REFLECTION STARTERS*

• What did I learn from this? Of what value is my learning to my future role as a physical therapist?
• How does what you learned this year fit within the larger context of your becoming a physical therapist?
• Discuss your thoughts and feelings about this past year. In what ways, if any, have they changed?
• Use a metaphor to complete the following statement, “To me, this past year in PT school was like…..”
• Describe the point in the year in which you were most engaged/disengaged in the process and why? (include your thoughts and feelings at the time) What about it most intrigued/excited you? What did you learn from it? In what ways did it change your thoughts or feelings? In what ways did it add to your professional development.
• Discuss what in particular about this year most helped in your development as a professional.
• Describe the low point of your year. What made it particularly low? What were you feeling at the time? What did it make you think?  What did you learn from it? What new strategies have you learned as a result? How might you do things differently next time?
• Discuss what you learned about yourself….areas of personal strengths, or where you need improvement, areas in which you had difficulty or where you felt particularly good about your skills, etc. Explain
• Describe what most surprised you this year and why? What did you feel, think and do about it?  What did you learn from this experience? Explain
• Discuss your experiences of working in different groups. What made it easy? What made it difficult? What would you do next time to enhance the process of the group?
• Describe the most important thing you learned this year, what would it be and why?
• What have you learned about how you learn? How might this help you become a more effective learner?
• Discuss what made PT school different for you than previous schools you have attended? What did you find particularly helpful in your development this year? What most hindered your development in school this past year?
• Discuss a time you were working in the clinic ad you had to  stop and think, “Wow, that was not what I expected!” What did it make you think? How did it make you feel? What did you do? What did you learn from the experience?
• What was the greatest challenge you faced this past year? Were you able to overcome that challenge? If so, how? If not, why and what would have helped? What did you learn from this challenge? How might you approach it differently next time?
• Describe something you learned that you never expected to learn or that you had never thought about before. How did you learn that? How will this impact your development as a physical therapist?
• In what ways have you modified you modified your communication and interactions with others? What was the impetus for the change? In what ways do you see this impacting your patient-therapist relationship in the future?
• In what ways would you like to modify your behaviors in the future? What made you recognize that a change would be beneficial? In what ways do you see this change enhancing your development as a professional and your future interactions with patients and other health care workers?
• Describe how you feel about where you are in the continuum of professional development. Are you satisfied? If so, what do you see as your next step? What strategies do you have in place to achieve that next step? What supports will you seek to achieve that next step? If not, what have been some of the obstacles you have been faced with that have made your professional development more difficult? What strategies have you tried to overcome these barriers? What other strategies will you try? What supports will you seek to optimize your success?
• In retrospect, what is the one thing that most disappoints you about your performance this past year? Why? How do you feel about it? What do you think was the underlying causes? What will you do differently this year?
• Reflect upon your experiences over the past year, how do you currently feel about your future role as a physical therapist? In what ways has your thinking changed about your future role? How might this impact how you continue to pursue your goal?
• What was the most important piece of feedback you received this year? In what ways was it effective and in what ways did it change your thinking/behaviors?

* NOTE: These are sample reflection starters. They are only meant to get your mind thinking about your learning and professional development. They are NOT meant as the only questions you can answer. Feel free to use them, feel free to mix and match questions, or feel free to not use them at all and develop essays or metaphors of your own as you develop your progressive e-Portfolio.