Task 2b: Reflective Writing

Journal Writing Experience 

As I have previously mentioned I have had a journal since October 2015 when I started the ROL Course. I was very interested how Reader 2 was going to change to update my journal. I have tried the 9 ways of writing on P19 of the Module 1 Handbook, I haven't had 9 days since I started this new way so I used different events from the same day to try the different ways to write. 

Description

I have been writing like this for a while now in my journal to help me with my review of learning module, I have often bullet pointed events like where, when and what happened. This method helps me because when I reflect back on the event maybe a few days later after my initial reflecting I can remember all the key information. However I do not feel like I have left a personal touch to my own journal just lists of information. 

Initial Reflection 

Again I have used this before to discover what I have learnt from the feelings I felt. I found this way of writing useful to me as at the time you often do not analysis your emotions or what you was thinking at the time you was just doing. I wrote in my journal about how I felt when I was dealing with a difficult child who was extremely badly behaved, but this child has a behaviour plan and usually has a one to one but that TA was away with another child for half the lesson. I have include extracts from my journal below...

 What I was thinking ? - " What should I try next, nothing seems to be working, do I need to ask for the learning mentor to assist or remove her for some time to calm down?  Remove her from the class completely? " I also found myself writing down words rather than sentences and some big and some small depending on their importance. 

What did you feel about it ?- " I felt sad because I know this child has a difficult background and is having a bad day, I want to help which is what made me feel sad. Looking back now I was also frustrated as I had a class of thirty and she was getting all my attention and other children needed it too, I did have my assistant with me so that made me feel calmer once she stepped up" It wasn't till after this exercise that I felt sad about a child and how it had effected me and my mood. 

List

I use list all the time whether it is to remember what to take to work, a to do list for the week or month, saving, career ideas and many more. Writing a list seems to clear my head and I really enjoy writing my journal this way, as it is straight to the point and seems to clear my head in the same way as a 'to do' list does.  I created a listography and feel I am really going to enjoy building my page on there, it is very plain at the moment but it is great to see other peoples list about movies, places to eat, countries to visit. The first list you have to create is a To Do list (in my lifetime) which really made me think what do I want to achieve in my lifetime it will be interesting to see if those things change over time especially in my professional practise. 

Evaluation

The evaluation questions were good to work through from the module I found it hard to really pin point what I learnt from certain situation especially situations that happen on a regular basis because I have never thought about situations that happen all the time. I am still learning from them and I do adapt the way I handle to same situation so have I learnt something. What was it exactly that I learnt ? I have not made a conscious choice to change it, but I have, why? This exercise sparked questions and made me question the smallest things in my daily practise. 

Graphs Charts and Diagrams

Graphs and charts, I really struggled with this I find I am creative so this was a tricky exercise, it failed miserably I found it hard to measure fun, freedom and stress into a chart as I kept on changing my mind as I reflected. I did not connect to this way at all I will not be using this again. However I find mind maps very helpful to express my day or a certain situation that happened in my day. The photo below shows my reflection through a mind map, reflecting on this I can see that I documented what I did how I felt at the end of the day it is short and to the point.  I enjoyed this way and I will be using it again throughout my blog, however what I will do next time is to go into further detail I feel looking back I could of gone more in depth. 

Picture from my journal- reflection through mind mapping 

I would like to develop mind mapping on some pages of my journal to turn some pages into a scrap book. Perhaps adding in letters or information given to me that day that I could stick in. I find a creative way to reflect might be beneficial to me when I have longer to spend on it or when Im unsure what to put down. In the past I have found creating scrap books enjoyable, creative and I find when I am being creative it flows easily and before I know it I have filled a page, could this work in a reflective journal? Could I adapt it?  Its an idea to experiment further, we shall see...

I have been researching art journals, now a lot of artist use them to help them with their art work, I am going to try and take the creative style of journaling and apply it to my journal and see how I get on. Below are some links explaining art journals and how to create one. This has opened up a whole new way for me to explore and develop my reflective journal. 

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-an-Art-Journal

http://www.artistsjournals.com/instruction.htm

Another View

I tried to tackle this one with the option of an objects perspective of my day. At first I thought this would be quite easy and fun. It was fun but I found I wondered off and started to create a story rather than documenting what actually happened! Whoops ! it was a very fun way of writing from my bags point of view, but it was very time consuming and I don't think that every day I will have the time to write that way so I won't be using this in the future.

The different ways to write really have broadened my knowledge and ability to write  reflective journal and I feel I have a good resources to turn to, to get the most out of my journal. I feel my journal will continue to deepen the further I progress through out this course it is really interesting and surprising to me, how many different ways there are to write a journal and just how personal it is to you. It reflects you and the way you reflect, I found it fascinating. I have never spent time exploring these ways before so I have learnt a lot about myself but surprisingly I learnt more about my professional practise. I thought that because I do it I know every aspect about what I do, however by reflecting back it has highlighted to me where my real strengths and weaknesses lie within my practise. 

In the handbook it suggests that you should try to adopt one that you can develop across the whole course I am going to continue trying Description, Initial Reflection, Evaluation, Mind Mapping/Scrapbook and Lists to see which one I get the most out of and to see if I can combine the two. I feel I need more time to try to experiment with writing about different situations or whole days and really get to grips with a way to get the most out of journal writing.  Finally I am going to experiment in making my journal more like a scrap book on some of the pages after exploring the mind maps. 

The biggest thing i will take away from this task is that I enjoy structure like the descriptive way of writing eg. what, who, when, but I enjoy the freedom of mind mapping and scrap books to talk about how I felt during the day or situation or just to express the day as a whole.  You would think someone would be one way or the other but I have discovered I need both. 

