Third year student Laura Mitchell shares her tips to help you visualise your reflections
Over the last year I’ve created infographics to aid my reflections.
My first graphic illustrated what it’s like to be a physio student during the pandemic. After attracting a lot of interest on Twitter, I created two more mind maps to reflect on my stroke placement - at the half-way point and at the end.
Creating these infographics has helped me to identify my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and future aspirations. Here are my tips to help you visualise your reflections.’
How can infographics help?
- Provides a visual representation of your thoughts and feelings
- It’s different! We write so many essays at university; it’s a nice change to use graphics
- Illustrates to yourself how much you have learnt and captures it in a fun way
- Can help your peers to see what they may have gained and what you all found difficult
- Easy for peers, lecturers and other professionals to read and follow (if you share)
- Helps to summarise an experience in just one image
- Keeps your reflections simple and short in terms of word count
- Encourages you to brainstorm so you can see where you’ve done well and the areas you still need to work on. It made me more aware of my learning needs
How to produce your own
- You can use your infographic for posters, social media posts and presentations
- I use Canva.com to create mind maps for my reflections. Other tools are available too including PowerPoint
- There are lots of pre-designed templates for you to follow and add text to. (Be aware that not all are free)
The value of reflecting
- regular reflection can show the progress you’re making week after week.
- enables personal development and increases self-awareness. Developing these skills will make you a more effective clinician.
- helps you to make sense of, and understand, an experience.
- Reflect! Think about what you enjoyed about the experience, what helped your learning, what you found hard and any opportunities it gave you. Think about moving forward too by adding some personal goals
- Find or create a template that best suits what you want to communicate
- Choose your background, colours and font. Make sure it’s easy to read
- Start adding in text and images to illustrate your reflection. Get creative! You can add stickers, graphics, colours and different fonts to make it more engaging
Check out Laura’s infographics on Twitter @LMitchPhysio
Find tools and templates to aid your reflections here at the CSP ePortfolio and learning hub
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