The results of a fascinating study from psychologists at Harvard University and the University of Virginia were published earlier this month in the journal Science. In short, it concluded that men, for the most part, would prefer to experience an electric shock than be left alone with their thoughts. Thinking was far too painful.

It would be interesting to see how many of the participants were involved in a profession where reflective practice is not just advocated, but highly prized. Education is one such sector that thinks highly of it for it plays in perfectly with the philosophy of continued professional development in teachers.

Reflective practice is valued because it helps people grow not just as teachers or subject specialists, but also as individuals too. Socrates may have argued that the more he learnt, the less sure he was of everything, but in education, from a practitioner's point of view, the more knowledge the better.

At a base level, this aspect of professional development is about taking stock of what has happened, evaluating the successes and failures of it, making sense of your findings and then using that insight to further develop one's own practice (and that of others).

Consider it similar to the idea of Socratic questioning, a discipline that nurtures critical thinking. Reflective practice endeavours to keep you on your toes because, as we know all too well, we can get rather complacent and accept things as they are. Therefore, while positive aspects of your teaching continue, so too do negatives.

As soon as you start to question things, well, that's when you open yourself up to innovation and real, meaningful change. And it is not just you that benefits, but your students also, as well as your fellow teachers, your school, and, if you're ambitious, society at large.

In teaching, reflection has to have structure. It's great thinking about things, mulling them over on your way home, while you're making dinner and so forth, but really, to go beyond appreciating that something is amiss or needs to be reformed, you have to extricate yourself from everything and focus on the task at hand.

In order to do this, a 'reflection event' needs to be calculated, focused, structured, linked to theory and practice, and document what avenues of development you intend to pursue. There has to be progress, and while reflection is of course ongoing, having an endpoint of sorts for certain objectives means you can move forward as a teacher.

There is only so much that can be achieved from experience alone, as the renowned American educational philosopher John Dewey, who was passionate about the virtues of reflective practice, once said: "We do not learn from experience ... we learn from reflecting on experience." He is worth looking into, as his thinking has done a lot to transform reflection into a field of knowledge in its own right.

A basic model of reflection is as simple as outlining the event (description), documenting thoughts (feelings), making an assessment (evaluation), scrutinising this information (analysis), making a conclusion and then, finally, putting together an action plan. The latter is important because it gives you momentum. Otherwise, the likelihood is you file your reflection away and forget about it.

It takes a while getting used to it, that much is true, and indeed, as the opening of this piece outlined, deliberately making an effort to reflect in the literal sense of the word, in this busy day and age, is a rarity. Therefore it can feel alien. However, soon enough, you'll come to appreciate how useful, effective and life-changing it is.