1.4 Reflective practice in art and design – examples of reflective activities transcript
Reflection is used in a multitude of ways in art and design. The text below gives examples of activities that you might do as an art or design student that involve reflection.
Write a reflective journal or blog
Example: Peyton writes a blog about her experiences in art and design. She started her blog a few years ago in high school as a place to share her thoughts on design, her own work, and other work she’s interested in. Now, she’s also using it to write about her latest digital design project at uni. She likes to go back through her blog archive and see how her work has changed over the years.
Set professional development goals
Emma is an industrial design student who hasn’t been feeling very motivated lately. She decides to create some academic and professional goals to give herself something to focus on and work towards. She reflects on her current skills, strengths, weaknesses, what she values most in her field, and what she is passionate about. This helps her figure out what she’d like to achieve in the short and long term, and the areas she needs to work on to reach these goals.
Write a reflective essay
Lee is taking a class on exhibiting artwork and one of the assessment tasks is to write an academic reflective essay. Lee is required to write about their experiences with art exhibitions as a viewer, and how these experiences have impacted their approach to showcasing their own art. Lee will use formal language and follow a reflective model structure to analyse and evaluate their own feelings about the exhibitions they’ve seen, discuss how theories explored in class align with their experiences, and comment on how this will impact their future choices as an exhibiting artist.
Receive peer feedback
As part of a communication design assessment, Huy writes an audience analysis report to show that he understands the target audience of his (fictional) client. Huy’s classmates do the same task, each for a different audience. When they have finished their first drafts, the students in Huy’s class are paired up and they review each other’s work. Huy’s reviewer gives him some constructive criticism as well as plenty of positive feedback. Huy considers the feedback carefully and reflects on why he fell short in some areas and which he should act on. This will help him improve his analysis before submission and write an even better draft next time.
Review the challenges and successes of a group task
Tan is doing a group assessment with some of his classmates in their game design studio course. They’ve been tasked with redesigning an existing game to improve the user experience and user interface. The final part of the assessment is writing an individual writing task commenting on how they worked as a team. Tan answers a series of reflective prompts about how they approached the assignment, the challenges they faced and how they reacted, and what they could have done differently to make the group work process more effective.
Write a Studio Knowledge Object reflection
Taylor is taking part in a landscape architecture design studio course called Urban Greening: Sustainable Environments. Her main assessment for this course is a Studio Knowledge Object (SKO). For the SKO, she puts together a proposal on how an urban space could be redeveloped to create a public park. Taylor does a site analysis, considers and researches the needs of the community, and uses technology to develop plans and mock-ups. She writes a reflective task to accompany her studio knowledge object. This reflection records her learning and the insights she gained from going through this practical design process.
Write an artist statement
Peyton is submitting an exhibition proposal for a digital artwork she has created. If her work is accepted, it will be her first exhibition as a professional artist. As part of the submission, Peyton is required to write an artist statement. To do this, she needs to reflect on her creative intentions, artistic process, and motivation, and articulate how each part came together to create her sculpture. Reflecting deeply on her work, influences, and motivations will help Peyton write a meaningful artist statement.
Write a reflection on a workshop or exhibition
Taylor recently attended a workshop on sustainable design practices. Her teacher has asked her to write a reflective piece on the workshop to show what she has learnt and how it can be applied to her own practice going forward. Taylor briefly describes the experience, writes about what she expected from the workshop, the things that surprised or left an impression on her. She also includes examples of how what she has learnt will influence her future work, and the challenges or concepts covered in the workshop that she plans to explore further in the future.
Discuss your work with a teacher or mentor
Tan is doing a work-integrated learning (WIL) placement with a team developing VR learning experiences for primary school students. Tan has regular meetings with the team leader (his mentor) to reflect on his work and discuss challenges. His mentor gives him feedback on his contribution to the design project and collaboration with the team. Tan reflects before, during, and after these meetings; beforehand, he considers what he wants to discuss with his mentor; during the meeting, they discuss why issues might have arisen; and afterwards, Tan reflects on the feedback his mentor has given him and how he can implement suggestions in the future.
Include reflections in your portfolio
Lee is working on their ePortfolio, which is a collection of samples of their work and accompanying text that explains the work and the skills and knowledge Lee gained from producing it. Lee has a ‘blog’ section on their ePorfolio, where they have included reflections on design studios and workshops they have attended, the work they have created, and the things they’ve learnt through trial and error.
