there were significant setbacks to our group’s progress, aside from one anomaly our group worked well together and had only one major conflict.

Individual Analysis of Working in a Group Situation Essay

Learning how to work effectively in a group situation is key to success in many professions as well as in social situations. Groups vary from each other based on the individuals that make up each group, all of us belong to various groups at one time or another. The roles that we fulfill vary from group to

Tuckman And Belbin Theories

This sometimes leads to conflicts and collaboration problems. Tuckman and Belbin’s theories helped me identify potential strengths and weaknesses within the group, overcome conflict between group members and understand and appreciate every members’ contribution in the group. Tuckman and Belbin advocated in their theories that several problems or obstacles can ruin the successful completion of a task. However, in the group task, we encountered several problems in the aspect of making contacts within group members, differences in ideas, and opinions of group members on the case study, group members not working collaboratively with other group members as well as the delivery tasks given to each members timely. However, as a group, we were able to overcome these obstacles by using diplomacy in certain areas of the group discussion, identifying each other’s potential strengths and weaknesses so that the group task can be completed successfully. In areas where a group member fails in a given task, other group members were there to provide knowledge and skills to cover up its

Teamwork Analysis

Next time I think I would like to push a little harder with the collaboration and have more of a deadline set with the other group members as to when things have to be finished by . It felt like the most collaboration we had was via email instead of on the group wiki, which was a little disappointing. A lot of the time I felt like I was talking to myself on the wiki and discussion board.

Group Process Paper

One of the things that worked well in our group was the willingness of those in the group to listen to each other and entertain various viewpoints. I think that mutual respect is the key when working with groups. Each of us played different roles in the group: some of us were listeners, some of us were leaders, and some who were initially listeners became leaders as the group went on. Within our group we had different personality types and communication styles.

The Forgotten Group Member

Working in a group to achieve a high quality group project can be one of people’s most difficult school experiences. Working in a group is tough because there is often someone who does not pull their own weight. “There are five stages to group development, adjourning, forming, storming, performing, and norming” (John & Wiley pg 166). Christine’s group from the Case Study the Forgotten Group Member is in between the Storming and Norming Stages. The Storming Stage “is dealing with tensions and defining group tasks,” while the Norming Stage is dealing with high emotionality and tension among the group members” (John & Wiley pg. 166). Christine and her group could have had better

Ulu Maik The Role Of Group Communication In A Group

Two things that could have gone better in our group. We did not have a gatekeeper so members that were quiet and not putting forth effort to the group messages and conversations on their opinions we would just use people's opinions who did speak up and were more vocal. The book states "A gatekeeper encourages less-talkative members to participate and tries to limit long-winded contributions by other members". In 'Ulu Maika long-winded contributions occurred frequently in conversations since others had very little input that they wanted to put in conversations most people just wanted to go with the flow of things longs as they knew we as a group was taking the correct precautions to prepare for the final product. We did not have agendas for each meeting. Some meeting were just put together when it was a time we felt one was needed. The book states "According to research, groups that engage in free-range discussion without an agenda change topics about once a minute". This would occur very little but at times when it did conversations would get so intense with whatever the topic of discussion was that we would trail away from the meeting about our assignment and into our own conversation longer than expected then we would have to restart the whole meeting

Mini Collaborative Writing Project

My role in the project was make sure all our ideas followed within the guidelines of the instructions.  I would occasionally throw an idea out to my peers, but with an introverted group I usually wouldn't get much feedback.  As the project came to expiration I learned that even though sometimes being in a group makes the work load lighter it can also occasionally make the work harder since it's more difficult to mold multiple individuals preconceptions into one

Personal Narrative: Changing The Theme Of Stagecoach

My experience with my group could be considered a bit of a wild ride. At the beigining there was trouble contacting everyone and getting a messaging group formed. It’s understandable that not everyone could have seen the email right away, being busy college students and everything. As time went on and the deadline got closer eventually responded and stepped forward to see what they could help with on the project. Because I was a over worried that no one would respond at first, I had already done essays on cinematography and changing the theme of “Stagecoach” ahead of time, so everything was going smoothly. The last night before the project was due I was putting the finishing touches on my two word docs for the project when disaster struck.

