3.5 Gibb’s Reflective Cycle

Water_reflection_of_stringy_gray_and_white_clouds_in_a_pond_on_a_sand_beach_of_Don_Khon_at_sunrise_in_Laos
Photo by Basile Morin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This model builds on the others and adds more stages. It is one of the more complex models of reflection but it may be that you find having multiple stages of the process to guide you reassuring. Gibb’s cycle (1998) contains six stages:

  1. Experience
  2. Feelings
  3. Evaluation
  4. Analysis
  5. Conclusion
  6. Action plan

As with other models, Gibb’s begins with an outline of the experience being reflected on. It then encourages us to focus on our feelings about the experience, both during it and after. The next step involves evaluating the experience – what was good or bad about it from our point of view? We can then use this evaluation to analyze the situation and try to make sense of it. This analysis will result in a conclusion about what other actions (if any) we could have taken to reach a different outcome. The final stage involves building an action plan of steps which we can take the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation.

 

Gibb's Reflective Cycle includes: experience, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.
Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods by Fanshawe College CC-BY-NC-SA

 

Video: Gibb’s Reflective Cycle for Self Development

 

Learn more about Gibb’s Reflective Cycle for Self Development by watching the video by Alan Jones [4:42] below.

 

Sources

Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods.  London: Further Education Unit.

 

License

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Reflective Practice in Early Years Education Copyright © 2022 by Sheryl Third is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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