Introduction to IT Professional Practice

Assessment : Reflective Report

This document supplies detailed information on assessment tasks for this unit.

Purpose

Have you ever heard the saying "in hind sight everybody has 20/20 vision"? What does the saying mean? Looking back is often called reflection. Reflection can also be looking at and responding to a situation on hand or planning modus operandi.

Documenting your reflections related to your professional development is essential for improving practice and performance. Reflective writing aids self-assessment and helps you to identify key work activities, associated outcomes and lessons learned for next time (if there is one).

You will notice the theme of this assessment relates to the ‘What? So what? Now what?' approach we learned in this unit of study. This covers the process of reflection in a nut shell.

This task requires students to prepare a report using the skills audit conducted in Course 1. You will reflect on your activities, present a summary of your actions and associate these activities and actions to evidenced performance. You will also be required to identify particular professional skills that you are confident in demonstrating in your career.

Structure

REFLECTIVE REPORT CRITERION

This report will be centred on your workplace experience, you are asked to reflect on the two major events that occurred in your workplace history whilst you were working on a project or task and highlight what was your contribution, what happened? And did you actually learn from the experience?

You have two criterion to address below, these will assess your ability to formulate your professional experience into: how did you contribute to various projects or tasks; how competent were you in achieving what you set out to do and what was your performance in this instance? As a result you will be assessed on your ability to narrate your experience and story, reflect on the highs and lows during  your experience and  make judgements to determine if you have a particular skill or need more work to achieve that. The skills audit completed previously in the unit can be used as a starting point for the rest of the report. Focus on illustrating a relationship between technical skills (e.g. those specific to the workplace) and professional skills (e.g. a more holistic listing of skills that can be applied elsewhere (transferable)). The Deakin University Graduate Learning Outcomes (GLOs) are a great place to start when considering the  professional skills that were developed throughout the learning process.

Task A - Learning from the lows

In order to satisfy this criterion, students will describe why and what they have learned in their two workplace experiences as well as how it has made an impact on their employability and potential career path. Students are required to recognise the significance of their workplace practice and how it's changed their journey.

? Provide a narration of two workplace experiences, what tasks or projects you worked on. Direct your reflection onto did you have some experiences which turned unlike the way you expected? Indicate anything that they would do differently next time, and provide reflection of your overall satisfaction with your performance.

? Examine how the acquisition of a particular professional skill affects your professional identity. Insight should be given as to if it is a valuable or attractive skill to obtain.

? Consideration should be provided for why the skill was learned in the first place and how it can assist you to achieve your professional goals.

Task B - How well did you perform?

This criterion is related to reflection on your performance during two examples where you were involved in conducting a specific project/task. Students should focus their attention to reflect and determine, were you competent in a particular event as well as why were you doing the task? Focus on assessment not acknowledgement.

? You will need to determine your competency level with each skill from the skills audit conducted in Course 1. Examples of competency levels include, ‘Beginner', ‘Intermediate', and ‘Advanced'.

? If a skill is advanced, a description of what is being done to utilise it will be provided. Then reflect on whether you are currently advertising this ability to prospective employers or even your current employer if applicable.

Discuss the goals of your particular workplace example and how you ensured these goals were met. Reflection on what input and\or reactions other members of the project team had throughout the process should be provided.

? Provide narration on what evidence you have to prove your ability and performance in the area. If you performed very well, what evidence is there of that?