Dayschool session on reflection in preparation for OU AA100 TMA07

1. Only Reflect
Tonbridge, 23 June 2012

2. What was the point of TMA02?
Spend 2 minutes discussing with the person next to your
experience of doing TMA02

3. What is the point of TMA07
The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to
take a step back from your studies and to assess your
own progress as a student. It is directly related to the
learning outcome that concerns taking responsibility for
your own learning while responding reflectively to tutor
feedback. As with Assignment 02, this assignment aims
to develop your awareness of the way in which you
study and write. It aims to help you to think through your
work on The Arts Past and Present as a whole and to
reflect further on your future course of study.

4. What is reflection?

5. Some definitions
• Boud et al. (1985) A generic term for those intellectual
and effective activities in which individuals engage to
explore their experiences in order to lead to a new
understanding and appreciation.
• Reid (1993), "Reflection is a process of reviewing an
experience of practice in order to
describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about
practice."(p.305)
• Louden (1991) is sober thought out of the stream of
action, looking forward or (usually) back to actions that
have taken place.

6. Why should we reflect?
• Planning and prioritising
• Setting and achieving goals
• Dealing with procrastination and anxiety
• Recognising and overcoming self-limiting beliefs
• Making effective use of available support

7. The perfect cuppa . . .
this one? this one?

8. The perfect cuppa
• Use a good quality loose leaf or bagged tea
• This must be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature
• Always use freshly drawn boiling water
• In order to draw the best flavour out of the tea the water must
contain oxygen, this is reduced if the water is boiled more than
once.
• Measure the tea carefully
• Use 1 tea bag or 1 rounded teaspoon of loose tea for each cup to
be served
• Allow the tea to brew for the recommended time before pouring
• Brewing tea from a bag in a mug? Milk in last is best

9. Reflecting on your learning needs
• What kinds of environments support you to learn at your best?
• What kinds of environments inhibit your learning?
• What activities help you to learn?
• What activities make it hard for you to learn?
• What skills do you have that come so naturally to you that you
wonder that others can’t do them?
• What skills would you like to develop?
• What’s important about learning for you?
• What do you believe about yourself as a learner?
• Do you have any negative beliefs? Are there things you think you
can’t do?
• When you are learning really well what’s your purpose? What is it
all for?

10. The good, the bad and the ugly
• Think of your time on AA100 so far.
• What sort of experience has it been?
• What has worked well for you?
• What might you need to approach
differently?
• What do you believe about yourself as a
learner?

11. Reflecting on reflecting
• So, thinking about TMA02 – how did you do it?

12. Kolb’s Learning Cycle
Concrete
Experience
Active Experimentation Reflective Observation
Abstract
Conceptualisation

13. How to reflect?
• So, thinking about Kolb – how closely did your
experience of preparing for TMA02 (reflective bit)
resemble Kolb’s cycle?

14. Kolb in a digital age?
• How does Kolb’s cycle relate to how you learn?
• Criticisms:
– Any of four stages could occur simultaneously (Jeffs
and Smith, 1999)
– Any of four stages can be bypassed, or repeated
several times in any sequence
– Doesn’t acknowledge power of reflection (Boud et al,
1985)
• Does social learning make Kolb obsolete? Do you learn
collaboratively

15. Tips for keeping a journal
• Make regular entries (even if they are brief)
• Focus on a specific event/issue for an individual
• Use questions to help you focus on the task
• Take an analytical approach
• Try different techniques such as mind
mapping, diagrams, sketches or cartoons. Use colour.
• Review entries to find key themes & recognise what
longer-term action you might need to take
• Remember that writing itself can be used as a learning
tool: you can use writing to explore ideas as a way of
understanding them.

16. Social learning
• Sharing your experience of studying is also reflection.
• Social media:
– OU forums
– Facebook
– Twitter #AA100
– Instagram?
– Blogs

17. Tools for reflection
• Blogging/a learning journal helps you to keep a record
which is
– useful to you
– a cue to memory
– honestly written
– evaluates key aspects of your work
– a tool to help you to identify recurring themes
– key to developing a plan of action to take
– an appraisal of that action.

18. Metaphors
• When you are learning at your best you are like what?
• And when you are like X that X is like?
• Is there anything else about X?

19. Preparing for TMA07
• Pay attention to the processes you have adopted when
preparing your assignments:
– how did you approach the reading for the chapter?
– how did you take notes and were you confident about
the notes that you’d made?
– how did you begin to formulate your argument?
– how did your essay planning go?
– did you follow your essay plan?

20. Getting through the material
• How did you approach the reading/listening for this
assignment?
– Strategically?
– Systematically?
– Pragmatically?
• Was your reading:
– Critical?
– Analytical?
– Superficial?
• Did you feel confident that you understood the ‘stuff’?

21. Thinking about your notes
Making notes
• When do you make notes?
• Why do you make notes?
• How do you make notes?
• Why do you make notes like this?
• Have you always made notes like this?

22. What happens next?
• What do you do with your notes?
• When do you use your notes?
• Why do you use your notes?
• How do you use your notes?
• Do your notes do what you want them to do?
• How do you know when they are working?
• How do you know when they aren’t working so well?

23. The perfect cuppa . . .
this one? this one?

24. Everything else . . .
• Time management
– Prioritisation
– Perfectionism
– Procrastination
• Emotional response to the task: ‘hating Shostakovich’
factor.

25. How is it going?
• ive written 500 words on Shostakovich so far..... its
allpretty crap i think lol
how about you?
• Pugin for me - made quite a few notes and done a bit
of surfing I think my main problem is cutting out the
waffle! I've just finished a creative writing course so
going from being overly descriptive to sticking to pure
fact is proving difficult!
– Pugin for me too, I'm on the notes and rough draft
stage. Been working really hard on it, so have to
take a break today or my brain will explode.

26. When the TMA is done . . .
• How did you feel about doing this TMA?
• What do you think you did well?
• Which elements did you struggle with?
• Which elements would you appreciate feedback on?
• What sort of feedback would you find most helpful?

27. When your TMA comes back . . .
• Read your essay again
• Read your tutor’s comments!
• Do you understand them all? If not, contact your tutor
for clarification.
• Consider how you would re-write in view of your tutor’s
feedback.

28. Learning is a continuous process

29. Setting a personal learning goal
• What’s one specific thing that you’ll be practicing to
improve your learning?
• I will know I’m achieving my goal when (What will you or
others see/hear?
• I’ll know I’m not achieving my goal if (What willl you or
others see/hear?

30. Questions?

31. Jennie Osborn
Email: Jennie.Osborn@open.ac.uk