Describe in detail how practical is Gibb’s cycle for the prospective teacher.

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 (The University of Edinburgh, 2021) Gibbs Reflective Cycle encourages people to think systematically about the experiences they had during a specific situation, event or activity. Using a circle, reflection on those experiences can be structured in phases (Mulder, 2018).

Overview

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.

The model Gibbs’ reflective cycle

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 (The University of Edinburgh, 2021). 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’

Group work assignment

For an assessed written group-work assignment, my group (3 others from my course) and I decided to divide the different sections between us so that we only had to research one element each. We expected we could just piece the assignment together in the afternoon the day before the deadline, meaning that we didn’t have to schedule a time to sit and write it together. However, when we sat down it was clear the sections weren’t written in the same writing style (The University of Edinburgh, 2021).

Feelings

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

Helpful questions:

· 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?

Evaluation

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.

Helpful questions:

· 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)?

Analysis

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(The University of Edinburgh, 2021).

Conclusions

In this section, you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you sum up your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future.

Helpful questions

· 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?

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 realization 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

Group work assignment

When I’m working with a group next time, I will talk to them about what strengths they have. This is easy to do and remember in a first meeting, and also potentially works as an ice-breaker if we don’t know each other well. Next, if we decide to divide work, I will insist that we plan out what we expect from it beforehand. Potentially I would suggest writing the introduction or first section together first so that we have a reference for when we are writing our own parts. I’m confident this current experience will be enough to remind me to suggest this if anyone says we should divide up the work in the future. Lastly, I will ask if we can challenge our initial decisions so that we are confident we are making informed decisions to avoid groupthink. If I have any concerns, I will tell the group. I think remembering I want the best result possible will make me be able to disagree even when it feels uncomfortable (The University of Edinburgh, 2021).

Different depths of reflection

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

Short example of Gibbs’ reflective cycle:

Describe:

In a group work assignment, we divided sections according to people’s strengths. When we tried to piece the assignment together it was written in different styles and therefore we had to spend time rewriting it.

Feelings:

I thought our plan would work and felt good about it. When we had to rewrite it, I felt frustrated

The process of dividing sections went well. However, it didn’t work not having foreseen/planned to rewrite the sections for coherence and writing styles.

Analysis:

Dividing work according to individual strengths is useful. Belbin’s team roles (2010) would suggest something similar. I have done it before, and it seems to work well.

The reason piecing work together didn’t work as we had no plan for what it needed to look like. We were so focused on finishing quickly that no one would raise a concern. The last part can be explained by ‘groupthink’ (e.g. Jarvis, 1991), where members of a group make a suboptimal decision because individuals are afraid of challenging the consensus (The University of Edinburgh, 2021).

Conclusion:

I learned that using people’s strengths is efficient. Moreover, planning how we want the work to look before we go off on our own is helpful. Lastly, I will remember the dangers of groupthink, and what the theory suggests looking out for.

Action plan:

I will use Belbin’s team roles to divide group work in the future. Moreover, I will suggest writing one section together before we do our own work, so we can mirror that in our own writing. Finally, I will speak my mind when I have concerns, by remembering it can benefit the outcome (The University of Edinburgh, 2021)