Reflective Practice Information

Information that will assist you in completing your reflective practice

Record of activity

Record each activity you undertake relating to search and rescue. Include in this log, the situation, your role, and the skills you practiced. The recording of the activity is not the reflective practice in itself but is a summary of what you did and when it occurred so you can refer back to it.

Undertake reflective practice.

It is important to take it quietly and not rush the process but realise that by working through the learning cycle it will improve your abilities, knowledge and application of techniques.

Reflection Practice may be undertaken on, but is not limited to:

• SAR operation

• A training activity or SAR exercise

• Anytime that you were utilizing the skills or subject matter learnt on the course or utilization of some concepts taught on the course in other applications such as in business or in the workplace.

Some important points to consider when completing reflective practice are:

• The quality of reflection and the learning that you derive from it (i.e. what you will continue to do and why you will continue to do it that way as well as what you would do differently next time and how you will do it different) is more important than quantity of time involved.

• Every element in the standard need not be reflected on separately – it is the reflection on the general coverage of the skills and knowledge of the learning outcomes within the SAR context that is needed.

• We are particularly looking for lessons you have learnt in when reflecting on your experience - what would you have been done differently or more efficiently and how you might implement these improvements in the future.

• For experienced practitioners you can reflect on past experience in SAR operations and training and reflecting on this context of the course content.

• You may also reflect on the actions of others or an incident that you have been involved in, it does not have to be your specific actions so long as you were involved and have firsthand knowledge.

• Focus on the task and activities - not the people. It should be a reflection on the practice and actions, not a criticism of others.

• The required times in the reflective Practice Standards(No less than 70 hours) indicate the amount of activity time that should be reflected on – not the amount of time you need to speed reflecting

As you can see from the above, reflective practice is not a log of your activities, but an important component of the learning and improvement cycle that aims to make SAR stronger. We hope this explanation will make it easier for you to complete this valuable learning component.

What is your assessor looking for?

The reflective practice is your experience, analysis and plan for the future. The evidence we are looking for is:

• You can provide an account of your experience.

• Record the skills that you used and show the relevance to the outcomes within the course.

• Demonstrate an awareness of the strengths and/or weakness of your experience.

• Ask further questions if you are unclear or demonstrate an understanding of the skills.

• Plan the way you would approach the situation next time.

• Reflection is an individual analytical process.

• A few scribbled sentences do not do it justice, use the reflective journal as a guide.