I am going to develop this further to see if I can create a happy medium between these two photos below, structure Vs creativity.  

Task 2a: Reflective Journal Task

Task 2a: Reflective Journal Task 

When I was younger I always had something that was personal to me whether it was a diary, scrap book, photo albulm or a memory box, I always had something that I was creating to hold memories or things I wasn't ready to let go of. My diaries never lasted long as I found it difficult to put things down on paper, I had a fear that someone might read it, so thats why I think now looking back I tried out various ways to express and record things.

How do I puzzle through ideas? Organise my Practise ?
Today I still have photo album and a memory box but my biggest thing is writing lists I find that if I have a busy week or month, if I list down what needs to be done I feel as if  that half the work is done, even if the list has 20 things on there without one of them being ticked off! I then feel organised and have a sense of direction of how I am going to get it done. Another main way that I work through ideas or things to complete is by creating a mind map, especially when I am working on a new dance idea or lesson plans. I feel I really explore all options using this method. Below are two of my recent spider diagrams, one for part of the ROL course and the other for a dance festival.

I started my BAPP blog in September as I did the ROL course (Review Of Learning) before starting module 1, for the ROL course I had to keep a journal so journal writing for this course is something that is not new to me.  During my time working on the ROL course I had tasks to help me to progress similar to the tasks we are working through now, for these tasks I reflected on my learning and researched theories about how I learn. The journal was there to show my learning experiences so it is going to be interesting to how reader 2 and new influences change the way I write my journal.

  I am looking forward to finding out and exploring different ways to keep a reflective journal because for the past few months I have done it the same way, by reading reader 2 I have already started to change how I write my journal.The top 5 questions that I ask myself when writing my journal are the ones below. I find it easier having a frame work to work to, this helps me to get the best out of my journal and it stops me from wondering off and writing about things that aren't necessarily going to help me reflect.
1. What happened?
2.What did I do?
3.What did I learn?
4.Was it successful ?
5.Would I change anything?

For the next few days I am going to change a few questions and explore other ways of writing I will use the these extra questions below and explore P.19 in the Module 1 hand book Task 2b.
- Did the children enjoy the class?
- How do I know ?
- How has this helped my development in my practise ?
-What was my mood?
-What if ?
And finally writing from a different perspective. e.g. object or person

I feel positive that reader 2 is going to develop my journal for the better.  Education is the most powerful weapon and by  gaining more knowledge about reflection and even more practitioners and theories, I feel I will write it in a more educated way and find a style that really suits me.

Skype 18.03.2016 Thoughts and new findings...

Professional practise, influences, tasks and next steps...

Before the Skype I was feeling a bit out of the loop as I have recently been unwell and away from my blog, where as prior to this I felt I was really on a roll. I was really looking forward to the Skype to kick start myself again and get back to where I was before the illness. The session with Adesola was very interesting, enlightening and I had that "lightbulb moment" during the Skype.  

Adesola really got us thinking about so many thing and it has really left me contemplating my new findings.  I have chosen a few of the questions and topics to discuss in this blog that have really stuck with me. 

What is your professional practise?

I can now answer this question in two different ways. 

Q:What is your Professional practise ?  A: My professional practise is a thing. 

Q:What is your professional practise ? A: Answer Art Educator

I am starting to see my professional practise now as a thing rather than a singular job that I do day in day out. Before this Skype I felt that the words Professional Practise were blurred and the meanings to me were unclear, where as now I am starting to see my practise as a  part of a large jigsaw puzzle, my professional practise is a job but it is  also connected to a wider field which has different branches and avenues to pursue. 

Another way I look at it now is that my job title is a Lead Dance and Gymnastic teacher, but my practise is an Art Educator and that is what my field is I am in the education system. Knowing this now can provide me with so many different avenues to develop my career,  primary school teacher, teaching assistant, support staff, special needs, dance teacher in secondary schools, gymnastics coach, I.S.T.D teacher ... It is all one field and I am part of it, in order to progress in my job I must research and develop my knowledge of my field. 

From this part of the Skype chat I am left with many thought  provoking questions that I will be exploring over the next few weeks, where am I at in my Professional practise ? Who influences my practise and the choices I make? How could I develop my practise? Where could it go? What avenues are out there? What interest me?

Who do you admire ?

After the Skype chat had finished, I began thinking about the chosen people that I mentioned, why do I admire them? I chose people higher up in my company and selected particular primary school teachers that have inspired me because they have made a change to my thoughts and actions in my practise. Then again I questioned my thoughts, why them ?  Why not my other managers or peers? What is it that they do that makes me inspired? It also made me realise how many people I aspire to and even people I have not met, for example Bill Rogers who has written so many behaviour management techniques, he has guided me and helped me with my practise for years and I admire his work greatly. Now I know what type of model I would like to be and have a greater understanding of what qualities in a person inspire me.

-Committed 

-Kind

-Inspiring ideas and methods 

-Does everything to the highest standard

- How they deal with hard situations

-How they don't mix personal with professional 

-Creative 

-Modest 

 Tasks are there to stimulate Practise

This was another lightbulb moment the tasks are there to stimulate me thinking about my practise that is the overriding reason for them. We discussed that if a task is not stimulating you, you don't need to do it and to spend more time on a task that is achieving what you need. We spoke about old styles of learning and how you could revise something and sit a test of 10 questions then apparently your skilled in that subject where as this course allows us to use the tasks as a tool to get to where we need to be and to build our knowledge and not to use the tasks necessarily as an instruction sheet.

Overall the Skype was incredibly beneficial I have a new direction that I am working towards and it has helped to clear and re focused my thoughts.