Dr. Mirko Benischke (benischke@rsm.
nl)
REFLECTIVE ESSAY HANDBOOK
What is a reflective essay?
This course focuses on experiential learning. Accordingly, the focus of the individual
assignment – a reflective essay – is on prompting you to examine your learning in the
course. To that end, you are asked to write on your personal experiences and how
these experiences shaped your learning, how these experiences changed your
perspectives, and how your experiences have facilitated personal growth.
How to write a reflective essay?
While a reflective essay shares some commonalities with other assignments – for
example, a paragraph should consist of topic sentence, explanation, and example
(TEE) – there are also some differences.
Most notably, while academic essays tend to focus on the application of theory (or
creation of new knowledge based on theory), reflective essays focus on the combination
of theory with personal experiences. That is, in a reflective essay, you need to critically
reflect on thoughts, feelings and actions, then integrate these reflections with theoretical
concepts. In this course, the focus of your reflection report should be on the integration
of your personal experiences with theoretical concepts covered in the course.
Assignment Instructions
In the course manual, the assignment is described. You are expected to write a 1000-
word reflective essay. Below, I’m providing some pointers as to what consider when
writing your assignments.
Include a short introduction. The starting point for writing your essay is your personal
learning goals. Consider what you wanted to ‘get out’ of the study trip. Think about what
you wanted to learn and why you wanted to achieve this goal. Then, you can focus on
the reflection itself. Some information regarding how to write this part of the reflection
has already been offered in the course manual. Here, you can find additional advice,
including concrete examples, on how to write a reflective essay:
• ACAP - Reflective Essay: https://sls.navitas-
professional.edu.au/sites/default/files/resource/he_reflective_essay_v1.pdf (see also:
https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-reflective-
cycle).
• ACAP – Differences between Reflective and Academic Essays: https://sls.navitas-
professional.edu.au/sites/default/files/resource/difference_between_reflective_and_acad
emic_essay_v1.pdf.
• ACAP – Reflective Writing: https://sls.navitas-
professional.edu.au/sites/default/files/resource/reflective_writing_language_guide_faqs_
v1_0.pdf.
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Dr. Mirko Benischke (benischke@rsm.nl)
While the information covered in this document and the sources noted above will enable
you to successfully complete the assignment, you can also purchase the more
comprehensive book.
Williams, K., Woolliams, M., & Spiro, J. 2020. Reflective Writing (Pocket Study Skills,
26), 2nd edition. Palgrave MacMillan: London, UK.
In terms of style, given the focus on your personal learning, you can write in ‘first
person’ (or ‘third person’ if you prefer). Similarly, you can use past, present, or future
tense, depending on what you are attempting to communicate (e.g., “Action Plan” may
be written in future tense, while the “Experience” and “Feelings” elements may be
written in past tense).
Note: It is highly recommended that you keep a reflective journal throughout the study
trip. This will allow you to already collect some of the information you need to write your
essay. For example, you can already collect information on your “Experience” (What
happened?), your “Feelings” (What were you feeling during that experience?), and
“Evaluation” (What was good or bad about the situation?). You also already link those
elements to theory/frameworks. Upon completion of the study trip, you can then
integrate this information with other information, such as the “Analysis” (Make sense of
the situations, in relation to your learning – how did this affect your learning?),
“Conclusion” (What else could you have done?), and “Action Plan” (What would you do
next time?). This approach is based on the framework by Gibbs (1988) and has
subsequently been adapted by Williams et al. (2012).
References:
Gibbs, G. 1988. Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford Further
Education Unit: Oxford, UK.
Williams, K., Woolliams, M., & Spiro, J. 2012. Reflective Writing (Pocket Study Skills, 26), 1st
edition. Palgrave MacMillan: London, UK.
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Dr. Mirko Benischke (benischke@rsm.nl)
