Purpose
Throughout the DT&L experience, you will build and maintain a reflection journal, which will give you the opportunity to:
- Identify and develop your design process—how do you manage a project from conception to completion?
- Encode meaningful takeaways—metacognition (thinking about thinking) is how our brains make meaning build understanding.
- Communicate openly and informally with the instructor about your experience working on a team—express frustration, air grievances, voice concerns, flag issues, and vent. I do hope you'll celebrate your "wins" as well...
- Provide commentary to chronical your evolving world view in light of new foresight analysis and futurist perspectives.
- Narrate your use of generative AI to achieve project goals while maintaining the integrity of your academic work.
- Memorialize in-the-moment reflections, which are the building blocks for developing a portfolio or self-promotion product, as well as for preparing responses to common interview questions.
Instructions
Create an Adobe Express Web Page (Video Tutorial) (PDF Instructions), Share the page link privately with the instructor via Slack DM. Post update entries and republish the site throughout the semester. Journal entries should include thoughtfully-incorporated multimedia content (text, images, audio, video) in addition to the reflections described on this page.
There are no specified journal entry deadlines on the course schedule. You are expected to post regularly. Re-share your link via Slack DM after each new journal post.
Guidance
Below is a collection of guided questions, or "journal starters," to guide your thinking. While you are not required to answer any of these questions specifically, you may find them helpful in jump-starting meaningful reflection. It is strongly recommended that you select at least one guiding question per journal entry to anchor your writing and to get the most out of the reflective process.
Reflecting on Problem Solving
- What did you do first? How did you know where to begin? What led you to make that decision?
- What clues did you have that you were on the right track?
- What strategies did you use to solve the problem?
- What was going on inside your head that led you to change course? Or to persist?
- How do you know you were successful? How can you prove it?
Prompts for Metacognition (Thinking about Thinking)
- What strategies and skills did I use for this project/task? Were they effective? Why/why not?
- How did my mindset affect how I approached my work?
- Did I communicate effectively with others? How can I improve?
- What have I learned about my strengths/weaknesses after this task?
- How can I best use my strengths to improve my performance?
- How am I progressing as a learner and as a professional?
- What steps did I take when I was uncertain about my work?
- How did I change my course of action? Was it profitable?
- If I were to do this work again, is there anything that I would do differently?
Reflecting on New Experiences
- Write about how this experience reminded you of something you already know
- What is the one thing you’d like to remember about this experience?
- How does something you did this week relate to something in your life?
- What did I previously think was true, but now know to be wrong after this experience?
- What was new, surprising, or made me wonder?
- What have I changed my mind about after this learning experience?
- How might I use this information in the future?
- What do I predict I will learn next?
- How could I (or someone in a profession) use this knowledge?
- What did I like/dislike about the new insights I gained during this experience?
- What didn’t I learn that I thought I would?
Reflection Journal Example
My name is Lisa Bond and this is my personal reflection journal for Disruption, Technology & Law.
Journal Entry #1
August 27, 2023
I just read the ShannonWeb Review This First, Deliverables, and Schedule pages for this class.
I am literally terrified of this class. send help.
My team mates are Jarrod, Ann, and Kate. Our assigned topic is Artificial Intelligence.
My initial thoughts about this project are...
Journal Reflection #3
September 30, 2023
Things are getting in Adobe Express. I figured out how to edit templates and how to download my projects then upload them to Adobe Portfolio.
My group is amazing, because of course all group work is automatically amazing, and this group has been no exception.
However, I am starting to worry that I need to finish up my research so I can stay ahead of the deliverables schedule for this project.
References
McTighe, J., & Willis, J. (2019). Upgrade your Teaching : Understanding by Design Meets Neuroscience. ASCD.
Costa, A. L., & Kallick, B. (2009). Habits of mind across the curriculum : practical and creative strategies for teachers. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Pappas, Peter & TeachThought Staff (2019). 10 Metacognitive Prompts To Help Students Reflect On Their Learning.