The gibbs reflective cycle is a well-known cyclical model of reflection directing you through six stages of discovering an experience, including description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan. This model is a decent way to work through an experience. This can be either a circumstance you go through commonly or a stand-alone experience, e.g., meetings with team members you have to join forces with. Gibbs initially encouraged its use in repetitive situations, but the principles and stages also apply correspondingly well to single experiences. If executed with a stand-alone experience, the action plan might be more common, and you can look at how to apply your conclusions in the future.
The easy cyclical structure of Gibb’s model of reflection makes it popular and easy to use. You can confirm it through a gibbs reflective cycle example. It is suitable as it accentuates the link between action and reflection, which can contribute to setting a personal development plan. However, it neither motivates consideration of other people affected by or in the incident nor necessitates an examination of knowledge, congruence, values, or motives between actions and thoughts. Though action-based and therefore relevant for professional development, it may not inspire deeper reflection of self and may be restricted in personal development.
Who can use Gibb’s Reflective Cycle?
As we all know,gibbs reflective cycle can be used in various ways, which include:
- To begin with, any person can make use of the cycle. If you are willing to actively change yourself, this cycle can be a supportive tool.
- Instructors also utilize this cycle to make others aware of annoying behavior and find ways to react to a situation differently.
- Additionally, the reflective cycle is usually used in higher education. When formulating internship assignments, this cycle can be a decent tool to make an intern attentive to their actions. How you will tackle an analogous situation differently in the future is precisely targeted at reflecting on one’s actions. After all, at the conclusion of an internship period, the interns should have advanced themselves sufficiently to perform internship assignments autonomously and act professionally.
Steps in Gibbs Reflective Cycle
Gibbs’s model of reflection was recognized by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to propose a structure for learning from experience. It provides a framework for inspecting experiences and, considering its cyclic nature, lends itself specifically well to repetitive experiences, letting you learn and plan from things that either have gone well or have not gone well. To structure a coaching session using Gibbs’ Cycle, choose a situation to analyze and then work through the process. There are six steps in Gibbs’s reflective cycle. You can understand them easily through gibbs reflective cycle example. These steps are mentioned steps below:
Step 1: Description
In this step, you explain the situation, activity, or event in detail without inferring any conclusions at once. The usual questions that can help generate an objective explanation are:
- What occurred?
- Where and when did it happen?
- Who were the people involved?
- What did you do?
- What did people do?
- What was the consequence of these actions?
It should be observed that vital details must not be ignored. E.g., why people were tangled in a specific situation. All crucial information is relevant for better understanding the situation.
Step 2: Feelings
This stage is about the feelings that the event caused and what an individual’s thoughts were throughout the situation, event, or activity, explained in step 1. The purpose is not to directly confer the feeling in detail or remark on it. Emotions are not required to be judged or evaluated. Mindfulness is the most significant goal of this segment. Supportive questions that are usually considered are:
- What did you feel while the situation happened?
- What do you think about this situation now?
- What did you feel after this situation?
- What did you feel before the situation happened?
- What do you think other people felt throughout the situation?
- What do you think other people feel about this situation now?
Because people frequently have trouble talking about their feelings, it benefits that they are stimulated by the questions or somebody questioning them. This also validates that the Gibbs Reflective Cycle can be utilized in a separate setting or even in a counseling or coaching setting.
Step 3: Evaluation
In this step of gibbs reflective cycle, question whether the experience of the incident in step 1 was bad or good. Which tactic worked well and how? Which method did not work well? It can be problematic for people to be impartial about the situation. To still evaluate properly, the following questions may be obliging:
- What went fine?
- What was undesirable?
- What was optimistic about the situation?
- What did not go fine?
- What did you and other persons do to support the situation (either negatively or positively)?
Bad experiences are also worth assessing because the successive steps in the Gibbs Reflective Cycle support people in learning from them.
Step 4: Analysis
This segment is about what you have learned from the activity, situation, or event. Because of the experience, you are now aware of what to do in similar future situations. This means that negative and positive things and problems you experienced will be written down and analyzed independently. After all, people always learn from their mistakes. This analysis is frequently done together with step 3.
Helpful questions:
- What logic can I make from this situation?
- Why did it not go fine?
- What knowledge can help me recognize this situation?
- Why did things go fine?
Step 5: Conclusions
In this step of gibbs reflective cycle, you can step back and look at yourself for a while and ask what difference you could have made in this condition. The information collected previously is treasured in this step. It can inspire you to come to a valuable and reasonable conclusion. The following questions may be accommodating:
- To what optimistic experience did the activity, event, or situation lead?
- To what adverse experience did the activity, event, or situation lead?
- What would you do otherwise if the activity, event, or situation were to occur again in the future?
- Which abilities do you need to enhance yourself in a similar activity, event, or situation?
Step 6: Action Plan
In the last step, arrangements are developed for future activities, situations, or events. Established on the 5th step, ‘Conclusions’, people form real commitments to themselves. The purpose is to fulfill these commitments. If everything goes well, you can commit yourself to act the identically next time. In parts where things did not go so well, you can commit yourself not to make similar faults again. What will be a more helpful approach, and which modification will lead to genuine improvement? Moreover, for an action plan, it is prudent to plan on how to motivate yourself to stick to these commitments.
Final Words
It is not enough simply to have the experience to learn. If you lack reflection upon this experience, it may swiftly be forgotten, or its learning aptitude is lost. It is from the thoughts and feelings evolving from this reflection that generalities or concepts can be created, and it is generalities that let new situations be undertaken effectively. If you need help understanding Gibb’s idea of reflection, you can always seek instant assignment help. They will help you complete your assignments on this model and enhance your knowledge about it. You will be able to utilize that knowledge further, which will help you in scoring high grades along with appreciation from your teacher.
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