Reflection is more than looking back – it's a core skill for success.  It helps you learn from experience, grow personally and professionally, and recognise, evaluate, and articulate the other skills you are developing.  Reflection therefore has a vital role in the design and delivery of effective teaching and learning. 

The University's Skills for Success Framework outlines important reflective behaviours: 

• Reviewing during and after activities
• Considering choices, decisions, and their outcomes
• Recognising strengths and emotions
• Being aware of personal values and integrity
• Setting and achieving goals. 

Building on these behaviours, reflection can be understood as:

the conscious examination of past experiences, thoughts, and ways of doing things.  Its goal is to surface learning about oneself and the situation, and to bring meaning to inform the present and the future.  It challenges the status quo of practice, thoughts, and assumptions and may therefore inform our decisions, actions, attitudes, beliefs, and understanding about ourselves.

 Reflection can be used for many things including:

• Improving practice to gain better outcomes in the future
• Enhancing performance and skills
• Increasing awareness of abilities and attributes and the evidence for these
• Developing employability
• Evaluating the quality and success of action plans
• Applying theoretical knowledge/frameworks to real experiences and using this to expand understanding of the underlying theory.