RECENT ASSIGNMENT

Assessment Task 2: Essay: Reflective Practice
Due: Wednesday, September 23 at 8pm
Word count: 1,500 (although there can be some wriggle room [+/- 10%] under-writing is not encouraged)
Weighting: 35%
This assignment draws on many of the skills you have developed during Assessment Task 1. At the beginning of the trimester you were asked to write weekly ‘blogs’ – a form of reflective practice. These blogs should be ongoing and include Week 9, the week before the assignment is due.
There are four sections to this assignment – and although the guidelines are written here, these will also be discussed online and face-to-face during seminars, so be sure to attend and review all resources provided.
Section 1: Introduction – this simply provides an overview of what will be covered. It helps the marker know all elements have been included.
Section 2: In this section, consider your blogs and begin to identify - what has changed (regarding your focus and thinking and approach to learning) over time?
This process includes a relevant summary of your week to week reflections (blogs) where you note what you have focused on and written about. You will need to provide copies of these (some students print and and attach to the end of the assignment and scan the resulting submission – best to have a single document).
Apply thematic analysis (as many of you would have done in At1) and critical thinking to your blogs to identify patterns and themes that (for example) document growing awareness of shifting perspectives on an issue, or document deepening knowledge or shifts in values, attitudes and beliefs. In other words, what has changed over time? These changes are evident in many of the blogs students have already posted. Being a reflective practice assessment, the use of ‘I’ is acceptable and appropriate.
Note: writing blogs at the last minute will work against you – this section is very difficult to do as a cramming exercise – the quality of the work will suffer, and it will be obvious to the marker.
Section 3: In this section, consider what are the implications of these changes?
Review the themes you have identified in Section 2 – what has changed over time – and discuss the implications of these changes as they relate to your own personal and professional life. Sometimes during our learning journey we have many ‘light-bulb’ moments when we perceive differently or approach things differently to how we did before – what are the implications of this – how might things be different moving forward as a result.
As part of this section, discuss how reflective practice is a useful process for becoming ‘work-ready’. In other words, how does reflective learning deepen your thinking and observations – how is it useful? Many will be graduating after this unit, and it’s important to identify how reflective practice contributes to lifelong learning.
Section 4: Conclusion
Considering what you have written and discovered in Sections 2 & 3, and having engaged with the process, what was the Most Significant Change (MSC) overall and what makes it significant and meaningful to you?
Section 4: Document Management
Be sure to allow enough time to provide a high standard of document management, written communication and presentation (including accurate referencing and citation styles). Include your reference list.
Be sure to include a title page with student name, number, referencing style (Harvard or APA) and word count.
Resources:
Many are provided to help you with this assignment – be sure to refer to them, including:
1. Assignment readings on thematic analysis and reflective practice which you will find under the Readings List tab Assignment Readings.
2. These guidelines and a marking guide
3. A PowerPoint slide in the At2 folder
4. Discussions in face-to-face sessions and online
5. An exemplar of reflective practice written by a student from a different unit.
Submission Process
Please aim to upload your assignment in the appropriate drop-box as a single document (Word or PDF).