Based on my own knowledge and experience, reflection has typically been a process where I engage in retrospective learning about myself in regards to a recent experience.  Some of the key questions to begin reflection include:

• Context: what was the situation?
• Actors: who was there? What was my role?
• The story: what happened (objectively speaking)? What were the unknown variables?
• My initial reactions: how did I react to the event? Why did I react this way?
• Peer engagement: how did the other people react? What may have motivated or driven them to act this way?
• My follow up interactions: how did I react to the other people’s actions, words, or feelings?
• Overall experience: how did I feel during this event and why?
• Takeaway: what did I learn from this experience? How has it transformed my thoughts, knowledge, or perspective?
• Next steps: what could I have done differently? What do I know now that I previously did not?

As presented by OpenLearn (n.d.), reflective thinking is a process of comparing past knowledge and assumptions with new information, and interpreting, justifying, and evaluating actions. My reflective process above align closely with the six wise men model of reflection (Wilfred Laurier University, n.d.).

OpenLearn (n.d.) also suggests two aspects: reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. In this course, reflection-in-action was critical to during the development of the collaborative team rubric. As my team created the rubric, I asked myself questions like: why am I doing this activity? What is the purpose and learning that I should take away from this activity? How do I ensure that I have gained this knowledge or new perspective? Additionally, reflection-in-action provided direction in the design of my digital resource. Why am I creating this resource? What are my intentions? How do I ensure my design delivers the message and goals to the audience?

On the other hand, my design note created space for my reflection-on-action. What was my rationale for choosing one design idea over another? What knowledge or theories informed my decision? What did I learn from the research and the overall process?

Lastly, OpenLearn (n.d.) suggests the third type of reflective thinking: reflection ‘for’ action. As I moved through this course and submitted the progress and subsequent steps of the design note and resource prototype, peer and instructor feedback helped engage reflection on what could be done differently and why this may be important.

Throughout this course, the learning that was most eye-opening for me was the process of sharing the design with peers, including my ideas, thoughts, and rationale for the design decisions. As each peer came from varying backgrounds and were tackling designs for resources that were specific to our context, the challenge was to articulate our goals, contexts, and ideas in a way that would make sense to others who are not involved in the context. Having to discuss the information plainly and comprehensively highlighted potential areas where the users of the digital resource may need more explanation or simplification in the design. Overall, the peer interactions in the course demonstrated the importance of collaboration and user testing and feedback in the process of creating an effective design.

As we head towards the MALAT capstone project, I believe that these experiences will help guide the way I reflect on my research and how I may synthesize the knowledge to help others or apply to my own context.

References

OpenLearn. (n.d.). Succeeding in post-graduate study: Session 2 – reflective thinking, reflective learning and academic writing. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=51386

Wilfrid Laurier University. (n.d.). Reflective writing. Write online. https://writeonline.ca/reflective-essay.php?content=section2