Recording Progress
Why do I need to reflect and record?
This is the beginning of your professional portfolio of information, examples and evidence of your skills, interests, personal attributes and achievements. When prospective employers ask you for evidence of the skills and attributes they are looking for, you will be able to draw on the examples documented here to answer interview questions and respond to selection criteria. Having this information ready and organised will make the job application process easier and less daunting. The wide variety of information you record will convey a more complete picture than relying on your memory later. Reflecting on your progress and achievements in each unit will also help you see the relevance of each part of your coursework.
What sort of experiences should I record?
Reflect on and record any experience that you feel has contributed to your academic, professional or personal development in relation to the graduate attributes. Draw on experiences from situations at university, at work, in the community, or in your personal life.
Why do I enter each experience against a particular graduate attribute?
Job interview questions and selection criteria are often based around generic employability attributes. Organising your reflections with respect to these areas will benefit you when you begin applying for employment.
UNE's reflection guide helps you:
- assess your learning and skills
- reflect critically on progress
- prepare for exams—completing the reflection guide before exams may help you identify areas in need of more work
- record evidence for future résumés.
Assess your learning and skills
Review what you think you learnt in each semester's units. Compare this with what was stated in each unit's learning outcomes found in unit guides. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and use the information to improve. Be honest in what you record and do not misrepresent your achievements, because in the long run you will be fooling yourself.Knowing you have done well will give your confidence a boost. If there is something that has not been done so well, it is better to know upfront, while there is still time to improve. It is like learning to be good at basketball or football. You keep practicing and thinking hard (critically) about the standard of your performance and what you can do to improve. Then you practice some more (a bit differently or with a coach) so that you keep improving.
Reflect critically on progress
Self reflection cycle = practice + refine + improve = mastery
The more you practice honest, critical reflection the better you get at it.
Record for your future résumés
The reflection template uses the STARR framework for recording achievements to help you and others understand exactly what you can do. The STARR approach is often used in job interviews so if you are already familiar with the process you are ahead of the competition.
The STARR acronym helps you structure your reflections and clearly convey the meaning and outcome of an experience.
| Explanation | |
|---|---|
Situations | describes the context in which the experience occurred (e.g. in a team project in tutorials, in your job, or in a sports team). |
Task | describes what you actually did in the situation (e.g. delivered a presentation as part of a project, or, acted as team leader). |
Action | describes the actions you personally took in the task (e.g. organised a team meeting to select resources and create a presentation structure, prepared your allocated section of the presentation and liaised with other presenters about timing and order of participation). |
Result | the outcome of the action (e.g. everyone contributed to the plan, discussed which resources to use and prepared their section, or alternatively, no one came to the meeting). |
Reflection | How well did I do? Do I need to improve? If yes, set a SMART goal (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed) to achieve improvement. An example of a goal might be 'I am going to do the online tutorial on the Academic Skills Office web page on presentation techniques before my next presentation in semester 2'. Remember your evidence can include experiences outside your academic study (e.g. joined the college debating team to help speak in front of others). The reflection template has more hints about reflection. |
Assessing your reflection
The following table may help you see how effective you have been at reflecting. If you have done something really well and enjoyed it, you'll probably get into the 'outstanding' area. This is something you'll definitely want to mention in a job application! Don't be afraid to include examples of where you did not do so well, because the important thing is what you learn from the experience and the plan you make to ensure you do better next time.
Assessing your reflection—all parts of the STARR must be covered
Unsatisfactory | Satisfactory | Outstanding | |
|---|---|---|---|
Situations | 1 only | 2-3 | More than 3 |
Task | Vague | Clear description | Clear description with extra details |
Action | No mention of your actions | Clear explanation of what you did | Detailed description of your specific actions |
Result | Unclear description of quality of outcome | Explanation of how well you did, no mention of weaknesses | Clear explanation of how well you did including weak or unsatisfactory results |
Reflection | Action only described | Actions and reactions described | Actions and reactions described including others' points of view. |
Action plans | None or non-specific | 1 or 2 SMART goals | Several SMART goals |
Overall | Unsatisfactory | Satisfactory | Outstanding |
Value of reflection—some key points
- reflection helps you understand your experience and learn from it
- the reflection guide template gives you a structure or framework for reflection
- reflection gives you the opportunity to take action of your own for better learning
- reflection is a complex process involving both intellectual and emotional elements (Dewey 1933). Your assessment results will give you the objective result while your opinion of your abilities will indicate your confidence.
- reflection has a role in academic and non-academic learning
- reflection is important for decision-making
- some of you may find it difficult.
