Creating a reflective piece (written or oral) is not simply documenting your feelings or describing an activity that occurred in the past. It is a systematic process that allows the individual to derive significant meaning from important activities. The knowledge and wisdom that you personally hold, which creates your understanding of the world you live in, is not based on experiences alone. Rather, it is your internal dialogue between experience and reflection, comparing previous experiences to new ones, that brings into existence your ever-changing worldview. Critical reflection occurs when we analyze and challenge the validity of our presuppositions and assess the appropriateness of our knowledge, understanding and beliefs given our present contexts.
Critical reflection involves three phases:
- Identifying the assumptions (those taken-for-granted ideas, commonsense beliefs, and self-evident rules of thumb) that underlie our thoughts and actions;
- Assessing and scrutinizing the validity of these assumptions in terms of how they relate to our ‘real-life’ experiences and our present context(s);
- Transforming these assumptions to become more inclusive and integrative, and using this newly formed knowledge to more appropriately inform our future actions and practices.
The three-part format below is intended to help guide you through the reflective process in an efficient manner. Your piece should follow the three-part structure below.
1. What did I learn?
2. Why does this learning matter, or why is it significant?
3. In what ways will I use this learning; how has this learning changed my perspective; or what goals shall I set in accordance with what I have learned in order to improve myself, the quality of my learning, or the quality of my future experiences?
The end of term Scholarly Reflective Essay / Video / Audio Recording submission is expected to be 750-900 words or 5-6mins. Your piece should give equal time (~300-350 words each) to your key learnings and discoveries related to (a.) Food Justice and (b.) Project Specific Themes or Insights. Summarize your contributions to the group project in 150 words (or 1min of audio).
An excellent reflective piece will meet the following criteria:
- Describes learning that is relevant to reflection category (i.e. what, how, why, in what ways) and keeps the discussion specific to the learning being articulated.
- Makes statements of fact that are accurate, supported with evidence and properly referenced.
- Consistently expands on, expresses ideas in another way, provides examples/illustrations.
- Addresses the complexity of the problem; answers or raises important question(s); avoids over-simplifying when making connections.
- Gives meaningful consideration to alternative points of view, interpretations.
- Demonstrates a line of reasoning that is logical, with conclusions or goals that follow clearly from it.
- Draws conclusions, sets goals that address a (the) major issue(s) raised by the experience.
- Consistently avoids typographical, spelling and grammatical errors.
- Uses APA style for in-text citations and reference section (or in audio, submit references in assignment comment section)