Group Work Best Practice Essay

The second “best practice” for group work is to look for the best in people. Refrain from going into the project with negative expectations of the assignment or members of the group. In addition, bar yourself from masking your own insecurities by pointing out faults in others. Look for and expect the best from every member of the group, including yourself. Ask yourself how what each person’s strengths are and what makes them a valuable contribution to the group (Hunter,

How Work Within A Group

Working in a group can be beneficial but it can also come with hardship that is if others lack the drive and ability to work together. Working in a group takes effort; it takes psychological support, and cooperation. The foundation of group behaviors is something that can come and go but it takes a lot of effort to keep it going after so long. Although these efforts may come and go it is important to consider what it takes to work within a group, successfully. The article I chose to report on deals with the consequences that can come from those who are working in-group settings. It is important to understand what it takes to be productive and this research does the best it can to tackle those issues. It gives us the information we need to succeed and avoid anything that would go against those successes. One of the biggest concerns within group settings is the

Nelson Mendrala

Some of us took more leadership roles than other but everyone was able to contribute and get their ideas across. We decided to do this topic because we felt that it had the most info for us to reflect on. Our process was very successful in this project. First we read the document and took notes. Then after we read we reflected on what we read and then took that conversation into the situations. When we had conflicts we were able to make rational decisions and compromise. Even though all of our conflicts we not handled well are group worked very well and there's not much to be changed.

Reflective Group Dynamics Essay

• 1 Works Cited

When doing so the other group members were active listener, by using their whole body verbally and nonverbal. Like facing the speaker and giving eye contact and try to avoided interruption. The group also acknowledges the thoughts of the speaker by giving constructive feed back. Due to the effectiveness of the group communication, we were able to build trust, respect and understand the issues and make decision for effective change. We illustrate this by coming together as a group one again to accomplish the goal we initially wanted to accomplish. Since the first organization that we had chosen was incorrect, so we had to make the necessary changes to accomplish our goals. The other effective feature is the purpose of the group. Kozier et al (2010) stated that the effective group purpose is when “goal, task, and outcomes are clarified. Understanding and modified so that members of the group can commit themselves to purposes through cooperation” (p.401). For instance, each individual was assign a task and knew what was to be accomplished. As group we all decided to meet at suitable day and time which was beneficial to all team members, because we could commit to the group and focus on what needed to be achieved.

Groupwork: Social Work

It was clear from that point forward there were large personalities in the group, which caused friction between the group members. By the third group meeting on Moodle, one of the group members decided to leave as they felt that no conflicts should be occurring during the planning stage. The remaining four group members were confused by the departure, as many group projects will often experience conflicts, as it is part of the process (Liu & Tsai, 2008). On reflection, during the beginning stages of the group’s decision-making process our group had similar ideas and opinions and within the first online group chat; a target group was agreed

My Role As a Group Member Essay

I used to believe that I did not perform very well in groups. I am an observer who likes to learn alone. I thought I learned best when I worked on my own. Even though I always knew group work had many positive values, I was more comfortable with the lecture-based approach and resisted group work merely because it involved change, not because it had a collaborative learning approach. However, during the learning community project, I came to realize that I learn more effectively when I work in groups. Working in a group was like an adventure for me; there were both exciting and challenging times while preparing for the learning community project.

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A Reflection On Our Group Work – Georgia Barker.

Introduction:

In this project we helped the fitness company Vanquish improve on it’s digital marketing campaign by evaluating certain topics in which we, as a group, felt needed developing or improving.

Unfortunately, for many people group work is a negative experience. As I believe everyone is, at the beginning I was very nervous to be told we were expected to produce a group presentation for this module. When working with students who you have never met or spoken to before, it can be very daunting and, in our current circumstances , face to face interaction is long in the past so this made our task a whole lot harder.

To begin our project, we began by setting up our own Microsoft teams room where we shared files and constructed our PowerPoint base and Word document for our script. We then went on to assign roles for each participant based on preference of which task we would like to complete. I saw this as chance to enrich my business knowledge so I decided to take on the task of completing and evaluating PESTLE and SWOT analysis’  of the company.

As each of us had different timetables to one another, we found it hard to organise meetings to discuss where we were at with our work. So, we decided to create a snapchat group chat to talk more frequently and also work on the shared documents in Microsoft Teams. As this group project was entirely online, I found it difficult to portray my ideas and suggestions to my team via text. However, the experience from working virtually with my team has really developed my skills in communication which will assist me in my future career paths. It has given me the confidence to perform better in the future. Adding to this, group work has helped me to develop my leadership skills by ensuring that all members of my group are motivated and working towards our common goal. Finally, to complete group work it is essential that organization skills are used and this project has helped me develop this skill. Organization is a vital part of group work. Deciding early what company we wanted to do and how we wanted to present our work was key in ensuring our work was competed to a high standard.

