reflective journal
Order Description
Because your reflections will necessarily focus on unit content, to complete your Reflective Journal you
will need:
? To listen to all lecture recordings, as well as engage in the activities that you are asked to
complete at the end of a lecture;
? To attend and participate in tutorials and take active notes during class;
? To have read the essential readings and engaged with any online empirical material;
? To keep a log of your reflections on learning at the end of each class in order to help you submit
a final reflection at the end of semester;
? An online log/journal will be set up with a link in your weekly Learning Materials folders in vUWS
so that you can record your reflections for each week’s class activities. We advise that you log
your reflections into this online journal by the end of each week. Failure to do so will
compromise the quality of your recollections and your ability to refine them later to write a
coherent narrative for your final Reflective Journal;
? This log is only to help you, and for your own personal use. It will not be overseen or marked by
tutors each week; only the final submission of your completed journal will be marked by teaching
staff.
What is a Reflective Journal?
Reflective writing aims to get you to stand back and think about as well as understand what you learnt.
It will help you try to make sense of how diverse ideas in this unit fit together, while relating new ideas
to what you may already know (or think you know!), and/or challenging any assumptions that you may
have.
Other modes of recorded reflection are logs and diaries. Although there are technical differences
between the three records, it is important to emphasise that we do not, in the final submission of your
reflective journal, want a personal diary. Nor we do not want a list (or “log”) of what you have done or a
document that is constructed from a cut and paste version of your personal online log. We want a
narrative – a story told – that is your reflection on content, evidence and learning.
The Reflective Journal therefore, should not contain details that you would ordinarily keep private about
your personal life. It will contain instead personal reflections on how your learning has led to changes in
your understanding, overturned your assumptions or raised questions about your understanding of
punishment, prisons and prisoners, and the workings of the criminal justice system as a whole.
The Reflective Journal is scholarly because it is based on the theories, concepts and readings available
to you. It is not simply a journal of your opinions, although it will allow you to reflect on how your
opinions might have changed or how they stack up against the theories and empirical materials that
have been presented to you in this unit. Ultimately, your reflections should be based on what you have
learned.
Why complete a Reflective Journal?
The purposes of a reflective journal are many, but some of the most useful reasons to complete a
reflective journal are:
?to record your experiences and facilitate learning from your experiences;
?to develop critical thinking and a “questioning attitude” rather than accepting everything that is
officially recorded as “fact”. This will provide an important basis for academic study and future
professional practice;
? to give you active involvement and “ownership” of your learning;
? to help you find your own (theoretical) position and voice in the content;
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? as a way of ordering, coping with and embracing “messy”, less straight-forward ideas and
information.
Content
For the purposes of this assessment, ‘content’ is found in lectures, tutorials (including discussion
points, debates, other materials considered), the prescribed readings and your own research (perhaps
that which you conducted for your essays).
You are advised not to go beyond these resources to write your Reflective Journal; there will be more
than enough for you to write about and not much scope to expand since you only have a 1200 word
limit.
Referencing and Style
A Reflective Journal is a considered account of learning and should be written in a scholarly style (i.e.,
not notes or dot points etc.). You should pay the same attention to style, grammar and spelling as you
would for any other written assignment.
You should appropriately reference your sources using APA or Harvard styles. You will also need to
reference lectures and/or tutorials – resources on how to do this in this unit are in vUWS. Tutorial
readings are available on vUWS. Your Reference List should be at the end of your Reflective Jour nal
(not at the end of each entry).
You cannot effectively complete a Reflective Journal without using the personal pronoun, “I”. It should
therefore be used liberally, but must be substantiated. As mentioned earlier, this is not an exercise in
professing your spontaneous or unsubstantiated opinion. Your opinions should be based on the
‘evidence’ you are evaluating in your Learning Journal.
Format and Structure of your Reflective Journal
In the final submission of your reflective journal, you will be asked to synthesise all of your reflections
made throughout the semester. We strongly recommend that you record your thoughts at the end of
each week, and work these into a final narrative document that should be structured in line with the
following questions:
1. Did you hold assumptions about any of the topics addressed in this unit? Have any of your
assumptions been overturned?
2. Which of the topics or themes addressed in this unit have stood out for you, and why?
3. Based on some of your responses to the lecture/tutorial activities, which theories or theoretical
frameworks make most sense or appeal to you most? Does this enhance your understanding of how to
use theory in future academic work?
You may wish to use these questions as your headings or if you have a more creative way of labelling
your reflections, you can use different headings (you can consult with teaching staff if you want to run
your ideas past us). Regardless of headings, you MUST answer the questions that are set out, based on
your reflections from lecture/tutorial activities and theories provided in readings. There may be a few
topics that stood out for you, on which you may choose to focus. But you need to provide justification as
to why these topics were significant for your learning.