Part 2 (Module 1) Skype Session, Reflection, and Research.

Monday 31st October, 2016 marked the checkpoint of part 1, and the beginning of part 2 of the 1st module. For this online Skype session, myself and three others discussed reflection. Whether it be in terms of self reflection, reflection of an event or situation, and reflection in terms of literature.

From the module handbook it states that we are to keep a journal of our own thoughts on a daily basis to get us used to the whole idea of reflection which will enable us to gain critical skills when conducting analysis. During the Skype session, we were advised to take a look at the research and works of  David Boud and a few others to get some inspiration and understanding on the reflection process which is something I plan to do and study over the course of part 2 to help me develop as a writer.

We also talked about our own experiences in practice and how that particular experience encouraged us to reflect and how we made particular situations work under various circumstances. Two of the other students mentioned that under their working environment, they had to work with other individuals who on a personal level they did not necessarily see eye to eye, however they had to make it work on a professional level encouraging them to reflect on how they dealt with the situation in hand. Another member of the group shared that her dance team had some negative feedback which resulted in her and her team going away to discuss and fix what went wrong. My own experience on reflection has been auditioning. Although i have been unsuccessful in the last two auditions, it makes me go away and turn a negative into a positive. Evaluating myself in terms of what differs me from the dancers who were fortunate in the previous auditions. However sometimes, it is not just about dance ability, there are other factors which come into play such as height, image, hair colour, who you know etc.

Another part of the session was dedicated to what type of learner we would perceive ourselves which really interested me. For example;

Activist	Learn through doing.
Reflector	Learn through observing.
Theorist	Learning through logical thinking.
Pragmatist	Putting ideas into practice and testing them out.

Personally, I would say that I learn from elements of each one however, if I were to choose one, it would be a pragmatist learner, and this is because it allows you to learn by your mistakes. If you put an idea into practice and it fails, you know what went wrong and why, which also allows you to acknowledge what worked, and the elements that did not work, need changing until the idea is a success.

(blog.prezi.com, 2016)

Above is another chart which outlines four different methods of learning, however there are elements in both. This chart categories the methods as listening, experimenting which is similar to pragmatist, 

reading and writing, and visualizing.

 For my own research I asked 10 people, which type of learner they are, either an activist, a reflector, a theorist or a pragmatist, and the findings are displayed in a chart above. From my results, I have found that the most common form of learning was the 'activist' and the lowest form of learning was the reflector and theorist with just one person each identifying themselves as a reflector and theorist. This part of the Skype session on Monday 31st intrigued me a lot, as I am greatly interested in perusing a career in teaching, and this allows me to recognise that everyone learns best through different methods.

Blog.prezi.com [online]. Available from:

https://blog.prezi.com/the-four-different-types-of-learners-and-what-they-mean-to-your-presentations-infographic/

[Accessed 03.11.16]