Reflective Essay on Assessment Task 1 Resource Prepared by Dr Lucinda McKnight for the Education Studies team Introduction You are required to write a reflective essay contemplating the design of your resource for Task 1 and the impact of the process on your own developing cultural awareness. You will need to incorporate feedback from peers and from trialling your resource with your intended audience. This assessment task (1400 words) is worth 40% of the total assessment for this unit. This assessment task is to be submitted via the assignments folder in CloudDeakin by 11.30 pm on Friday 26 May 2017. Aim: o To enable you to demonstrate your evolving insights into the challenges of designing resources for culturally diverse communities. o To enable you to identify, share and critically reflect on your own cultural knowledge and assumptions. o To enable you to evaluate your own resource design critically and make recommendations for improvements. Process 1. You will keep a reflective journal during the unit, which will assist with this task. 2. You will write a critical and reflective essay in which you might consider the following (these are just for stimulus- you may have other ideas): o What, in your own personal experience, drew you to this particular focus/audience/form? o Describe the ways in which your resource achieved your purpose, and also how it could be improved. You can describe here how your audiences responded to your resource, what kinds of questions and comments they had, what they learnt from your resource, etc. o How were your chosen pedagogical strategies useful in seeking to achieve your goal in relation to encouraging the participation of diverse cultural groups in cultural life? o How was your resource itself practically accessible to diverse audiences? How could this be improved? o What are some of the challenges you faced in designing your resource? o What have you learnt from the process of designing the resource, and from the broader unit (including from others’ presentations), in relation to cultural diversity and the barriers to participation in education, in your chosen setting and envisaged professional practice? How have your own theories and philosophies changed, if at all? How have you yourself changed, in relation to “being” rather than “doing” in your conceptualisation of inclusivity, for example? Your essay will need to include: o A appropriate title. o Subheadings to help structure your response. o An introduction engaging with the purpose of this reflective essay task, and briefly describing your chosen organisation, resource, aims and audience for Task 1. o A main body of writing responding to the task. You might also include quotations from your reflective journal, sketches, audio or photographs, for example. You will need to cite at least five of the sources used in the unit, in your essay overall. o A conclusion, in which you might, for example, sum up how useful your resource would be if deployed in its planned authentic context and consider the impact of your understanding of cultural diversity on resource design. o An accurately formatted and complete reference list complying with Deakin Harvard style. *Please note this support material is guidance only, and you may have other, creative ways in which you may prefer to respond to the requirements of the task, and meet the assessment criteria. Please discuss any ideas with your tutor. What to upload You will upload a single Word file that includes: o Your name and student number o Your reflective essay. o Your correctly formatted reference list. Please do not hesitate to contact me or your tutor if you would like further information or assistance. Assessment Criteria Your marker will assess you according to the following criteria: o Insightful and critical reflection on the usefulness of the resource in achieving your goals and meeting the needs of culturally diverse groups: you will need to discuss in detail how your resource was successful, and how it could be improved, including awareness of pedagogical affordances and limitations in the resource design. We will be looking for a clear explanation of what worked and what didn't work. o Thoughtful discussion of feedback: you will need to demonstrate that you have taken feedback from peers, tutor and audience into account. We would like to see exactly how you modified your resource in relation to feedback during the development process, and how your resource performed with an authentic audience. o Reflection on your own evolving critical cultural competence in relation to the unit’s teaching, readings and tasks: you will need to share whether, how and why your perspectives have changed during this unit. o Accurate referencing: your in-text citations and reference list will need to be complete and correctly formatted. You need to cite at least five sources from the unit. The Deakin Harvard Guide provides support with accurate citing and referencing; http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/studying/study-support/referencing/harvard o Spelling, grammar and punctuation: you will need to demonstrate proficiency in written communication.