Using a Gibbs reflective cycle

(1) reflect on what you have learned during you intellectual disability day service placement in relation to problem-solving and decision making surrounding a management issue.

(2) demonstrate the learning that has taken place for you in relation to the management and leadership skills required to manage and lead care within a healthcare setting and

(3) examine the learning that has taken place for you in relation to communication skill development with service users and multidisciplinary team within the intellectual disability day service.

Using the Model

You can use the model to explore a situation yourself, or you can use it with someone you’re coaching  – we look at coaching use in this article, but you can apply the same approach when you’re on your own.

To structure a coaching session using Gibbs’ Cycle, choose a situation to analyze and then work through the steps below.

Step 1: Description

First, ask the person you’re coaching to describe the situation in detail. At this stage, you simply want to know what happened – you’ll draw conclusions later.

Consider asking questions like these to help him describe the situation:

• When and where did this happen?
• Why were you there?
• Who else was there?
• What happened?
• What did you do?
• What did other people do?
• What was the result of this situation?