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Friday, 24 January 2025

Reflecting on PD

Over the past couple of years I have written a few posts on the intersection between professional development and reflection (here, and logging that PD here), but there is always a bit more to explore. 

When it comes to personal reflection of our practice, there are a few ways to review our own development; we can use a practice diary; we can use our networks; we can get some type of external assessment; and we can mine the data we have gathered for themes (Drude et al., 2019).

These four ideas can be pretty easy to embed into our practice (see the image accompanying this post for details). But the easiest, and - in my view - the biggest hitter is a practice diary of some sort (Drude et al., 2019). For myself, daily I write up what happened on the previous day. What tasks I undertook, what went well, what did not go well, what surprised me, and what remains to be done. If this work is done electronically, then it can be searched for repeating themes and tendencies - meaning that we also meet the fourth category; data-based feedback. As I have tended to use a secure online platform, 750 words (read more here) the platform provides daily data on mood, also providing data-based feedback; and - as I download my daily posts - I can also search for themes over time. 

The third option on the table, that of external examination, can be a little more costly, but by undertaking some type of formal learning where there is an assessment, we get a gauge on how well we are absorbing the new ideas. We can then back that learning up through having professional supervision - even if only a couple of sessions a year - so that we get an independent check on how we are building our learning into our practice. 

The second item on the table, gaining feedback from our networks (Drude et al., 2019), can also be done in a low cost way. If we think of this as being active in our communities of practice, and having open conversations with others in our field, we can learn a lot. We can sign up for blogs, vlogs, and open source journals (see here for some ideas) Also signing up to various professional organisations' mailing groups we can intersect with new ideas at a relatively low cost. And if we have signed up for a course or two, we might be able to keep interaction going with some of our fellow learners, and share new ideas that way as well.

I would love to hear what other ideas you have for PD!


Sam

References:

750 Words. (2025). Home. https://new.750words.com/

Drude, K. P., Maheu, M., & Hilty, D. M. (2019). Continuing professional development: Reflections on a lifelong learning process. Psychiatric Clinics, 42(3), 447-461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2019.05.002

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