Over the course of the last decade, reflective practice in the advancement of knowledge in a plethora of areas, including business, education, social work, and healthcare, has been becoming continuously more widespread. Patel and Metersky (2021) state that reflection is considered to improve learning, which is why it is so popular in so many spheres. According to Schwind and Manankil-Rankin (2020), deliberate reflection on any experience gives meaning to people’s three ways: of being, knowing, and doing (or, alternatively, ontology, epistemology, and praxis). When it comes to the most widely used reflective models, Rolfe’s reflective cycle is one of these, and it is deemed applicable in any context due to its clarity and subsequent ease of employment (Galutira, 2018). The following reflective essay uses this model to guide my thinking about teamwork, leadership, and time management in relation to creating a group Powerpoint presentation. The aims of this essay are to evaluate the experience of such a type of work and to describe how the things I have learned can be applied to my future nursing practice.
Rolfe’s reflective cycle is a reflective model created to help people assess their experiences or empirical learning activities. In terms of group and teamwork, Rolfe’s model is an effective tool for each member to evaluate how they can improve their teamwork skills (Use the ‘What? So what? Now what?’ model, no date). This method’s history dates back to the 1970s when an American schoolteacher Terry Borton wrote a book in which he proposed a reflective practice framework founded on three questions: what? so what? and now what?
Borton’s scheme was adapted for clinical use by John Driscoll, although his version could be implemented in various disciplines. In addition to that, Rolfe et al. took Borton’s model and refined it further for use in a clinical setting and pastoral work (What? So what? Now what? model of reflection, no date). Rolfe and his colleagues left the structure of Borton’s scheme unchanged but expanded each question to include extra questions to stimulate deeper reflection. As stated by Business Bliss Consultants FZE (2018), this is aimed at increasing self-awareness, analysis skills, and skills of problem-solving. The ‘what?’ phase of Rolfe’s model contains questions to help objectively review what took place. The ‘so what?’ phase is a more subjective study of the consequences. Finally, the ‘now what?’ phase is a look at the way the lessons learned can be beneficial for the future.
I believe that the main reason why my group succeeded in creating a presentation without major quarrels or disagreements was because of our good teamwork, which was due to the strategy we all agreed upon for the working process. This strategy consisted of having each member of the team assigned a specific task in the beginning based on what each person is good at – for instance, finding appropriate references, doing research, or creating presentations. We communicated to check where everyone was with their part of the work every week. However, it would have been harder to do had our group been larger; but since there were five of us, communication was effective, and each person’s voice was always heard. To interact with one another, we created a WhatsApp group chat, and while it proved to be productive, we still felt that a lack of face-to-face meetings was a significant drawback. Moreover, for our work to be more organized, we selected a team leader, Wendy, who was chosen due to her having had experience with working in groups and making presentations before.
In addition to that, one unfortunate circumstance that I found myself facing was my poor time management skills. It seems that I had initially underestimated the amount of work it would take for me to finish my part of the task. As a result, in the final stages of preparation, I worked for hours in the end and felt exhausted when it was done. However, since our group scored an A, I consider it all to have been worth it.
What this experience tells me about myself is that I have to be less confident when approaching such tasks and put more effort into planning how, when, and what exactly to do. This is especially important when working in groups or teams because other people rely on you to do your work efficiently and timely. Academic literature on effective team communication points at the necessity of each member of the team to feel that they are responsible for the final outcome (Harris and Sherblom, 2018). In addition to that, according to Marlow et al. (2018), when it comes to a successful group, it is not the frequency of communication but its quality that matters. It explains why us discussing things in a group chat once a week was more than enough for the eventual success of the project.
Moreover, this experience taught me that for group work to be productive, there must be a leader in a team. As I have mentioned earlier, we appointed Wendy to be our leader, and I believe that had it not been for her, it would have been more difficult for us to make progress. As per Northouse (2021), a true leader is someone who is focused on developing others, leads by example, and ensures that the communication between team members is effective. All of this is about Wendy, who was an inspiration for all of us to aim to work harder and was always there to help anyone who struggled with anything.
I believe that I have learned a lot from working on this project with my peers. First of all, for the sake of not only my mental health but also other people succeeding, I plan to start working on my time management skills. In addition to that, I will ensure that I remember everything that I have learned about group work and apply it to the next team project in which I will participate. In terms of how I can apply the reflections on our work to my future nursing practice, I now have an understanding of how to be an effective team player and a good leader. Both of these qualities are important to deliver safe and high-quality nursing care, which is my, and every other nurse’s, ultimate goal.
In conclusion, reflective practice is essential to improving learning and evaluating one’s skills for future development. One of the most effective and popular reflective models is Rolfe’s reflective cycle, which is based on a person asking themselves three simple questions: what? so what, and now what? When expanded into a series of additional queries, these give one an opportunity to analyze their work and think of ways to enhance it. I applied it in assessing the work of my group on a presentation and found that it is extremely efficient in supplying one with food for thought and identifying benefits and drawbacks. I will use the knowledge that I have gained from working with this reflective model in my future nursing practice to be a great team player and a successful leader.
Reference List
Business Bliss Consultants FZE (2018) Rolfe’s reflective cycle. Web.
Galutira, G.D. (2018) ‘Theory of reflective practice in nursing’, International Journal of Nursing Science, 8(3), pp. 51-56.
Harris, T.E. and Sherblom, J.C. (2018) Small group and team communication. Waveland Press.
Marlow, S.L., Lacerenza, C.N., Paoletti, J., Burke, C.S. and Salas, E. (2018) ‘Does team communication represent a one-size-fits-all approach?: a meta-analysis of team communication and performance’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 144, pp.145-170.
Northouse, P.G. (2021) Leadership: theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Patel, K.M. and Metersky, K. (2021) ‘Reflective practice in nursing: a concept analysis’, International Journal of Nursing Knowledge, 33(3), pp. 180-187.
Schwind, J. K. and Manankil-Rankin, L. (2020) ‘Using narrative reflective process to augment personal and aesthetic ways of knowing to support holistic person-centred relational practice’, Reflective Practice, 21(4), pp. 473–483.
Use the ‘What? So what? Now what?’ model: a great example of reflective questioning(no date). Web.
What? So what? Now what? model of reflection (no date). Web.