Almost 3 times a week we would talk to each other about our work and how far we have got with each part of the presentation. We would also help each other with questions we had in regards to our work or areas that we needed some support with. For instance I struggled to find certain points for part of my analysis but, through the combined knowledge of my team mates, they helped me develop an idea. We went through components of the GRIP Model to ensure highly effective teamwork by understanding the ‘goal’ in which we wanted to achieve and ensured that our goal to achieve a high grade were aligned with one another. Also, each group members knew exactly what roles they each has to play throughout this presentation and exactly what we were responsible for. Finally,  high levels of quality communication were used throughout the presentation and any conflicts were dealt with to help us make progress.

Collaboration and involvement:

I can confidently say that each member of the group was as involved and committed as the other. We all thrive for good grades and our effort into the presentation and group work showed this. I expected my group to work well together to accomplish our shared goals based on the Social independence theory  since we all shared the same goals and wanted the same outcome. One of the primary things my group did well was working together. Each of us brought unique ideas and styles to the group work which all complemented our own presentation styles very well. This also gave each of us knowledge on different techniques that I will be able to use in the future.  We did however have to request an extension on our work because as a small group of 3 we were at a disadvantage to the other groups who had 4/5 members in their team. This effectively slowed us down with our work contributions as we had more tasks to do and we had to ensure a fair amount of tasks were given to each member.

Conclusion:

To conclude, this experience has enhanced various different skills that will be required of me in future careers. Overall, I believe we have done a good job on our presentation and have worked efficiently as a group to complete our project. If I were to do this project again, I would ensure that I communicate more frequently with my group and introduce days of a week where we can have meetings to review what we have done and what we will continue to do to ensure that we are not pushed for a deadline. As they say, practise makes perfect and I feel that next time, to perfect my presentation, I will encourage my group to practise a few more times together to ensure that we get the bet possible grade. I look forward to more group work projects in the future to help me understand further how to work with more team dynamics.

References:

Beckhard, R., 1972. 4.2 Five Models for Understanding Team Dynamics. [Online] Available at: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/technicalwriting/chapter/understandingteamdynamics/ [Accessed 11 February 2021].

Johnson, D. &. J. R., 1995. Social Interdependence Theory by Johnson & Johnson. [Online] Available at: http://www.ceebl.manchester.ac.uk/events/archive/aligningcollaborativelearning/Johnson_Johnson.pdf [Accessed 11 February 2021].

My Learning Essentials, 2019. Essential skills for group work. [Online] Available at: https://medium.com/my-learning-essentials/essential-skills-for-group-work-73a88e0dcee1 [Accessed 11 February 2021].

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Group Work Self-Reflection Questions for Students

Group work self-reflection questions for students are a key factor in effective group work and a best practice for teachers using small groups.

When students work in collaborative groups, it’s critical to have self-reflection questions for them to consider when the group work is done or you risk wasting terrific, real data.

I’ve written about how to get gifted kids to work in groups , and this is one more step towards best practice.

Working in a group is more than just about the work. It’s also about the group, and if we don’t allow for self-reflection of that group work, we ignore a large part of what it was we were trying to teach.

We also make it more likely that they will make the same errors over and over again when working in groups.

For the teacher, reading these self-reflection responses can give us information that will inform our assignments of students into groups, as patterns will develop that we can use to tell which students will be most likely to work well together.

How it works:

• I don’t use all of them on any one assignment! I choose two(ish), depending upon the assignment and its length.
• Not every student responds to the same questions. Sometimes I give choice, and sometimes I assign different questions to different students.
• The questions sometimes depend upon the students’ role in the group, meaning that some are specifically for those who were leaders of the group and some are for those who were not.
• By giving different questions after different projects, I can make the questions targeted to the assignment, and the experience doesn’t become “samey” for the students.
• Responses to these questions are not graded for content, only thoroughness.
• No naming of other students is allowed in a critical way. If they have an issue with a specific student, I have them put an asterisk next to their response, and I will follow up with them privately. I do this so that if the graded paper falls into the wrong hands it doesn’t cause more contention.
• When you see the word “I” in the question, it means me, as the teacher.

