GDO710 - Week 5 - Reflection
For week 5 our focus has been on reflection, methods for approaching reflection, and understanding why we should be good practitioners of critical reflection. As part of our challenge this week we were asked to review our past critical reflection journals to see how often they touch on the Five Reflective Domains.
Feelings and thoughts:
I was feeling disappointed in my reflection journals, as I felt like I was only reflecting on one dimension of my work at any given time. As I worked through the content this week, I started to feel better about a new approach I started last week. Last week was the first week I started to draft my CRJs using the Gibbs' Cycle of Reflection. I feel like this approach is starting to give me a good framework on how to approach reflection.
I am worried that by sticking to this format, or framework, it won't allow me to fully explore my challenges and reflect. But I believe that once I build a rhythm of reflection (I like that!) I can start to adapt the framework to my needs. Right now this process is about building good habit as a design practitioner.
Evaluation:
This week my review went well, I was able to better understand how critical reflection should be applied to my work. I like how my approach with the Gibbs' Cycle of Reflection progressing. However, I would like to be able to dive deeper in all the facets of my work throughout the week. The Gibbs' Cycle feels like it was designed to reflect on one experience at a time, rather than a collection of experiences. I might need to explore writing multiple reflections throughout the week, then consolidating my experiences, rather than attempting one summary reflection at the end of the week.
Time management continues to be a challenge for me in this module. I feel that most of my work feels like an after thought, rather than being a key focus of my week. This needs to be addressed as the course moves forward and more time is required to for project development and reflection.
Analysis:
In evaluating my CRJs this week, I confirmed my feeling that I was being very one-dimensional with posts. Following the concept of the five reflective domains, I could see my posts were focused mostly on the 5th domain: procedural. In this domain, knowledge shared is focused around what was done or the process in which I took (Procedural thinking - Computer Science Wiki, 2021).
You can see how one dimensional my journal entries have been so far.
I am continuing to explore various time and project management techniques to help balance my work, life, and school requirements. I am still exploring these areas, but this is week two of having a Kanban board for all my coursework, which I am hopeful with provide me with balance in these areas.
Conclusion:
I have learned this week that my lack of focus on the CRJs has led them to be very one-dimensional. It is easier for me to write about the process I took, but not as easy for me to explore all the other areas of my work.
After posting about this on the discussion forum, I've realized that this might be due to the "work" nature of my writing as of late. My work related writing tends to focus on what was done, or what I am doing, and rarely on reflecting back.
Action plan:
I am planning on drafting multiple reflection notes throughout the week as I work on various tasks related to the weekly lessons. The goal is to break up the reflections so I can go deeper on each area, rather than what feels like a general summary.
Additionally, I am planning on starting the week highlighting my goal for the week in my journal. Then coming back to the goal and reflecting on it, seeing how I progressed over the week.
References:
Computersciencewiki.org. 2021. Procedural thinking - Computer Science Wiki. [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 October 2021].