Module 1: Task 2B - Journal Writing Experience

I decided to try various ways of writing or rewriting my journal, in order to find brand new ways of reflecting on my learning and development. I therefore decided to take four different ways and experiment with each in order to see how I could track my process and find other ways of articulating my thoughts on the creative and teaching process. Trying different methods of reflection is something I hadn't considered until I had undertaken the Recognition of Learning module (as seen from my previous blogs) and since then I have become alot more open to trying different forms of reflection.

 

List

 

 

This is the way of reflecting that I preferred out of every form of reflection I tried and I think this is because I like to see things in a very structured format in my head. I like to take things step by step and by making a bullet pointed list, I could as a result expand on those clear and concise points and picture every step in my head. I normally like to write in bullet point form, mainly because you can really get down exactly what you truly want to say. To note things down, rather than dwell on them too much. I really like to be specific.

 

 

 Evaluation

 

  This way of writing is the standard way of reflection and one of my favourite ways to write, because it's free flowing and gets every single thought down on paper. I not only get to list everything that's happened, but I also get to really reflecting on every aspect. To me this is the next stage up from lists and bullet points, expanding your thoughts and making sense of them much more. This is more about adding the detail. I find that this particular way of writing tends to really flow and is much more conversational. To me, you can hear my voice when reading it, as it is a stream of the subconcious.

 

 Diagram

 

 

 

This was a useful method in terms of noting down the structure of the day, however I really didn't feel that this method was of much help to me. In my opinion this is the perfect way to map out structure BEFORE, but I'm not sure it always works for reflecting AFTER. I didn't feel that I could elaborate on my thoughts despite mapping out exactly what happened. For me, I need more substance and detail so that I truly understand exactly what I felt and when. I think that if I undertook this exercise again, I would be more inclined to draw arrows off of those initial events to show the thought expansion and make my reflection more detailed overall.

 

 

 Another View

 

 

 

This way of reflecting was the way that made me think that most, because through someone else's eyes I was able to assess how they truly felt about the experience. I decided to use this method for reflecting on the Drama Workshop, because I really wanted to see into the mind of someone who would find performing and integrating into a group quite difficult and therefore fugure out what worked so that I could keep tailoring my teaching to people of all abilities. I noticed that this particular girl was finding things quite overwhelming, but I wanted to try to see things from her perspective, because I saw that there was a big success for her from the lesson I taught. When i first met her, it was in a classroom and she was unable to control her emotions and her body. However, after taking part in my workshop, she was calm, smiling, happy and interacting with people in a peaceful way. It was like a therapy for her. Being a teacher means seeing things from a child's perspective and trying to understand them and their needs and by doing this exercise i was truly able to empathise. I orignally found this way of relfecting a little bizarre, but i've now realised that it's the perfect way for a trained actor to reflect...because my expertise is trying to understand how other people feel and think! Therefore, this was incredibly useful and is a method that truly surprised me.