Group Work Self-Reflection Questions

Here’s a list of the self-reflection questions I use in my classroom:

• How do you think you did working with this group compared with groups you’ve worked with in the past?
• If you were to work with this same group again, what is one change the group could make to work together more effectively?
• What was the greatest challenge you had as a group?
• On a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being best, how well do you feel you demonstrated respect for the opinions of others in the group?
• What is one change you could make in the way you listen to others that would improve your effectiveness in working in a group?
• How would you rate yourself, on a scale of 1 – 10, on how well you were willing to agree with group decisions? What could you do to move yourself up a number on that scale?
• What was the hardest thing for you personally about working in this group?
• Was this group easier or harder to work with than groups you’ve worked with in the past?
• Was the group the right size for the task, or would it have been better larger/smaller?
• Do you feel that you accepted the final selections of the leader of the group with grace?
• As the leader of the group, how did you show respect for the different opinions of the members of the group?
• How balanced do you feel the efforts of the group members were?
• As the leader of the group, what were your greatest challenges?
• If you had done this yourself, would the outcome have been better or worse?
• Would you like to work with this same group again?
• Was there one person who added more than his/her share to the group?
• If you could pick one person in the group to whom to give a specific compliment about their work in the group, who would it be and what would you say?
• In what ways was the group more effective than an individual working alone would have been?
• Did I divide the responsibilities within the group fairly?
• Did the role you were assigned fit your strengths?
• Would you like to fill this same role in a future group project? How would you do an even better job next time?
• If you could have had a different role in the group, what role would you have wanted?
• What took the most time deciding as a group? Why do you think it was a challenging decision?
• Did I give you adequate time to get to know each other and come together as a team?
• Thinking of the class, choose four other people who would be your “dream team” group.
• What is one skill you have that you feel really benefitted the group?
• What is one skill you have that you feel wasn’t really used in this project?
• Do you harbor any resentment over anything that happened or didn’t happen in the group during the project?
• When did your group come to a grinding halt or when were you tempted to just take over?
• In what ways did the group work better/worse than it did in previous projects?
• What does your group do more quickly than it used to?
• What are the challenges your group still faces that just don’t seem to be improving?
• Why do you think that your group struggles with _______?
• What changes should I make to make it easier for groups to work effectively?
• What should I know about you to make it easier for you to work in groups?

Getting Great at Group Work

If you’d like to get really great at group work, I offer a short, very inexpensive course on it you can take. It’s got four parts:

⭐ Part 1: The Decision Process How can teachers know when to use small groups and when to avoid them? This section focuses on the pedagogical decision-making process, leading teachers to choose group size with focused intent and strong rationale.

⭐ Part 2: Teaching the Skills What are the skills students need to work effectively in small groups, and how can teachers best teach these skills?

⭐ Part 3: Roles & Responsibilities Learn how to divide students into groups effectively, and how to help the students manage their groups with ease.

⭐ Part 4: Collaborative Testing (This part) Learn how to administer collaborative assessments (and why you should). Complete with three examples and grading practices, this section of the course stretches small group pedagogy to the limit!

You can easily re-watch parts whenever you like. It’s the perfect way to make sure your small group instruction is fabulous! Learn more here.

I always feel vulnerable when I share things from my real, live classroom. I hope you find these questions useful. Student responses transformed the way I ran groups, and I think they can benefit all teachers.

You may also like:

• Progress Cards (super helpful for group work)
• What I’ve Tried Cards (for when the group gets stuck)
• How to Get Gifted Kids to Work in Groups

• Read more about: Excellent Teaching

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Supporting Students to Reflect on their Group Work

To develop group skills, students need to do more than just complete group tasks. Along the way, it's important that they reflect on group processes. Reflection can be informal or formal (built into assessment). Students can reflect individually or in groups.

Students can reflect on both the processes and products of group work. When incorporating reflective activities into group work, it is important that students have the opportunity to apply what they have learnt through their reflections to future tasks to improve their learning. This section outlines a number of ways to build reflection into group tasks and projects.

Helping students monitor their development and reflect on their performance

Reflective activities.

To develop effective group skills, students need to practise using their skills and reflect on what worked and did not work. This helps them form generalised principles based on their experience, which then inform their future actions.

You can use one or more of the following strategies to help your students reflect on their group work skills. Depending on the nature of your group task or project, you might include a reflective activity during the task or at its completion. For example, at the end of the group task, students could submit a collaborative reflective report on group processes, or they could reflect on how to in the future by completing the student exercise: Planning ahead—What can I do better next time? ).

Helping students identify how they can improve

The following exercise helps students to think about their experiences in groups, about the group's functioning and about their individual roles and contributions to the group. Importantly, it also helps students to identify how the group might function more effectively next time. Using the prompts, students can reflect individually, then discuss their responses in groups or as a class.

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How to write a reflective report on group work

• 🗔 July 5, 2018
• 🖉 Advik Patel
• Assignment Help Tips

What is a reflective report? | How to write a reflective report on group work?

Searching for how to write a reflective report on group work? First, we’ll need to discuss that what a reflective report is. A reflective report is a detailed critical analysis from the student’s point of view. The student needs to clearly define the aim of the topic, efforts in the project and learning from the project. The reflective writing can also include general feedback on the topic, the student’s opinion and the student’s personal strengths and weaknesses that were revealed during the project.

