The Power Of Reflection In Improving Our Learning

I have a habit of saving blogs that I find very useful for future reference. I scoured through my saved list and came across this blog from 2016 by Charles Jennings on workplace performance.

In this blog post, the author writes about reflection being one of the essential tools for effective learning and development.

We all learn in four different ways through the process of reflection.

• Learning Through Experience: We learn best when we get exposed to challenging situations. Jennings calls those experiences “work that stretches”‘.
• Learning Through Practice: We learn when we engage in activities that allow us to practice our skills and improve. 
• Learning Through Conversation: This one is interesting. We learn through our conversations with others. Charles Jennings calls conversation the “lubrication of learning and development.” Having real conversations is becoming a lost art in the current social media era. Conversations help in the cross-pollination of ideas sparking new ways of learning.
• Learning Through Reflection: When we overlay our experiences with reflection, we internalize the lessons the experiences have to offer. Reflection is the ‘glue’ that we need to exploit the other three forms of learning.

Charles Jennings says that the reflective practice itself doesn’t ‘just happen.’ It is a learned process. It requires a good degree of self-awareness and the ability to evaluate experiences, actions, and results critically.