For one of the holiday projects we were given was to research and learn about reflective writing. We were given a website on which were 9 interviews with students and university lecturers and tutors about writing reflectively.
Although I found the videos helpful, after the fourth person of saying nearly exactly the same thing as the one before, it got a little tedious, but all of the interviewees had good pointers for writing. The main factor in reflective writing is to be honest, there’s no point in jazzing things up, the point in it is to be helpful for you when you look back on it and see how you could improve certain aspects of various projects. It is also supposedly a good way of learning about yourself. As Catherine Smith, senior lecturer at LCC, said, once you see something written down or say something out load, you are more likely to see it in a different light when you go back and read it, which I could connect to. If you have a problem with a something, for example have an argument with a friend, once you go away and try and work out what happened, you are most likely going to realise that in the heat of the moment you see things with blinkers on and you need to step back from the moment to re organise your thoughts and come to a conclusion, I can see how that can be translated into work. When you get given a brief, you don’t necessarily understand right away, so go away think about it, and write down what you don’t understand and what you think it means, generally you probably had the right idea, but were so overwhelmed with the amount of information given to you that you just couldn’t see it clearly.
The videos all said that you need to keep a pen and paper with you at all times for any thoughts or inspirations you have or see during your day, which I already do, or at least I do with inspirations. A few words and quick doodles every now and again to remind me of things when I get home and can put into practice at a later date, but I know I really should be doing it a lot more. Unfortunately short term memory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, or at least it isn’t with me, give me 5 minutes or put something shiny in front of me and I can wave goodbye to any thoughts I might just have had. So if there is one thing that I am going to try and do from now on is make notes.
The other main thing that the interviewees had to say, in particular Darren Raven another lecturer from LCC, was that when writing reflectively is it’s all about the asking yourself the 6 fundamental questions, ‘what, why, when, how, where and who’. Those questions can be applied to every aspect, of what you’re writing about. Feelings, quality of what you’re doing, new skills and learning so that you have written down the experience and won’t forget it. Don’t leave it to the last minute, which I know I’m useless at, if you document everything constantly then you can reorganise thoughts and problem solve which will help with time management skills, which I know I need, and in the end give you a more positive feeling about what you’re doing as you can keep on top of it. What I personally feel I should really work on is taking notes constantly, every lesson or lecture I have I need to be writing down how I personally did something or thought about a particular object, seeing as this in the end is for me, no one else. It is also, I have found a good way of improving things for next time, similar to a SWOT analysis, write down what needs to be done, what you have done, and how you can improve it. What went well and what didn’t so it’ll save time next time you’re about to do something that didn’t work last time, find another way around it. That way it’s the best of learning about yourself, what you like and why and how you learn best, visual, audio of by doing something.
Although they were immensely repetitive the videos really were helpful, when you hear something enough times you start believe it must be true, and that’s kind of what I’m thinking about this. Out of all the interviewees I found Catherine Smith the most helpful, although she said similar things to the other interviewees, she said it in a different way which for some reason I could understand and relate to more than some of the others. And writing this out, it is clear to me that there are certain aspects that I need to progress, improve or even start doing when it comes to work, organisation and time management being the key things, so according to the videos this is the best way of doing that, I just actually need to put it into practice now...
Although I found the videos helpful, after the fourth person of saying nearly exactly the same thing as the one before, it got a little tedious, but all of the interviewees had good pointers for writing. The main factor in reflective writing is to be honest, there’s no point in jazzing things up, the point in it is to be helpful for you when you look back on it and see how you could improve certain aspects of various projects. It is also supposedly a good way of learning about yourself. As Catherine Smith, senior lecturer at LCC, said, once you see something written down or say something out load, you are more likely to see it in a different light when you go back and read it, which I could connect to. If you have a problem with a something, for example have an argument with a friend, once you go away and try and work out what happened, you are most likely going to realise that in the heat of the moment you see things with blinkers on and you need to step back from the moment to re organise your thoughts and come to a conclusion, I can see how that can be translated into work. When you get given a brief, you don’t necessarily understand right away, so go away think about it, and write down what you don’t understand and what you think it means, generally you probably had the right idea, but were so overwhelmed with the amount of information given to you that you just couldn’t see it clearly.
The videos all said that you need to keep a pen and paper with you at all times for any thoughts or inspirations you have or see during your day, which I already do, or at least I do with inspirations. A few words and quick doodles every now and again to remind me of things when I get home and can put into practice at a later date, but I know I really should be doing it a lot more. Unfortunately short term memory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, or at least it isn’t with me, give me 5 minutes or put something shiny in front of me and I can wave goodbye to any thoughts I might just have had. So if there is one thing that I am going to try and do from now on is make notes.
The other main thing that the interviewees had to say, in particular Darren Raven another lecturer from LCC, was that when writing reflectively is it’s all about the asking yourself the 6 fundamental questions, ‘what, why, when, how, where and who’. Those questions can be applied to every aspect, of what you’re writing about. Feelings, quality of what you’re doing, new skills and learning so that you have written down the experience and won’t forget it. Don’t leave it to the last minute, which I know I’m useless at, if you document everything constantly then you can reorganise thoughts and problem solve which will help with time management skills, which I know I need, and in the end give you a more positive feeling about what you’re doing as you can keep on top of it. What I personally feel I should really work on is taking notes constantly, every lesson or lecture I have I need to be writing down how I personally did something or thought about a particular object, seeing as this in the end is for me, no one else. It is also, I have found a good way of improving things for next time, similar to a SWOT analysis, write down what needs to be done, what you have done, and how you can improve it. What went well and what didn’t so it’ll save time next time you’re about to do something that didn’t work last time, find another way around it. That way it’s the best of learning about yourself, what you like and why and how you learn best, visual, audio of by doing something.
Although they were immensely repetitive the videos really were helpful, when you hear something enough times you start believe it must be true, and that’s kind of what I’m thinking about this. Out of all the interviewees I found Catherine Smith the most helpful, although she said similar things to the other interviewees, she said it in a different way which for some reason I could understand and relate to more than some of the others. And writing this out, it is clear to me that there are certain aspects that I need to progress, improve or even start doing when it comes to work, organisation and time management being the key things, so according to the videos this is the best way of doing that, I just actually need to put it into practice now...
To view the videos click HERE
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