Reflections and Process

I would say that I am naturally reflective and am a person that ponders and mulls through things before taking action.  However, I think this has probably come from  being the same person that also can act on impulse. This I have found through experience, is sometimes good, and sometimes not so good. The result of which all stems from the power of reflection and hind sight!  I believe that everyone in life experiences some kind of reflection and depending on what we do with our lives throughout our day to day activities depends on what level of reflection we choose to work with in order to empower our understanding of the developments in the world around us.

Since the beginning MAPP (DTP) I have been on an adventurous journey of learning; I know things now that I was completely ignorant to before embarking on the course and it has made me hungry to discover more and more.  In terms of digesting these new experiences I have used the power of reflection to inform and consolidate anything and everything that I have done and learnt so far.  It is the 'key' to where I am now in terms of my research study and almost acts as a confidante that enables and supports each task that I have done throughout modules 1, 2 and now 3.  In a strange way I almost find my reflective journal as being cathartic............not sure if that's the same for everyone, but for me I'm able to make notes, scribble thoughts and somehow this makes everything clearer in the long run, especially when I read back over the facts and emotions that have been recorded.  I suppose it's like having a one to one with yourself, re-evaluating what you've written and making sense of it all.  It's part of the process that provides clarity. 

 

My reflective journal is definitely my 'power tool' when it comes to writing essays, it becomes a text in its own right.  One of the hardest things for me throughout the MAPP journey, was having the confidence to trust my own abilities, working autonomously.  I'm not sure if that's part of who I am or the fact that I haven't come through an H.E. route in my education; probably a little bit of both. Nevertheless, my reflective journal has served the purpose of strengthening my ability to act autonomously and grow in confidence.  My advise would be to write anything and everything down that is relevant to the task in hand, how you understand it or not as the case might be (I've got plenty of those in my journal), emotional feelings, what you need to do, what you have done and so on.  No matter how you write it or draw it, too many scribbles are never enough when it comes to the final writing for each module. 

 

The books that I found useful are:

 

Helyer, Ruth (2010) The Work-Based Learning Student Handbook: Palgrave Study Skills

 

Bassot, Barbara (2013) The Reflective Journal: Palgrave Macmillan

 

Moon, Jennifer A (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning, Theory and Practice: RoutledgeFalmer

 

Good luck to everyone...............exciting and nerve wracking times ahead, but reflect and think how far we've come in our personal journeys.