Developing Your Assessment Plan: A Key Component of Reflective Practice

New habits are hard to develop. Armed with both the best intentions and familiar excuses, we find it challenging to begin a new regimen even when we know it is good for us. New professional habits too are hard to develop, requiring a commitment of time, energy, and resources. We develop, practice, and refine new habits as we become reflective practitioners (Schon, 1995). This chapter encourages you to use your experience and to leverage the involvement of others in order to improve your work through systematic assessment and evaluation. We provide a rationale for the value of assessment, define common terminology, describe some principles of good practice, and advise you on developing an assessment plan for your work. [authors]