It has been a while since I have made a post that does not begin with ‘Rapid Ideation Session Day…’ in the title, but I am writing this post to address the Challenge Activity that we have been given as part of this week.
The Five Reflective domains
Firstly, I was required to go through each of the posts that I have posted up and determine how they relate to critical reflection according to five distinct domains that are linked with critical reflection and that Alcwyn Parker addresses in a video on the subject on Canvas (Parker, A., n.d).
- Dispositional domain: Covers time management, motivation, general behaviour and discipline. If I have trouble with these areas, the likelihood is I will fall further behind in my work. Reflection in this area should help me get into the route of this problem.
- Affective domain: How I deal with feelings and emotions during a project. This requires me to tap into my emotional intelligence. Key skills here include emotional awareness and self-assessment. I should consider what external factors may be affecting my focus.
- Interpersonal domain: This includes all skills required to interact with others such as verbal and non verbal comminication, listening, negotiation, problem solving and decision making.
- Cognitive domain: Requires me to assess the strengths and weaknesses of my apporach to learning and to identify trajectories that will complement my learning and chosen career path. I have to consider what methodologies I apply for learning and developing new skills.
- Procedural domain: Assessing the skills I already have and identifying what improvements are required.
How I did this was by going through all 29 previous posts and tagging them with tags that I created for each of the five domains of critical reflection. Some of these would only meet one of the five domains, some may meet a few of them.
Once I had tagged all posts, I checked the tags list in the back end of my website to work out which domains of critical reflection I most address across all my posts, as well as those that I may need to focus more on. At the time of writing this post, these were the domains I most focused on and the numbers of posts that were tagged:
| Reflective domain | Posts |
| Procedural domain | 24 |
| Cognitive domain | 14 |
| Dispositional domain | 5 |
| Affective domain | 3 |
| Interpersonal domain | 1 |
To view each of the posts according to their reflective domain, please click their tag under the Tag section on the right hand toolbar.
As we can see from the above, procedural domain is the clear winner and is the area that I touch upon the most in my critical reflection. This is because I frequently assess the skills that I have and also the ones that I am lacking and need to approve. I am often talking about my skills and knowledge as I am applying it.
It is perhaps not surprising the procedural domain scores so highly as Alcwyn mentions that this area is often over represented in critical practice.
In a distant second is cognitive domain, which means that I am endeavouring to seek methods for improving my skills, as I am practicing. I have been exploring different resources such as books, articles and videos and I have also explored different theories and methodologies that I have come across to generate and execute ideas. This is something I am doing well in but could still improve upon.
There was also a sizabe amount of crossover between the cognitive and procedural, as I am often exploring new trajectories of learning as I am assessing my own skillset.
I need to work more a bringing the dipositional, affective and interpersonal into my critical reflection. I have touched upon the dispositional in a few posts, particularly the Stand-up posts I post up at the beginning of every day and I have spoken about certain obstacles I have come across in my personal life, such as work and illness; as well as excessive time on the computer. This is something I should continue to reflect upon in my work and how it ties into my progress.
I have spoken very little about the affective and I have rarely spoken about my feelings regarding projects, the unit or the course. This is an area that I have not tapped into a lot, perhaps as I am not used to talking about my feelings. I need to nurture this area more in my critical reflection.
I have touched on interpersonal even less so. I could only identify one post which came remotely close to touching on this and that was actually the very first post I wrote for this blog in which I reflected on how I spoke with fellow students in the forums on Canvas and I was impressed by the vast range of skills and backgrounds of everyone present. However, I believe the only reason I have not focused on the interpersonal is simply because I have not yet worked with other students on projects, but I believe there will be opportunity for this in future.
I will continue to use the reflective domain tags on subsequent posts during this unity to see my focus shifts or changes across all the domains, as a result of analysing them.
SMART goals
Alcwyn also speaks about SMART goals, which are clear and concise goals that are specific, measurable, acheivable, relevant and timebound. I also did some of my own reading on what each of these terms mean in this context (Indeed.com. 2020).
It has been a week since I established a goal for this rapid ideation session and it was as follows:
To design and build a complete, working game within two weeks.
I will now analyse the goal against the criteria of the SMART acronymn to work out not just whether it fits them, but as to how far it fits them.
- Specific: I have specified that I want to design and build a complete working game within a certain timeframe. However, since I have begun the process, I realise that I complete polished game will not be realistic, so I am going to aim for a more achievable aim of creating a prototype for a game – something which is playable, works properly and is clear to whoever plays it what the object is, even if not all the features and artwork are present.
- Measurable: The goal as it stands does not really highlight why I am making this game. I am making it as I want to improve my proficiency in game design and development. The purpose of the rapid ideation session is not the creative artefact itself, but what I have learnt in the process. In fine tuning my goal to fit the SMART criteria, I will take the focus slightly away from the game and in making it about learning how to make the game. The game will serve as evidence of my progress.
- Achievable: Designing a complete working game in the time I had, given my skillset and given the short time period is perhaps less achievable, so I am going to switch this to the more achievable goal of making a prototypical game. Any improvements I make to the game and go towards a final game before 3rd March will be a bonus.
- Relevant: The project does add up with my long term goals. While I am still exploring possible career paths and I am leaning towards making games on a freelance basis, the goal I have set certainly lines up with my objective to become a more proficient game developer and designer.
- Timebound: The rapid ideation session is two weeks long and I have set within two weeks as the timeframe. My goal already meets this part of the SMART criteria.
My initial goal meets the criteria for SMART goals to varying degrees, but having analysed it a week in, I have decided to refine my goal to the following:
To develop my game design and development skills, as well as my knowledge of the Unity game engine, by designing and building a working prototype for my game within a period of two weeks.
My goal has been refined to reflect the purposes of this rapid ideation session more closely and now that I have gained some experience in what rapid ideation involves, I have been able to pad out my goal and add more detail to ensure that it is clear what I want to acheive out of this process. When this rapid ideation session ends in a week’s time, I will assess what I have accomplished against this goal.
References
Indeed.com. 2020. SMART Goals: Definition and Examples. [online] Available at: <https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/smart-goals> [Accessed 24 February 2021].
Parker, A., n.d. The Five Reflective Domains. [online] Flex.falmouth.ac.uk. Available at: <https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/911/pages/week-5-the-five-reflective-domains?module_item_id=49171> [Accessed 24 February 2021].
Parker, A., n.d. SMART Goals. [online] Available at: <https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/911/pages/week-5-smart-goals?module_item_id=49172> [Accessed 24 February 2021].
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