Task 2b: Reflective Writing

I found this task both interesting and challenging. I guess everybody has their own specific writing style so trying to change this each day was quite hard. I really had to think about exactly how or what to write as I often found myself reverting back to my usual style. However this did help me a lot in reflecting on my days and I found some of the styles that I had originally cast off, to be the most useful. I also had to be wary of anonymising those that I work with so I wasn't breaching any privacy policies. Here's how I got on with each style... I have set them out in order of how well they helped me reflect and learn from (starting with the least helpful):

What if...?:
The dreaming entry. I don't really feel this helped me develop thoughts on my daily experiences of my professional practice however it did help me to change my attitude towards things and put a more positive spin on events that would maybe frustrate me usually. I felt more appreciative of the day and it spurred me on to continue working hard as I could visualise and imagine my goals and dreams.

Another view:

I enjoyed writing about my day from a different point of view as it made me think about how I come across to others and try and see a different view on events without my personal preference/opinion clouding judgements. I actually wrote the entry as if I was my pointe shoes and included both events to do with with my dancing but also my reactions from an outside perspective. This style definitely helps me to look more outwards and question how I do things although in terms of learning from my experiences, I didn't find this style very helpful mainly because I was guessing what the outside perspective was. I don't actually know what my pointe shoes thought! ;) 

List:

• Easiest.
• Least time consuming - most likely to keep up with.
• Less likely to stray back to 'normal' style.
• Not enough detail for me to be able to reflect well on.
• Good way of seeing specific points/events quickly to refer to.

Descriptive entry:

My descriptive entry was closest to how I naturally would write a journal, describing what happened as if telling the story to somebody else. I did use reaction but it was mainly 'What? Where? When? Who?' and didn't really elaborate on my progression of thought. For example "I woke up at 8.30 and felt tired. Class was an hour and fifteen today which I found to be a bit short. Casanova rehearsal was a full run through and I felt it went well." Although this style is naturally how I would write a journal of which I explained in my last post, I'm an amateur so actually by going back to my entries and reflecting on them I learnt that although this style is of use to me, it wasn't the best out of the lot.

Initial Reflection entry:

This way of writing helped me to remember what I was thinking straight after events happened. It is good to look back and remember what I thought/felt (which I normally don't write enough of) and I found this helpful in learning to do that. I do find though that thinking over things more helps me and often my initial reaction and reflection on things is down to the heat of a moment and not always the most reasonable: "During centre work I focused on my balance although my turns could've been better, I was frustrated as they weren't as good as they can be and it dampened my otherwise good mood. "

Graphs and Diagrams:
This was probably joint top of my most useful ways of writing a journal. Infact I think I would use both this and Evaluation together. Along with the graphs and diagrams I used colours (as you can see from this blog entry). I have a somewhat photographic memory so when learning retaining and remembering information, colours really help. This proved to be really useful for me during my academic studies at school so what better way to learn when doing my degree! I have posted a couple of pictures of some diagrams I did so you get an idea on how I used it: 

This first graph gave me the basic outline on how I could think through my experiences and learn from them. Here is an example of one from my journal using my method above:

Evaluation entry:

I found this style was probably the best for me. It made me look more into what happened and how I could improve on the events. Surprisingly it made me reflect in more depth straight away while writing instead of coming back to the entry later and then evaluating each of the events in order to think in depth. It was effectively a more thorough version of my Initial Reflection style as I developed and improved on things while writing them down. When I came back to reflect on it and gain knowledge, it was easier as the 'in depth' thoughts I would usually be thinking over, were already written down so I could progress onto learning more. 

The thing I took away from this task was not only the news way of writing a journal in order to enhance my self learning, but to remember that my 'normal' way of doing things (on the contrary to what I may think) isn't always the most efficient or helpful to myself. I am a person who is open to new ideas but sometimes I lack the energy to bother as I dont always imagine they'll help me anymore. This task proved me wrong... Don't knock until you try!