Exemplar Reflections
Below are some examples of reflective writing that students have done in the past that scored highly.
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Below you will see some example paragraphs under three key areas:
Review the difference between the develop and undeveloped reflections. You will note that the developed reflections show considerable signs of Self awareness, where students reflect on their thinking, experiences and their view of the world around them. They also give examples and suggestions of Self Improvement where they have demonstrate not only what they have learnt from undertaking the project but have expressed ways that it has improved some area of their life. Finally, the developed reflections show Empowerment where students have taken control, identified changes in ways they would undertake the project in the future.
The undeveloped reflections are often just written in the narrative of 'what happened next' and while the language used is descriptive it does not recognize the strengths and limitations of the project and the process.
- Full and in-depth analysis and evaluation of the strengths and limitations of own work processes (how you planned and reached your outcome)
- Full and in-depth analysis and evaluation of the strengths and limitations of the project outcome in achieving the project aim.
- Clear, insightful and balanced reflection on the benefits and challenges of working as a team and the strengths and weaknesses of own performance as a team member.
Review the difference between the develop and undeveloped reflections. You will note that the developed reflections show considerable signs of Self awareness, where students reflect on their thinking, experiences and their view of the world around them. They also give examples and suggestions of Self Improvement where they have demonstrate not only what they have learnt from undertaking the project but have expressed ways that it has improved some area of their life. Finally, the developed reflections show Empowerment where students have taken control, identified changes in ways they would undertake the project in the future.
The undeveloped reflections are often just written in the narrative of 'what happened next' and while the language used is descriptive it does not recognize the strengths and limitations of the project and the process.
1. Strengths and limitations of the project outcome in achieving the project aim
Developed Reflection
'We achieved our main aim by successfully organising and participating in a beach cleanup in one of the beaches located at Discovery Bay. As we were unable to collaborate with Plastic Free Seas due to the limited timings and dates, we decided to gather as many people as we could in order to ensure the cleanup was the most effective. From this experience, we were also able to gain first hand information on how much plastic waste there was, making us more aware of the severity of the issue. We also managed to raise awareness of the issue to the local community, showing that even small groups like us are able to take action and make a difference, which would hopefully inspire them to do the same. Despite achieving this aim, I feel we could have organised the event more efficiently as we could have further promoted and invited more members of the public to join, making it an even more successful beach cleanup. We could have also publised the event at school and attempted to get teachers and students from a wider age range to take part. We also found out at a later date that if we had counted the waste on the beach we could have given this data to the WWF to support their waste analysis data. This would have been a great action that we could have undertaken if we had been aware of it.
As well as a beach clean up part of our outcome was to go busking on the streets of Hong Kong with signs promoting our charity. We thought this would be an effective way of raising awareness to the local community, showing our concerns regarding the issue. We managed to raise $300, in which we donated to Plastic Free Seas, giving them more funds to take bigger action. More importantly, I feel that we significantly raised more awareness of this issue by busking on the streets, as it enabled the public to notice the signs promoting our charity, encouraging them to show their support and donate. Although we achieved this outcome, I feel that to further improve we should have busked more and in different sites, as this would have broadened our audience, enabling us to raise more awareness to the local community in all of the different areas in the city.'
Undeveloped Reflection
'My group decided to do a bread run for our outcome. We did this because one of our team members had done this before and said that it was easy to do. We contacted the charity and they gave us a date to do the bread run. It was difficult as many of us couldn't make it. ...... had a football match and ...... said that her mum would not let her go at this time. This was very annoying for our group. We went on the bread run. There was four of us and we collected bread and it was fun.'
'We achieved our main aim by successfully organising and participating in a beach cleanup in one of the beaches located at Discovery Bay. As we were unable to collaborate with Plastic Free Seas due to the limited timings and dates, we decided to gather as many people as we could in order to ensure the cleanup was the most effective. From this experience, we were also able to gain first hand information on how much plastic waste there was, making us more aware of the severity of the issue. We also managed to raise awareness of the issue to the local community, showing that even small groups like us are able to take action and make a difference, which would hopefully inspire them to do the same. Despite achieving this aim, I feel we could have organised the event more efficiently as we could have further promoted and invited more members of the public to join, making it an even more successful beach cleanup. We could have also publised the event at school and attempted to get teachers and students from a wider age range to take part. We also found out at a later date that if we had counted the waste on the beach we could have given this data to the WWF to support their waste analysis data. This would have been a great action that we could have undertaken if we had been aware of it.
