LAWS5040/8061 Environmental Planning Law - Reflective Writing Assessment

Reflective Writing Assessment

You don’t need to reference it in the same way as an essay – but when describing what you’ve learned, make the source very clear, e.g. name of the article, conversation with a person etc.

You can include recollections of lectures, tutorial discussions, readings and anything outside the course that has influenced your understanding of planning law.

The key is link what was changed your frame of reference and how – this is the key to an effective reflective paper.

This is the purpose of reflective learning: a form of personal response to experiences, situations, events or new information. a 'processing' phase where thinking and learning take place.

There is neither a right nor a wrong way of reflective thinking, there are just questions to explore. This makes it different from an essay or hypothetical assessment.

The starting point is to think back to the beginning of the course: ‘What were my understandings/perceptions of planning law?’ This could be anything – there is no correct answer. You need to establish this before you can properly consider how you can reflect upon how your perspective has changed.

Reflective writing is mostly subjective. Therefore, in addition to being reflective and logical, you can be personal, hypothetical, critical and creative. You can comment about your experiences, rather than solely drawing on academic evidence.

Reflective writing is often less formal - you can usually use personal pronouns like 'I', 'my' or 'we' - but keep colloquial language to a minimum, e.g. terms like kid, bloke, stuff.

Your reflective paper can include the following:

• Your perceptions of the course and the content.
• Any questions you have.
• Experiences, ideas and observations you have had, and how they relate to the course or topic.
• What you found confusing, inspiring, difficult, interesting and why.
• Possibilities, speculations, hypotheses or solutions.
• Alternative interpretations or different perspectives on what you have read or done in your course.
• How new ideas challenge what you already know.
• What you need to explore next in terms of thoughts and actions.

You can also discuss how you:

• solved a problem
• reached a conclusion
• found an answer
• reached a point of understanding.

It's also helpful to make comparisons and connections between what you are learning and your prior knowledge and experience and your prior assumptions.