Over the years I’ve become more interested in the power and impact of reflection in not only learning and development, but also in teaching and leadership. An attribute of my model of high-impact leadership programs focuses specifically on reflection and the value of incorporating those activities into leadership programs. Reflecting on your own practice can have a positive effect.
Attribute 8 of the Grounded Theory Model of High Quality Leadership Programs is: Students engage in reflection activities: Connecting leadership theory, their experiences, and themselves. Having a practice of reflection about your practice while you are practicing is pretty meta indeed. It’s also where your own learning and development can be fostered.
This guide explains what reflective practice is, where the idea comes from, the most widely used reflective practice models, and simple ways to build reflection into your work as a teacher, leader, or professional.
What is reflective practice?
Reflective practice is the habit of thinking carefully about your own experiences and actions in order to learn from them and improve what you do next. A reflective practitioner regularly steps back to ask what happened, why it happened, what it means, and how to approach similar situations in the future. Rather than relying on routine, reflective practice turns everyday experience into ongoing professional learning.
Reflection is especially valuable in work where people and situations are complex and no manual covers every case, such as teaching, leadership, healthcare, social work, coaching, and facilitation.
Where reflective practice comes from
The idea draws on several influential thinkers:
- John Dewey, in How We Think (1910), described reflective thought as the active, careful consideration of beliefs and experiences, and argued that we learn from reflecting on experience, not from experience alone.
- Donald Schön, in The Reflective Practitioner (1983), showed how skilled professionals think while they work and after they work, and popularized the term “reflective practitioner.”
- David Kolb, in Experiential Learning (1984), placed reflection at the center of a learning cycle that moves from experience to reflection, new ideas, and experimentation.
Reflection-in-action vs. reflection-on-action
Schön’s most useful distinction is between two kinds of reflection:
- Reflection-in-action happens in the moment. A teacher notices students are lost and changes the explanation mid-lesson, or a facilitator senses low energy and switches to a more active exercise.
- Reflection-on-action happens afterward. You look back on a class, meeting, or project to understand what worked, what didn’t, and why.
Later writers added reflection-for-action: using what you learned from past reflection to plan how you will approach the next situation.
Reflective practice models
Reflective practice models give structure to reflection so it goes beyond simply replaying events. These are the most commonly used:
| Model | Core idea | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988) | Six stages: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, action plan | Structured written reflection on a specific event |
| Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (1984) | Concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation | Understanding how learning from experience works |
| Driscoll’s “What? So what? Now what?” | Three simple questions, adapted from Terry Borton’s work | Quick reflection, debriefs, and journaling |
| Schön’s reflection-in-action and on-action (1983) | Reflect during and after practice | Building everyday professional judgment |
| Brookfield’s Four Lenses (1995) | View your practice through your own experience, learners’ eyes, colleagues’ perceptions, and research | Teachers and educators examining assumptions |
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle in practice
- Description: What happened?
- Feelings: What were you thinking and feeling?
- Evaluation: What was good and bad about the experience?
- Analysis: What sense can you make of the situation?
- Conclusion: What else could you have done?
- Action plan: If it happened again, what would you do?
Examples of reflective practice
- Teachers keep a short teaching journal, review student feedback, or invite a colleague to observe a class and discuss it afterward.
- Leaders set aside time at the end of each week to consider a key decision, a difficult conversation, and what they learned about themselves.
- Healthcare and social care professionals use structured models like Gibbs’ cycle to reflect on patient or client situations as part of professional development.
- Students in leadership programs connect leadership theory to their own experiences through guided reflection activities and discussion.
- Teams hold debriefs or retrospectives after projects to reflect together on what they learned.
Reflective practice questions
Use these prompts in a journal, a one-on-one conversation, or a group debrief:
- What happened, and what stood out to me most?
- What was I thinking and feeling at the time?
- What went well, and what would I do differently?
- What assumptions was I making?
- How did others experience this situation?
- What does this experience mean for how I see my work or myself?
- What will I carry forward into the next situation?
How to start a reflective practice
The goal of reflection is meaning-making: letting an experience sink in, understanding what it taught you, and feeling ready to act on that learning. A few simple habits help:
- Keep it short and regular. Five minutes after a class, meeting, or workshop is more sustainable than an occasional long session.
- Write it down. Journaling makes patterns visible over time.
- Use a model. A simple structure like “What? So what? Now what?” keeps reflection focused.
- Reflect with others. Peers, mentors, and coaches offer perspectives you can’t see on your own.
- Stay curious, not critical. A growth mindset helps you treat mistakes as information rather than judgment.
Reflective practice conclusion
Learning happens from the experience and the reflection. What reflection activity might you do right now? Perhaps it is a reflection on your own practice of reflection. We enjoy leading groups of people through practice reflection experiences in our reflection workshops. Just reach out to learn more. The concept of retrospectives from the Agile world seems to do a good job of helping groups reflect on their practice and project. You can find templates for retrospectives to help your team reflect on the projects they engage in.