As well as a beach clean up part of our outcome was to go busking on the streets of Hong Kong with signs promoting our charity. We thought this would be an effective way of raising awareness to the local community, showing our concerns regarding the issue. We managed to raise $300, in which we donated to Plastic Free Seas, giving them more funds to take bigger action. More importantly, I feel that we significantly raised more awareness of this issue by busking on the streets, as it enabled the public to notice the signs promoting our charity, encouraging them to show their support and donate. Although we achieved this outcome, I feel that to further improve we should have busked more and in different sites, as this would have broadened our audience, enabling us to raise more awareness to the local community in all of the different areas in the city.'
Undeveloped Reflection
'My group decided to do a bread run for our outcome. We did this because one of our team members had done this before and said that it was easy to do. We contacted the charity and they gave us a date to do the bread run. It was difficult as many of us couldn't make it. ...... had a football match and ...... said that her mum would not let her go at this time. This was very annoying for our group. We went on the bread run. There was four of us and we collected bread and it was fun.'
2. Strengths and limitations of own work processes
Developed Reflection
'One of the challenges we faced was deadlines. This was a very significant weakness and its effects were evident in the early stages – where we failed to answer to our initial charity (KELY support group) in time and had to begin from square one. This caused a great degree of frustration amongst the group, especially for those that had started researching about the particular charity. Other than this example, we struggled with deadlines internally too. Some of the group members would simply not get the job done within the first deadline I set for them, and this was very irritating for me as the project manager.
The way we could improve upon this weakness is by attempting to get my group to care for the issue more. Although it might be a long shot, I believe that this solution is one that I would definitely try if I was to repeat this project. This solution involves understanding what the group project fundamentally is and the importance of it – the charity, action, awareness, everything. The reason I think this is an advantageous strategy is because when members do not care about what they are working towards – they end up giving it minimal effort, prioritize it less and this causes them to miss deadlines. The way I could implement this strategy would be to brief the group from the very start, telling them why I care and why they should. Hopefully, it would inspire them – and lead them to not only making deadlines, but also put in more effort through the project.'
Undeveloped Reflection
'Throughout the course of a dozen of weeks, we have changed our initial plan in the first couple of weeks. Our initial plan was about hunger and poverty, we got the idea from a classwork that we were doing together. Then we thought about it more advance by thinking about the things we could be involved with such as bread runs and joining up with charities such as Feeding Hong Kong and OXFAM. When we contacted them they either didn’t reply or just saying that another group from our school was doing it already. We solved this problem by kept search for charities around poverty and then found Box of Hope, we emailed them and got a positive response. At this point we knew that it was going well. We contacted them again about helping them out and interviewing them, we got another positive response. We found out that one of the volunteers lived down Borrett Road which was around a ten minute walk from school. We prepared questions enough to interview for at least five minutes and continued on researching around the area of our research.'
'One of the challenges we faced was deadlines. This was a very significant weakness and its effects were evident in the early stages – where we failed to answer to our initial charity (KELY support group) in time and had to begin from square one. This caused a great degree of frustration amongst the group, especially for those that had started researching about the particular charity. Other than this example, we struggled with deadlines internally too. Some of the group members would simply not get the job done within the first deadline I set for them, and this was very irritating for me as the project manager.
The way we could improve upon this weakness is by attempting to get my group to care for the issue more. Although it might be a long shot, I believe that this solution is one that I would definitely try if I was to repeat this project. This solution involves understanding what the group project fundamentally is and the importance of it – the charity, action, awareness, everything. The reason I think this is an advantageous strategy is because when members do not care about what they are working towards – they end up giving it minimal effort, prioritize it less and this causes them to miss deadlines. The way I could implement this strategy would be to brief the group from the very start, telling them why I care and why they should. Hopefully, it would inspire them – and lead them to not only making deadlines, but also put in more effort through the project.'
Undeveloped Reflection
'Throughout the course of a dozen of weeks, we have changed our initial plan in the first couple of weeks. Our initial plan was about hunger and poverty, we got the idea from a classwork that we were doing together. Then we thought about it more advance by thinking about the things we could be involved with such as bread runs and joining up with charities such as Feeding Hong Kong and OXFAM. When we contacted them they either didn’t reply or just saying that another group from our school was doing it already. We solved this problem by kept search for charities around poverty and then found Box of Hope, we emailed them and got a positive response. At this point we knew that it was going well. We contacted them again about helping them out and interviewing them, we got another positive response. We found out that one of the volunteers lived down Borrett Road which was around a ten minute walk from school. We prepared questions enough to interview for at least five minutes and continued on researching around the area of our research.'
