Through this reflective journal you will be applying your learning to everyday life and your future career aspirations. This reflective journal will contain three reflections, each reflection should be around 700 words.
Reflection 2. How has your psychological knowledge enriched your personal life? Insight relating to personal life (choice from 6 areas of psychology course content).
Reflection 3. In what way can psychological knowledge benefit society? Insight relating to societal issue (choice from 6 areas of psychology course content).
Reflection 4. Where will your psychological knowledge take you? Insight relating to career goals and professional identify.
Complete course content for Weeks 2-9
a. Note that two of the reflective journal entries for this part are free choice – you can choose any of the 6 course topics relating to areas of psychology.
b. Your fourth reflection must refer to the pre-existing knowledge and skills you discussed in Reflection 1 (attached file below), and how these may have changed over the duration of the course (or not!).
Criteria
Your reflections will be assessed against 6 key criteria:
Relevance and meaning: The psychological principles/concepts applied to the experience being reflected upon are relevant and meaningful. (20%)
Connection to course concepts: Connections are made between the experience and theory and evidence covered during the course. (20%)
Depth of reflection: Reflection describes the experience and analyses how the experience contributed to students’ understandings of self, their use of their psychological knowledge and skills, and course concepts. (30%)
Self-awareness and new insights: Explores own assumptions or biases in relationship with their interactions with others. (15%)
Quality of written expression: The written expression in the reflection is of high quality (free from spelling, grammar and language errors), and is organised and structured in a logical fashion. (10%)
Referencing: Correctly paraphrases and formats references using the APA 7th edition conventions. (5%)
Advice and resources
For these reflections, it is recommended that you use the DIEP (Describe, Interpret, Evaluate, and Plan) Strategy as a framework for examining the theories/concepts and your experiences. This framework was covered in the pre-requisite course Personal and Professional Development, and a review of the framework is provided.
Each reflection will contain four broad elements, described in more detail below (Please note: these don’t need to be headings).
1. First, you’ll need to describe an insight you have had while working through the course content. This could be an experience, a belief you hold or have held, or a situation you have encountered in which you have been able to apply your psychological knowledge or skills. This may be a personal, social, or organisational situation you have encountered, and you may have applied knowledge (principles/concepts), skills (psychology specific or transferable), or both.
Give as much detail as possible so a reader feels as though they were there with you and has a clear sense of the experience that was the basis for your reflection.
In your description, you should also identify what new learning or insight this experience inspired for you. If you are stuck, the sentence starters below may help:
From this experience I began to wonder…
This helped me to realise….
I had never noticed/considered before…
This experience taught me that…
2. Next, you’ll need to move into explaining the meaning of the new insight. How does this understanding or wondering connect with your previous experiences and the concepts and ideas we have been exploring in the course? Is it a new idea or has your previous understanding of something evolved? Was your insight influenced by previous events in your life, your personal characteristics, or particular aspects of the setting or experience? How does this help you to make sense of your experience? You are expected to draw on or refer to ideas and theory in your course material, in research literature and from other sources to support your explanation of the insight.
Once you have considered the meaning of the insight, you also need to evaluate the value or relevance of this insight. How might it benefit your learning or life?
You might start your sentences like:
A possible implication of this new idea/understanding is…
Two key take-aways from this are …
This understanding will change the way I…
This insight relates to/is consistent with/opposes (add theory/research from course)…
Having realised that, I intend to…
3. Finally, think about, or plan, what you will do with this new information. How can you apply this new knowledge or insight to your personal, social or work life? What will you do differently as a result? How might this influence your work now or in the future?
You might start your sentences like:
This [new insight] will help me in the course or program in the following ways…
As a result of this I will now [do something in my personal life]…
This has inspired me to [do something in my professional life]…
