Reflective Learning Journal 11/09/12

11/9/12 Investigation, Reflection, Expression (IRE) Neil Wood

This afternoon we had a lesson in Study Skills with Neil Wood, who handed out, like a million pieces of paper out to each and every student in the room, to do with this module, and these Reflective Learning Journals (RLJs), which are basically what I'm writing in this post, and will have to continue to write for every module for the duration of my Foundation Degree Course. I also spoke to and had a laugh with David, the student sitting next to me during this lesson.

I remember at times I felt myself losing focus on the lesson so I had to ask Jane, my support in the lesson, to make sure I hadn't lost focus when Neil was saying something important. This wasn't from boredom, I think this was just because I was still in "Summer Holiday mode" today.

However, I did learn a lot from this lesson. I learned about how studying mostly works, as well as learning about time management, and the importance of balancing everything else in your life with studying. The group also put together a list of things that could distract them from their study time, such as family and socialising.

Another thing Neil said that I remember is that it's important to find your best "time of day," and I could definitely understand what he described because I experience a lot of this already at home. For instance, my dad always feels refreshed and wide awake in the morning, but struggles to stay awake and focused after about 10pm, whereas my Mum is quite quiet in the mornings, but can still do a lot of jobs in the evenings. I think for me, my best "time of day" when I'm not at college or busy with other commitments will be the afternoon or evening, because when I'm not at college in the mornings, and don't have too much work to do, I just like to have a cup of tea and watch Spongebob. I'm not really a morning person, and I think that knowing this will really help me a lot with my time management, and to stay focused as well.

Neil also mentioned that it's not a good idea to just spend a whole day studying at home, because if you set a whole day devoted to studying, you are likely to go off and do other things, and it is hard to concentrate on studying for a whole day. Instead, it is best to break down studying into little chunks of time across the week

We will also have to use "Reflective Learning" and "Reflective Writing" in these modules as well  as in our RLJs. This is describing what we have done each day and what we have learned, analysing what we have learned, and then evaluating it, explaining what went well and what perhaps didn't go well. For instance, I am a little bit frustrated with myself because I want to do the best I can with these RLJs and I feel that I've done more describing, and maybe wrote down a few points that may not be entirely necessary in this post.

However, Neil did say that at first, the descriptive part of your will take up most of your writing, and the evaluation will not be as detailed as the descriptive part. Being a bit of a perfectionist, I do want to try and be the best I can be with these RLJs, as well as everything else, as soon as I can, but hopefully we will be taught more techniques as the weeks go on.