Tips on how to write a reflective report on group work

Group work is an activity that builds the entire personality of the student. Based upon his participation, he can either become a leader or be an indifferent person. It is imperative for any student to undertake group work as in the real world there is nothing that can be achieved with solitude. Group exercises bring out the best and the worst of a person in times of distress. So a student’s view on group exercise can range from negative to skeptical to positive.

For writing a reflective report on group work, we first should understand the main aim as to why group the group work was given. Group works are assigned to the students to imbibe a congenial and pleasant personality to students. While in a job or as an entrepreneur, a person needs to be adaptable to work with people who are not like him. It can be excessively frustrating if you don’t develop these qualities as a student. For a group work, it is advised to be the most resourceful member of the group. The more efforts you put in, the more you’ll learn.

Often people who are introverts are able to overcome their shyness while working in a group task. So to write a good reflective report on group work one needs to clearly identify the weaknesses and strengths prior to the start of the assignment and then the weaknesses overcame by the student after the completion of the assignment. A student needs to work on his weaknesses for his personal development and put his strengths to work for the upliftment of the team as a whole. So a reflective report on group work can only be student-specific.

Now you are able to answer the question of How to write a reflective report on group work. If you still face any difficulties just come at Mentyor.

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Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning from experiences.  It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages:

• Description of the experience
• Feelings and thoughts about the experience
• Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
• Analysis to make sense of the situation
• Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
• Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or general changes you might find appropriate.

Below is further information on:

• The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding questions to ask yourself and an example of how this might look in a reflection
• Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more briefly using this model

This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you find that only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on those. However, by thinking about each stage you are more likely to engage critically with your learning experience.

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either a stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally advocated its use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply equally well for single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you can apply your conclusions in the future.

For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined below. You don’t have to answer all of them but they can guide you about what sort of things make sense to include in that stage. You might have other prompts that work better for you.

Description

Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come later.

Helpful questions:

• What happened?
• When and where did it happen?
• Who was present?
• What did you and the other people do?
• What was the outcome of the situation?
• Why were you there?
• What did you want to happen?

Example of 'Description'

Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how they may have impacted the experience.

• What were you feeling during the situation?
• What were you feeling before and after the situation?
• What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?
• What do you think other people feel about the situation now?
• What were you thinking during the situation?
• What do you think about the situation now?

Example of 'Feelings'

Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t work in the situation. Try to be as objective and honest as possible. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other.

• What was good and bad about the experience?
• What went well?
• What didn’t go so well?
• What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)?

Example of 'Evaluation'

The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. Up until now you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to include it.

• Why did things go well?
• Why didn’t it go well?
• What sense can I make of the situation?
• What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me understand the situation?

Example of 'Analysis'

Conclusions.

In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future. It should be a natural response to the previous sections.

• What did I learn from this situation?
• How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved?
• What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better?
• What else could I have done?

Example of a 'Conclusion'

Action plan.

At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the future. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act differently – such that you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders might be helpful.

• If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?
• How will I develop the required skills I need?
• How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?

Example of 'Action Plan'

Different depths of reflection.

Depending on the context you are doing the reflection in, you might want use different levels of details. Here is the same scenario, which was used in the example above, however it is presented much more briefly.

Adapted from

Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

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Examples of Reflective Writing

Types of reflective writing assignments.

A journal  requires you to write weekly entries throughout a semester. May require you to base your reflection on course content.

A learning diary is similar to a journal, but may require group participation. The diary then becomes a place for you to communicate in writing with other group members.

A logbook is often used in disciplines based on experimental work, such as science. You note down or 'log' what you have done. A log gives you an accurate record of a process and helps you reflect on past actions and make better decisions for future actions.

A reflective note is often used in law. A reflective note encourages you to think about your personal reaction to a legal issue raised in a course.

An essay diary  can take the form of an annotated bibliography (where you examine sources of evidence you might include in your essay) and a critique (where you reflect on your own writing and research processes).

a peer review  usually involves students showing their work to their peers for feedback.

A self-assessment task  requires you to comment on your own work.

Some examples of reflective writing

Social science fieldwork report (methods section), engineering design report, learning journal (weekly reflection).

Brookfield, S 1987, Developing critical thinkers: challenging adults to explore alternative ways of thinking and acting , Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Mezirow, J 1990, Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transformative and emancipatory learning , Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Schön, DA 1987, Educating the reflective practitioner , Jossey-Bass. San Francisco.

We thank the students who permitted us to feature examples of their writing.

Prepared by Academic Skills, UNSW. This guide may be distributed or adapted for educational purposes. Full and proper acknowledgement is required. 

