Assessment 2: Reflection

Adapted from work by Rhonni Sasaki

From the task sheet…

• Assessment overview• This reflective journal requires you to demonstrate your

understanding of the information you’ve learned and gathered over the last three weeks. Ideally you will incorporate this information with your own understandings and experiences of PR. As such you will be able to generate new schemas and conceptual frameworks.

• We hope to guide you through this personal reflection process by offering questions to which you should respond using the information provided by content pages and weekly readings as well as any other research or reading you’ve undertaken on your own.

Motivation:Extrinsic: 30% across two journal entries. Intrinsic: Immeasurable?

From the task sheet…

Assessment details• Your reflection should seek to address the two following

questions:• Is public relations theory and practice universal? Should good

practitioners allow for variations in local operating environments? (Provide a couple of examples of how this might be done).

• Is there organizational value in reflecting the population and cultural diversity of an organisation’s operating environment with its representative team of public relations professionals? If so why? If not, why not?

600 words (+/- 10%)

How to make a start?

Review your resourcesUnderstand the rubricBrainstorm and planFormat and structure your writingKnow how to reference sources

“'One of the most engaging uses of personal student journals is as a mirror of the mind. In this mode, journals invite learners to find language deep within self to array one's hopes, dreams, disappointments, concerns and resolves…..The result is that students often express astonishment and delight at the kaleidoscopic self portraits which emerge from the pages of their notebooks as they journey through a course.'(Bowman, as cited in Moon, 2003, p5)

What do you have to work from?

Personal Reflection…The key to writing a successful personal reflection is to remember that it is a personal response made by you. Therefore, your responses are usually different from someone else’s. Your response will be influenced by:1) Your opinions, beliefs and experiences2) Similarities or contrasts to your own life (i.e. experiences you can identify with)3) How real or believable a subject / text is4) Your emotional state at a given moment5) Sympathy or empathy with characters Even though you have been asked to provide a personal response you will still need to justify your opinion. This means you need to give reasons why you developed your ideas.You can support your response through:1) Examples from the text2) referring to specific events within a text3) referring to specific quotes within a text

(Feledy, 2011, http://bit.ly/1f5TuMJ)

2. Ability to articulate your ideas

Simple analysis vs deep understanding. Personal examples vs personal connections that enhanced (or challenged) this understanding.

The 5R’s Framework for Reflection

Specific referencing styles that may be useful…

Online forum/discussion board posting and other such references (plus is a wonderful resource overall): http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/

An example of citing a personal journal:

Source: http://eadm820.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/essay-guide.pdf

Personal life experience is not citedhttp://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/04/can-you-cite-personal-life-experience.html

You can find the exact publication date of a web page by following these instructions:http://www.labnol.org/internet/search/find-publishing-date-of-web-pages/8410/

Referencing a software app:http://rivendell.lib.uic.edu/news/2011/10/14/how-to-cite-an-app-in-apa-format/

So how might you get from these resources you have…

…to reflect and think critically about what the key concepts you select mean for you and your future students in the

changing landscape of the 21st century?

Brainstorm -> Plan -> Draft.. Draft.. Draft..

Select the concepts or issues from your resources (readings, journal, discussion board, etc.) that sparked something in you

Identify what the spark was and why What experiences or personal connection do you have to the selected

concepts or issues?Apply The 5R’s Framework to each concept or issue

and attempt some free writing for each

Is there any connection or relationship between the concepts/issues selected that could underlie a theme or cohesive approach

to your reflective writing?

Use the Model to Generate Critical Thinking to form critical questions to begin to structure your approach for your reflective writing

Or a mind map…?

“Reflection could be argued to be the essential stage where learning is integrated within the whole learner, and added to existing frames of reference… internalised and personalised.”

(The Higher Education Academy, 2006)