Week 6 - Wednesday: Symposium Session 3

This week’s academic symposium has illustrated to me the importance of using explicit justified criteria for making judgements about my work. The session saw us split into groups and examine some posts from each other's blogs. Based on the feedback I received, I notice that so far my blog posts haven't established any external criteria that I am using to evaluate my creative decisions. I feel this is something that I need to rectify in order to maintain a level of objectivity in regards to my creative process. My personal opinion of "It looks good, therefore..." is not an acceptable justification to use for my key design choices. I am looking to establish a set criteria that anyone with a comparable knowledge or skill level to me, could use to arrive at a similar conclusion. I feel this is especially important to establish within this academic blog as my creative solutions will be evidence based, allowing me to draw directly from sources such as theorists and commentators. 

In regards to my reflective writing I was presented with three examples to help structure my posts:

• Gibbs' Reflective Cycle
• Johns' Model of Structured Reflection
• Driscoll's Model of Reflection (The What Model)

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

Gibbs’ reflective cycle breaks down each step of an activity and organises them into an easy to follow chart. I find myself liking this approach because it is easy to structure my reflections using the headings.

I think this will be useful in helping me to categorise my project into individual phases and thus be able to provide clearer reflections on each unique activity.

Johns' Model of Structured Reflection

Johns' Model poses questions that are classified by type rather than the order in which they should be asked. That is not to say there isn't a logical lead in for each question, however I find myself preferring the approach of Gibbs because I find it easier to categorise things in a set order rather than by category. Below I have tried to organise some questions using Johns' criteria for reflection based on an example from Oxford Brookes University website:

• Aesthetic Questions - According to the Oxford Brookes University website, Johns' use of the word 'Aesthetic' is meant to relate to the actions I chose to take throughout the project. This is causing me a bit of a disconnect however, as I am inclined to link these questions purely to the visual aspect of my work (i.e why I have made certain artistic decisions) and not factor in the broader implications that Johns meant by using the word.
• Personal Questions - How I identify my own actions as well as the external factors that have influenced me.
• Ethics Questions - How I ask myself whether my actions were consistent with my beliefs and the accepted practice within my field. (i.e. No stealing work or using things without credit)
• Empiric Questions - These questions identify how I have learnt throughout the process and ask me to pinpoint specific areas of growth.

Just from writing these questions I can already feel that I am going to struggle if I adopt this style for reflection. It feels like these questions are quite broad and I don't know if I will be able to focus as well if I use this approach.

Driscoll Model of Reflection

This approach formulates questions and places them within the following three categories:

• What? - What is the purpose of the activity?
• So What? - What are my responses to this?
• Now What? - What do I take away from this and how can I adapt to a similiar situation in the future?

I quite like this approach for its simplicity. Although the categories are still quite broad, I feel they are somehow easier for me to define what to place in them unlike with Johns' approach. So far I am leaning towards using either the Gibbs' or Driscoll method for my reflective writing.

DRISCOLL, J. (2000) Practising Clinical Supervision. Edinburgh: Balliere Tindall

GIBBS, G. (1988) Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

JOHNS, C. (1995) Framing learning through reflection within Carper’s fundamental ways of knowing in nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 22. p. 226234.
 
OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY (2018) About Johns’ model of structured reflection. [Online] Available from: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/students/upgrade/study-skills/reflective-writing-johns/ [Accessed: 27/06/2018]