Essay and assignment writing guide

• Essay writing basics
• Essay and assignment planning
• Answering assignment questions
• Editing checklist
• Writing a critical review
• Annotated bibliography
• How do I write reflectively?
• Examples of reflective writing
• ^ More support

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13 Self Reflection Worksheets & Templates to Use in Therapy

While valuable for clients and students, it is equally vital for therapists, coaches, and mental health professionals.

Literature across multiple disciplines confirms that reflection serves therapists by improving “learning and performance in essential competencies” (Aronson, 2011, p. 200). In therapy, it helps the client “manage personal feelings, such as anxiety and inadequacy, and their impact on others” (Fisher, Chew, & Leow, 2015, p. 736).

This article introduces the basics behind reflection along with questions and worksheets that encourage and support the reflective process and maximize the benefits for therapists, clients, and students.

Before you continue, you might like to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free . These creative, science-based exercises will help you learn more about your values, motivations, and goals and will give you the tools to inspire a sense of meaning in the lives of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

Fostering reflection skills: the basics, 50+ questions to ask your clients or students, 5 helpful reflection worksheets & tools, journaling & diaries: 2 useful templates, top 3 activities for practicing reflection, 3 fun games to inspire clients, positivepsychology.com’s reflection resources, a take-home message.

While reflection has no single, universal definition, Aronson (2011, p. 200) frames it as the “process of analyzing, questioning, and reframing an experience in order to make an assessment of it for the purposes of learning (reflective learning) and/or improve practice (reflective practice).” It has multiple uses in various contexts.

Reflection is central to most therapies. Indeed, Socratic questioning (using open yet focused questions) is widely used in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to encourage reflection and unpack deeply held beliefs (Bennett-Levy, Thwaites, Chaddock, & Davis, 2009).

Within therapy , Bennett-Levy et al. (2009) recognized that reflection can be beneficial for both the therapist and the client, and can be considered from several perspectives.

• Reflective practices Reflection as part of the clinical experience, using journals, video, and group activities.
• Reflective skills The ability to reflect on oneself through therapeutic interaction and self-awareness of feelings and thoughts.
• Reflective systems Reflection results from the interaction of several processes, including the individual’s memory, skills, and reflective system.
• Reflective processes Reflection involves the ability to observe (possibly via visualization) and then reflect or conceptualize to engage in further processing, including elaboration, problem solving, and self-questioning.

Bennett-Levy et al. (2009, p. 121) offer the following helpful definition of reflection:

“Reflection is the process of intentionally focusing one’s attention on a particular content; observing and clarifying this focus; and using other knowledge and cognitive processes (such as self-questioning, logical analysis and problem-solving) to make meaningful links.”

The benefits of reflection carry across to the learning process found within educational environments. It forms the second of the following four-stage model used by coaches engaging with students to understand the learning process (Adams, 2016):

• Attending to and focusing on the relevant features of their experience
• Actively reflecting on their experience
• Extracting learning from that experience
• Planning how to create new ways of behaving in response to the learning

Reflection and learning are also highly applicable outside of school.

While reflection is vital to self-awareness and healing for clients, it is also a powerful and insightful tool for therapists.

Mental health professionals must be self-aware and cognizant of the skills they are using, because “in no other profession does the personality and behavior of the professional make such difference as it does in counseling” (Meier & Davis, 1997).

The following questions can be helpful for new and existing counselors and their clients to increase self-awareness and knowledge of counseling techniques (modified from Bennett-Levy et al., 2009):

• Observe the experience (such as the session or intervention). How did I feel? What did I notice?
• Clarify the experience. What did I learn? Was it helpful? What did not change?

The following two points are more applicable for therapists:

• Implications of the experience for clinical practice What are the implications for and impacts on one-to-one therapy, supervision, consultation, etc.?
• Implications of the experience for how I see myself as a therapist What are the implications of this experience for my understanding of cognitive therapy and theory?

Considering each question in turn can provide insights that encourage greater knowledge of the therapeutic process and promote lessons to take forward to future sessions.

Asking appropriate questions is a crucial aspect of reflection and central to deeper, long-lasting learning (Aronson, 2011; Adams, 2016).

Reflection questions for students

The following three sets of questions promote reflection in students by considering academic performance (modified from ones used by the Colorado Department of Education ):

Reflective Questions for personal academic performance

These Reflective Questions  prompt the student to think about what they are learning, why they are learning, and how they can improve the overall process.

The student answers the first question regarding what they have been learning and then selects a sample of other questions to prompt reflection.

