Driscoll’s model of reflection: What? So what? Now what?

Three questions, a short worked example, and when this model suits you better than a longer one.

What Driscoll’s model is

John Driscoll’s model asks three questions about an experience: What? So what? Now what? It is the shortest of the well-known reflective models, which makes it a good fit for a busy week, a supervision note or a quick CPD entry.

The three questions

What? Describe what happened. What you did, what others did, and how it ended.
So what? Make sense of it. How you felt, what went well or badly, and what you understand now that you did not at the time.
Now what? Decide what changes. What you will do differently, keep doing, or need to learn.

A worked example

What? A client arrived twenty minutes late to a session and was visibly upset. I kept to the planned work, and the session felt flat. They cancelled the following week.

So what? I felt under pressure to get through the plan, and I missed what the lateness and the upset were telling me. Looking back, holding to the plan served my sense of order more than it served the client.

Now what? When someone arrives unsettled, I will name it and ask what they need from the time we have before deciding what to do with it. I will take this to supervision.

When to use it

Use Driscoll when you want something short and practical. If your form or assessor asks for more depth on feelings and analysis, Gibbs gives you six stages to work through instead.

Keep it anonymous

Remove names, places and anything that could identify a person. Reflect on what you learned rather than on who was involved.

Reflect with Driscoll by speaking

ReflectReady has Driscoll as one of its models. You say what happened in your own words and it sorts them under What? So what? Now what?, ready to read, edit and keep. The AI only sorts your words, it never writes them. Free to try.

Sources: University of Cambridge: Reflective Practice Toolkit.