Reflective Practice

Reflection is both a mental and physical process ,whereby you reflect back on an occasion that has already occurred. Donald Schön, an American educationalist, coined the term ‘reflective practice’. Derived from reflection, the practice can be undertaken in a multitude of forms, such as journalling, spoken and written reflection (Usher & Holmes, 2014). Schön proposed that there is capacity to reflect in-action, (whilst doing something) and on-action (after the action is undertaken). During the reflective cycle the practitioner begins by acknowledging the activities which make up their practice. Then by examination, they can critique these in different ways to create a remedial approach to improve their further practice (Willis, 1999). Reflective
Following my initial decision to research periodontal disease, I began looking for sources. During the first skim through of potential sources, I quickly realised the amount of advanced dentistry specific vocabulary that I did not know. Instead of attempting to familiarise myself with the vocabulary, I continued to struggle through articles written for periodontal specialists. As I did so, I became frustrated with myself for not being able to understand the material, so to compensate, I avoided the assignment. This resulted in me wasting time thus, putting me under further time constraints.This was a challenge for me as I had not been exposed to this high level of academic information. Previously, in high school, the material used for assignments was not only handed to you, but was at an academic level that reflected the knowledge I already had. Because of this, I naturally assumed that I was competent in my research methods and how I could interpret unfamiliar sources. I now realise that this lack of understanding of the material made me feel insecure in my ability to research effectively, bringing to the surface doubts about if I was ready to complete university level study. Although oral health is my major, my prior knowledge of the teeth and the surrounding terminology is small. Therefore, If I were to repeat the process again, an action plan I have devised
This was challenge for me as once I had completed my EP2 I was rather excited to be finished, that was until I saw the word count was 500 words over the allocated limit. This resulted in me having to spend time deciding what information I was going to remove, whilst simultaneously I became frustrated that I had wasted time writing work that was no longer going to be included. On reflection I realised that writing has always been something I considered as a strength of mine, however once I began writing university level papers I found it hard to step away from the five paragraph, restrictive essay structure that had been instilled in my psyche from years of repetition. The reason I was continually going over the word count was because I felt that for continuity's sake I had to include certain “fillers” to boost the content value. I learnt from this experience that although the word limit frustrated me and at times my best writing came from this restrictive nature. My writing became progressively more succinct as I no longer had the space to include pointless sentences, purely to impress the marker with vocabulary. From this I devised an action plan that if I were required to write another assignment with such a strict word count I would be able to save time by avoiding writing so wastefully in the first place, this would not only improve my writing but