Assessment Title
Blog and Learning Reflections
Task Description
This is an INDIVIDUAL assessment that consists of three components:
Blog detailing your weekly activities and learning (multi-media)
Reflective report, which details your learning journey and explicitly cross-references the blog (written)
Self- and Peer-Assessment of groups from assessment 2 (online questionnaire)
Weekly blog:
Blogs are a useful tool for yourself to keep track of activities you have carried out, as well as to nurture your writing and reflection skills. When published, blogs can also become powerful communication tools that enable you to share your experiences and learning with your stakeholders and the wider community. This assessment enables you to practice your practical blogging skills with real blogging software.
For this assessment, you are required to regularly record your weekly activities in the form of a blog and to submit the blog (or the web link to the relevant blogging website) as part of assessment 3. Blog entries need to be time stamped and demonstrate regular engagement with the blogging software throughout the term. Students who do not engage with the regular blogging activity and attempt to retrospectively write up their thoughts in one go at the end of term will lose out on important marks.
You should make sure your blog entries are reflective in nature, rather than merely describing the activities you have carried out – a template will be provided in Moodle to help you with this and on-campus students will be encouraged to use some of the class time to record their reflections. The fact that you are recording your activities and learning on a weekly basis helps you develop your group report (assessment 2), as well as the reflective report (assessment 3).
You are strongly encouraged to add photographs, images, videos or other supporting material that may help you reflect. There is a blogging facility in Moodle, which you can use, or you may utilise any professional external blogging service, such as WordPress or Blogger. It is expected that entries are written at least once a week and each entry should be no shorter than 100 words. There is no prescribed maximum of entries or words per entry as experience showed that many students find this a useful learning exercise that they want to utilise to its full potential.
The blog component of assessment 3 is a pass-fail activity and markers will check it for completeness, suitability as a communication tool, and reference material for your reflective report. However, please note that you will not receive detailed written feedback about the blog content.
Reflective report:
While the blog is built throughout the term, the reflective report is to be developed towards the end of the term, as it requires you to present a critical self-analysis and reflection of your learning as a result of experiencing Design Thinking and entrepreneurial activity within this unit. The self-analysis and reflection must consider your personal development, as well as the development of your knowledge of Design Thinking and entrepreneurship topics. As a conclusion, students are to develop an action plan of key events and activities that they can undertake over the next 6 months to acquire any knowledge, skills and behaviours identified as requiring development.
The reflective report should be submitted as a Word document with a length of 2,500 words (+/- 10%), excluding preliminaries, tables, figures and references. Your reflective report must make reference to appropriate academic literature and theory in a critical way. Moreover, the report it MUST make explicit reference to appropriate evidence in your blog using a clear cross-reference system. The reflective report must make use of at least 10 high-quality references (APA style).
Self- and Peer-Assessment (SPA):
You are required to fill in an online questionnaire, evaluating yourself and the peers you worked with for assessment 2 according to various team working criteria. This SPA questionnaire will be open for two weeks at the end of term and you will receive email communication about it. You are required to provide candid and fair evaluations of yourself and your group mates and – in controversial cases – you may be required to provide additional evidence to back up your evaluations. Please note that there is NO extension to the cut-off point for this SPA questionnaire and late completion is NOT possible – students who fail to fill in the SPA by the given deadline will receive a mark of 0 (zero) for this component of assessment 3.
Assessment Due Date
Week 12 Friday (6 Oct 2017) 11:45 am AEST
Return Date to Students
Results and feedback will be available in Moodle on certification date.
Weighting
40%
Assessment Criteria
Demonstrate regular use of the weekly blog by providing at least 12 time-stamped meaningful blog entries THROUGHOUT the term
Demonstrate clear cross-referencing between reflective report and evidence from the blog
Ability to present a candid and critical self-reflection of knowledge and personal development resulting from experiencing Design Thinking and entrepreneurial activity
Ability to analyse self-reflection to identify personal strengths, weaknesses, and areas in need of development
Ability to devise an action plan, supported by literature, that addresses key development needs
Demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 10 high-quality sources
Correct use of the APA referencing system
Contribution to the group in assessment 2 as evaluated by yourself and your group members (Self- and Peer-Assessment)
See Moodle for more detailed assessment rubric. Late submission and academic misconduct penalties apply as per the university regulations.
As Masters students you are required to engage in research as per the Australia Quality Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice, and demonstrate -knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”.
Each unit in the Postgraduate course has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as Masters students, indicate a willingness to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research.
Students should insure that they understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if they meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research.
Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE (a full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment).
Referencing Style
American Psychological Association (APA)
Submission
Online
Submission Instructions
Word document (reflective report) INCLUDING web link to your blog via Moodle; SPA questionnaire to be filled in online by the given deadline
Learning Outcomes Assessed
Develop ideas for new designs and innovations in social, service, commercial and digital contexts using design thinking.
Discuss and apply design methodology for prototyping your ideas.
Incubate solutions for your innovation ideas for social, service, commercial and digital contexts.
Work collaboratively in groups to design an example of your innovation for social, service, digital and commercial contexts.
Graduate Attributes
Knowledge
Communication
Cognitive, technical and creative skills
Research
Self-management
Ethical and Professional Responsibility
Leadership