Task 2a: Reflective Practice

As students starting out on the BAPP course, we have been informed that we need to begin and to continue to create our own individual journals, so that we may explore our thoughts on a day to day basis and be able to reflect on these learning experiences and their importance/relevance in the future.

Although, in essence we have been encouraged to keep this journal in a format appropriate to our own learning needs, e.g. in the form of text, images, recordings etc, I have decided to keep mine in the form of a written journal, as I enjoy expressing and recording my thoughts in this way and I am very much a visual learner as opposed to auditory/kinaesthetic. These entries will be used later in the course in the form of excerpts.

Reflection is the ability to look for ways to understand the things that I am doing in my professional working environment and to learn from them. My journal will inevitably remind me how to engage with all of the different ideas presented during this first module on the course and a resource to be looked back on when completing modules yet to come. It will provide evidence of my learning experiences at the end of the course, both as a BAPP student but also as a developing working professional and will depict my thoughts/feelings at a specific time and how they have since changed and developed.

I approached this task with one predominant thought; that this is designed to help me and make my life easier (hooray!) Future work will be improved and made easier with the use of a journal as it will be far easier to look back and instantly remember a particular event and my thoughts at the time. During my three year study towards my Trinity National Diploma prior to this course, one of the main elements of the written side of the study were our lesson logs, information that had to be recorded and filed away until the latter half of the year when our work had to be handed in. I specifically remember thinking at the time 'what's the point?' 'is all this effort even worth it?' My questions were answered however, when it came down to working up until the final deadline. Known previously for my 'last minute' nature during school, I was extremely glad that I had managed to keep on top of all my logs as it made my final hand in much easier to prepare for. Therefore, I am hoping to use my previous experience as a mantra for this current one in terms of my diary-keeping skills.

For Christmas this year I was given the gift of a 'memory jar' from one of my cousins. In here, I am supposed to write down all the amazing memories and moments that happen to me during the course of this year, and leave them untouched, only to be reopened on January 1st 2015. This blog entry has made me realise that the jar is still sitting empty on my bedroom shelf at home, and that it is such a shame! So many lovely and unexpected things, no matter how small, have already happened in these first three months and I'd like to be able to look back next year and relive all of them. So, with that in mind, I am determined to try and get into a regular pattern of journal writing which will help me towards the completion of work for this BAPP course, but also to make use of a very thoughtful Christmas present!