They then complete the last column with their thoughts for later review by themselves or a therapist, coach, or counselor.

A sample of the questions includes:

What have you been learning about (today, this week, or this semester)? Why do you think these objectives and this subject are important? Did you give your best effort on your most recent assignment?

Reflective Metacognition Questions for students

Reflective Metacognition Questions help students reflect on how and what they think .

The questions are grouped under the following subsections and can be answered individually, in pairs, or as a group exercise, with a summary of the answers placed in the final column.

• Reflection and collaboration
• Self-reflection

Example questions include:

What are your thoughts about what was said? Are there any other similar answers or alternative answers? Why do you think this answer is true?

Reflection Questions in Therapy

Reflection is an essential part of therapy.

Using the Reflective Questions in Therapy worksheet, the therapist can encourage and facilitate the process of reflection in the client, such as (Bennett-Levy et al., 2009):

What do I wish people better understood about me? What behaviors and beliefs do I want to let go of? Have I been receiving enough support this year?

Download 3 Meaning & Valued Living Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to find meaning in life help and pursue directions that are in alignment with values.

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During CBT and other therapies, the client is often given a workbook or journal to capture reflections on the practice or skills they develop as they progress through treatment.

Reflection reinforces learning within the sessions and, more importantly, leads to deeper insights between sessions (Bennett-Levy et al., 2009).

Learning From My Past

The Reflections on Learning From My Past worksheet helps the client capture and reflect on an event from their past and consider how different behavior may have led to an alternate outcome.

The client is asked a series of questions about the incident, such as:

What happened or what was the event? How did it make you feel? How did you handle it?

Self-Reflection Behavior Review

At the end of the year or looking back on the client’s life, it can help to look for patterns in behavior.

The Self-Reflection Behavior Review worksheet is a valuable way to summarize events and see the recurring traps into which the client falls.

The summary provides a valuable talking point during therapy sessions and can be referred to later in order to assess how behavior has changed and improved.

It asks the client to consider:

Do you see a pattern in your behavior? How could you act differently in the future? What situations should you try to avoid?

Who Am I Self-Reflection

In life, we are often so busy with everyday tasks that we forget to take stock of who we are, what we are good at, and what is important to us.

Clients or students can use the Who Am I Self-Reflection worksheet to think about what they are good at, what significant challenges they have been confronted with, and what inspires them.

Some questions to consider include:

Think of something significant that went wrong. What did I learn from it? What am I passionate about? What do I love most about myself?

Student Work Reflection

Students can help their existing and future learning by thinking about how they are approaching their work and using metacognitive skills to drive future improvements (Adams, 2016).

The Student Work Reflection is a set of simple repeating questions to consider how they approach each task in school.

It asks the student to consider:

How could I improve? What am I still working on? What am I most proud of?

Reflection on Group Activities

Reflection is equally important in group tasks as in individual tasks. The Reflection on Group Activities  is for an educational or therapy setting to assess the success and learnings from a group activity.

Working individually or in groups, students can answer questions such as:

What went well? What did not go well? What could we try next time?

As an intervention, it is a creative way to engage clients in a therapeutic activity, increasing self-awareness  and personal growth.

It can be helpful to capture some of the key events of the day. The act of writing what happened and reviewing it later can be insightful and help you recognize positive and negative patterns in your behavior.

Daily Reflection of Feelings

Use the Daily Reflection of Feelings journal with the client to record how their day went and capture the feelings they experienced.

Questions include:

What was the best part of the day? What would you change about the day if you could? What are you looking forward to tomorrow?

Daily Reflection of Behavior

Clients and therapists can benefit from reviewing significant events that occurred between sessions.

Use the Daily Reflection of Behavior  journal with clients to capture daily behaviors that were unexpected or parts of habits that the client wishes to change.

What happened? How did I behave? Why did it happen?

How to start a creative journal – Johanna Clough

Several techniques can encourage the process of reflection in clients and students.

• DARN The DARN acronym forms an important aspect of motivational interviewing . With the use of evocative change questions, the client is invited to engage in reflection to consider the change, including:

Desire questions – What I would like, wish, or want to do? Ability questions – Capturing the idea that change is possible. Reasons questions – Recognizing the reasons for change. Need questions – Identifying the urgency of the change.

• OARS OARS is another acronym important to the process of motivational interviewing to elicit change talk through the use of the following:

Open questions encourage the client to talk. Affirmations include statements of understanding and offers of support. Reflections  capture and rephrase what the client has said Summarizing provides a check-in with the client by summarizing what has been said.

OARS encourages reflection in both the therapist and the client.