3. Benefits and challenges of working as a team and the strengths and weaknesses of own performance as a team member
Developed Reflection
' Most of the time I gave my full attention and support to my group, and I listened to anything my group members had to say. However, there were also times where I left them on their own and didn’t give clear instructions on what they were to do, or any instructions at all. My support for my group members would occasionally be half-hearted, but I often tried my best to make sure my group members knew that they could always come to me for any help. As a Year 11 student, it was my responsibility to lead my group. Initially I wasn’t very excited about being a leader. However, as the group project went on, it became easier to lead my group because of resources that I found online. My leadership style was a mix between democratic and laissez-faire, meaning I would let everyone contribute ideas and have a discussion before coming to a solution, but I would also let them do work on their own. In the future, I’ll have to take on more leadership, so the methods that I learned in this role throughout the project will help me to become a better leader in the future.
In carrying out this project and taking on this role, I’ve personally gained more experience in managing a group. I’ve learned about clear and efficient communication between group members and how to carry it out, as well as how to hold effective meetings with my group. I’ve also learned that time must be managed as productively as possible, meaning a straightforward and detailed timeframe must be created. The most valuable lessons that I’ve gained from this experience is that I can’t always do everything by myself, and that it’s good to accept help when I need it.
From doing this project, I’ve learned that I need to work on time management. About a fourth of the time, I’d go off task and the other Year 11 student had to give me a little push in order to get me working. Next time, I’ll start tasks earlier, and make more of an effort to stick to the proposed timeframe in order to improve my time management. Additionally, I will work on providing more guidance to my group and try my best to stay on top of things. To reach these objectives, I’ll start one task as soon as another was completed to ensure that if any problems occur, I’ll have extra time to resolve issues.'
Undeveloped Reflection
'I think that personally I have contributed a lot to this group. I had to do the interview, I did the volunteer work, I had to research the issue and charity, as well as getting in touch with the charity and organising a meet up date. I dedicated a lot of time and effort into this project because of the fact that I believed in the cause and I knew that to make as much of a change as possible it would take effort and time. There were times in which I was frustrated with this project because of other commitments that had to be done as well as exams which took a lot of my time this perhaps hindered my full ability, however, I had to put this project ahead of other commitments in order to get the full benefit of it as there were other members in the group which were relying on me as the director to give them instructions and make sure that everything was being worked at properly.'
' Most of the time I gave my full attention and support to my group, and I listened to anything my group members had to say. However, there were also times where I left them on their own and didn’t give clear instructions on what they were to do, or any instructions at all. My support for my group members would occasionally be half-hearted, but I often tried my best to make sure my group members knew that they could always come to me for any help. As a Year 11 student, it was my responsibility to lead my group. Initially I wasn’t very excited about being a leader. However, as the group project went on, it became easier to lead my group because of resources that I found online. My leadership style was a mix between democratic and laissez-faire, meaning I would let everyone contribute ideas and have a discussion before coming to a solution, but I would also let them do work on their own. In the future, I’ll have to take on more leadership, so the methods that I learned in this role throughout the project will help me to become a better leader in the future.
In carrying out this project and taking on this role, I’ve personally gained more experience in managing a group. I’ve learned about clear and efficient communication between group members and how to carry it out, as well as how to hold effective meetings with my group. I’ve also learned that time must be managed as productively as possible, meaning a straightforward and detailed timeframe must be created. The most valuable lessons that I’ve gained from this experience is that I can’t always do everything by myself, and that it’s good to accept help when I need it.
From doing this project, I’ve learned that I need to work on time management. About a fourth of the time, I’d go off task and the other Year 11 student had to give me a little push in order to get me working. Next time, I’ll start tasks earlier, and make more of an effort to stick to the proposed timeframe in order to improve my time management. Additionally, I will work on providing more guidance to my group and try my best to stay on top of things. To reach these objectives, I’ll start one task as soon as another was completed to ensure that if any problems occur, I’ll have extra time to resolve issues.'
Undeveloped Reflection
'I think that personally I have contributed a lot to this group. I had to do the interview, I did the volunteer work, I had to research the issue and charity, as well as getting in touch with the charity and organising a meet up date. I dedicated a lot of time and effort into this project because of the fact that I believed in the cause and I knew that to make as much of a change as possible it would take effort and time. There were times in which I was frustrated with this project because of other commitments that had to be done as well as exams which took a lot of my time this perhaps hindered my full ability, however, I had to put this project ahead of other commitments in order to get the full benefit of it as there were other members in the group which were relying on me as the director to give them instructions and make sure that everything was being worked at properly.'
Review this link that outlines some good reflective sentence starters and vocabulary that you should be using or the document below.
Reflective vocab from RCB78