Often times or sometimes it happens you really mess up big time. But do you know? You can avoid further accidents if you reflect upon past holocausts.
What is ERA Cycle? Let’s Take An Overview of The ERA Cycle & Understand it’s Concept Better
The ERA cycle reflection first made its debut back in 2013. Through a book titled as ‘Beginning Of Reflective Model.’ It is a book which was written by Melanie Jasper also back in 2013. The exact year when it was published. Now you must have heard, read or at some point came across Kolb’s Reflective Model.
You might be wondering. Why did we bring Kolb’s Reflective Model into our conversation? Well, because the ERA Cycle is a lot similar to Kolb’s reflective model. But the difference is that the ERA Cycle is a lot simpler in juxtaposition to the Kolb’s one. It only consists of 3 key stages.
What Are The 3 Key Stages for The ERA Cycle?
ERA Cycle is consisted of only 3 key stages. Among other famous reflective models. The ERA Cycle reflection is a lot simple and is most suitable for beginners. Having only 3 stages to reflect upon your horrendous past events is also suitable for teaching kids about the practice of reflection. The 3 key stages of the ERA cycle are:
- Experience.
- Reflection.
- Action.
If you would have a nice look at these stages. You will most definitely be likely to hunch. Where the name for this cycle has been driven from. That’s right. Taking out initial of each stage. Spells out ‘ERA’ which is actually a pretty smart thing to do. But apart from the chat. Let’s have a look at them with more practical approach. These 3 keys stages are like each block of a fortress.
Because these components build era reflective cycles practices for practitioners. And highlight the major occurrences for the disasters. Irrespectively, whether it was a nice experience for you. Or it was a total disaster that you don’t ever want to experience again. To introspect those crucial events in our lives regardless of their quality.
Only helps us to understand life better. It helps to build morals and principles in our lives. Which is why ERA cycle out of all the other model is plain simple reflective model that helps you to self-introspect without making it too complicated for yourself.
How Does ERA Cycle Work?
Melanie Jasper is the author of book ‘Beginning Of Reflective Model.’ Who first introduced this cycle out in the world. Suggested: ‘When somethings in your life happens for the very first time.’ Something that is (Ordinary, something that is extra ordinary, good, bad, mediocre, average, excellent, any situation).
When you experience something. You bring it to your attention. And furthermore, you start to reflect upon that situation. Not just casually, but with great attention to detail, you start to reflect upon those circumstances. Oh! I guess we forgot to mention it, but this is actually a part of the cycle. You reflect upon the context.
Moreover, you observe your feelings—how did you feel in that particular moment of time? Were you sad, happy, angry, depressed, heartbroken, and so many other emotions? That could be felt in such different situations.
On the basis of how did you reflect upon the situation and introspecting your feelings? You formulate yourself well for the next step. Which is the self-improvement step? Where you improve yourself for the better future. In such a case, you would have to go through similar or the same situation again.
Now Let’s Break The 3 Stages Into Sessions To Understand Them Better
STAGE 1: EXPERIENCE
Experience is the first stage of the cycle; this is where you meticulously. Examine the situations that happened to you. Scrutinising good and bad experiences further leads to the next stage. But it is important to precisely reflect upon your past first. In order to help you with reflection. You can take assistance from such key questions that would come off as helpful to you.
These questions hold great significance for reflection. Because if you are practicing the cycle on someone. Helping them to acknowledge their past. Or if you are writing a project about it. Under this question, you will write or mention all of the factual information. Which leads to a better understanding of the situation.
Under this question lies the answer to things that were involved. The aspects that resulted in the situation that happened.
Reaction is important for the cycle; you must acknowledge and recall your reaction to that situation. And the reaction of people who were involved.
STAGE 2: REFLECTION
Now, that you have examined the situation is for you to analyze them. The stage 2 reflection is actually analyzing phase. Where you would observe the situation. The questions to help you provide assistance for that are:
At the time of going through that particular situation. How did you feel? What were your emotions? Whatever you felt in that time. You address them.
This question will help you to come up with different upbringings for your situation. If you think about your situation about things like. What have you been through, and how did you react in that context? You create a parallel alternative musing in your mind. By speculating how different things could have been like if you had acted any differently. It helps you to understand the concept of to think before act.
Being considerate of what skills you need to change. It helps you to avoid the possibility of acting the same for similar situations in the future.
Addressing the main reasons for the successful outcome for a particular situation or the failure. That you had to endure will help you to acknowledge. What was good for you and what was bad for you.
STEP 3: ACTION
Once you have done all of the introspection that was needed for the process. It is time for some action. Well, not right now. But the centric objective of this cycle is to make atonements within yourself. In case you go through similar situations in the future or face the same situation again. The few questions for this stage are enlisted below for you:
It is a very helpful question to ask yourself because this question. Will further take you into depth of reflection. And will assist you to understand. What did you do the first time? which led you to such an outcome.
Everything has a right time for it. You cannot. And you shouldn’t execute anything at any given moment. Understand first when it will be the right time for you to implement your learnings.
This question will reflect upon. What went wrong as we have spoken further. But this will also bring a sense of atonement in your perception giving you a sense of right.
ERA Cycle Reflection of a Nurse Framework Example
Here we have an example of era-cycle nursing. That evidently shows a nurse story of how she implemented the practice in her occupation effortlessly.
Stage 1: Experience in ERA Cycle Nursing Practice
When this situation happened, what were the other contributions to it?
What was your or the people, if any were involved in the situation, and how did they react to this?
Stage 2: Reflection In Era Cycle Nursing Practice
Instead of reacting the way you did, could you have reacted differently?
What skills do you need to atone for in order to avoid reacting the same way in the future?
What was the reason for things going bad or good in that particular situation?
When I reflected upon the situation from a positive perspective. I realised having someone else do it for me initially was actually a good call for the first time, because I can follow the same template in the future for a similar case. But being overwhelmed by so many emotions simultaneously made me question my ability, knowledge, and education, which resulted in a great lack of confidence. Furthermore, my senior supervisor did compliment me for my initial great start and my ability to detect the symptom, but due to being anxious with so much pressure, I had lost the confidence to do it myself and was second-guessing my credentials. My supervisor advised me it was a great call to be double sure of the situation first. But each patient walks in with something different, so having high confidence is very important.
Stage 3: Action In ERA Cycle nursing practice
What is the right time for you to execute your learnings?
What did I do last time that led me to that context and how should I be from now?
Conclusion
There is a lot of similarity between Kolb’s reflective model and ERA cycle. Almost all reflective models serve the same purpose of reflection upon past but the ERA cycle is actually a lot simple in comparison to other reflective models. And can be easily implemented into study and life as it only holds three key stages to get a life changing revelation.