• Socratic questioning Observing and taking part in Socratic questioning can be a valuable opportunity to learn about the process of encouraging reflection in others and in oneself.

Consider the five questions:

What happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did it happen? How did it happen?

Try out the following three activities with clients or students.

Your life as a play

You can carry out this reflective exercise in small groups of three or four people.

Ask each person to describe their ideal life in three acts, as though it were a play.

What past dreams were achieved? What is the present (good and bad)? What is your ideal future?

Share with the group, discussing each of the acts, adding humorous insights along the way. End with your positive view of how the future might look.

Shield of honor

This activity is ideal for reflection in multiple small groups.

Ask each group to create a shield out of a large piece of paper.

Divide the paper into four equal rectangles, representing:

• Skills and abilities they offer
• Skills and abilities they need to improve
• Frustrations
• What they are proud of

Tell the group they are only allowed to use drawings and pictures – no words.

After 20 minutes, ask each group to share what they have created.

Reflection on communication

Individuals are grouped into pairs and asked to sit back-to-back.

One person is given either a pen and paper or building blocks and asked to create a novel design.

Ask them to describe what it looks like, while the other person attempts to recreate the design on their side.

Once finished, the two can compare what they have created and discuss the communication process.

17 Tools To Encourage Meaningful, Value-Aligned Living

This 17 Meaning & Valued Living Exercises [PDF] pack contains our best exercises for helping others discover their purpose and live more fulfilling, value-aligned lives.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Throughout this post, we’ve discussed the importance of clarifying wants, behavior patterns, and forces of motivation to better understand what brings meaning throughout one’s life. To this end, we invite you to check out our free Meaning & Valued Living Exercises Pack .

This pack features three of our top tools from the Positive Psychology Toolkit©, all of which center on the theme of values-based living:

• The Top 5 Values This exercise draws on key principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to help clients begin brainstorming their values. Following this, clients will then prioritize these values in a list to identify those most central to who they are.
• Self-Eulogy This exercise invites clients to consider how they’d like to be remembered at their funeral as a means to identify and clarify values. Based on this, they can then consider how well they are living in alignment with these values.
• The Scoreboard Metaphor This exercise helps clients recognize how to enact their values through goal-setting. In particular, it draws on the metaphor of a basketball game to illustrate how living into one’s values is an ongoing process and that the paths by which we pursue our goals are opportunities to enact our values in daily life.

You can access all three exercises for free by downloading our Meaning & Valued Living Exercises Pack .

Additionally, if you’re looking for further reading on the topic of self-reflection, be sure to check out our blog post featuring ten book recommendations .

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others discover meaning, this collection contains 17 validated meaning tools for practitioners. Use them to help others choose directions for their lives in alignment with what is truly important to them.

Reflection engages clients and students in the process of analyzing, questioning, and reframing an experience. It encourages individuals or groups to learn and improve, and promotes deeper, longer lasting learning (Aronson, 2011).

Within therapy and coaching, reflection can help individuals manage their feelings (such as anxiety or self-doubt) and recognize how their behavior affects others (Fisher et al., 2015).

In an educational setting, research shows that questions and exercises prompt learners to improve core competencies (Aronson, 2011).

In any environment, reflection involves metacognition. Individuals must step outside of their existing cognition to think about their thinking . It is a skill that is best learned through practice.

Therapists, coaches, counselors, and teachers can help by prompting the client or class to consider what they have learned, what has gone well (and hasn’t), and what they could have done differently.

The takeaways from reflection can change a person’s view of what has already happened and influence how they behave in the future.

The exercises and questions within this article will engage others, promoting the reflective process and offering deeper understanding and tools for future learning.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises for free .

• Adams, M. (2016). Coaching psychology in schools: Enhancing performance, development and wellbeing . Routledge.
• Aronson, L. (2011). Twelve tips for teaching reflection at all levels of medical education. Medical Teacher , 33 (3), 200–205.
• Bennett-Levy, J., Thwaites, R., Chaddock, A., & Davis, M. (2009). Reflective practice in cognitive behavioural therapy: The engine of lifelong learning. In J. Stedmon & R. Dallos (Eds.), Reflective practice in psychotherapy and counselling (pp. 115–35). Open University Press.
• Fisher, P., Chew, K., & Leow, Y. J. (2015). Clinical psychologists’ use of reflection and reflective practice within clinical work. Reflective Practice , 16 (6), 731–743.
• Hayman, B., Wilkes, L., & Jackson, D. (2012). Journaling: Identification of challenges and reflection on strategies. Nurse Researcher , 19 (3), 27–31.
• Meier, S., & Davis, S. (1997). The Elements of Counselling . Brooks/Cole.

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