Semester Review and Reflection

Dr. LamTECM 5191

Value of Reflection

•  “reflection enables us to evaluate experience, learn from mistakes, repeat successes, revise, and plan.” –Dr. Sherry Swain• Reflection can, in it of itself, create knowledge • More often, reflection is helpful to remind us what we’ve

already learned

Reflection in your education…

• I am not naïve: I know that this class is one of many competing things going on in your life.• But, that does not mean there is isn’t value in what we’ve done

in this course, or any course you’ve taken for that matter

Reflection in my education…

Some simple examples of “life-changing” (at least paradigm-shifting) discoveries from courses I wasn’t thrilled about but took the time to reflect on:• Computer Science 1 (high school): “Some of you will probably be too

stooopid to pass this class”• U.S. History 1861-present (undergrad): “History is a collection of stories and

will always be influenced by the person who is telling the story”• Research Methods 1 (phD): “Your not always going to have ‘world-changing’

results, that doesn’t mean you haven’t created or contributed to knowledge”• Technical Writing 1 (Masters): “Writing to impress is dumb. Write for

comprehension.”• Document Design (Masters): “I’m sure there’s psychological reasons why this

is true, but removing both horizontal and vertical lines from tables makes them way more awesome”

• Instructional Design (Masters): “More is not always better. Be smart with media and don’t overload your user.”

So, in my life, reflection has helped:

1.Change the way I work (e.g., designing tables; writing for audiences; )

2.Change the way I think (e.g., empathy over apathy)

Interview and Corpus Analysis• Conduct primary research in two distinct ways• Synthesize data into meaningful findings • Understand limitations of specific research methods • Write a formal, empirical report• Communicate your results in a meaningful, oral presentation

• Reflect: Think back and record 1-3 lessons you learned. How will you apply this to future work or ways of thinking? What did this project teach you about yourself?

XML/XSLT Project

• Learn the syntax and structure of XML• Understand how XML is used to structure and describe different

types of information• Understand and implement a XSLT stylesheet and how it relates to

single sourcing• Implement HTML/CSS styles for exporting XML onto the web• Create a database of information for a specific audience

• Reflect: Think back and record 1-3 lessons you learned. How will you apply this to future work or ways of thinking? What did this project teach you about yourself?

Knowledge Base Project

• Synthesize and apply results from primary user research • The role of information architecture in developing overarching site organization

(using card sorting)• The role of information design in creating wireframes• Understand and apply structured authoring and topic-based authoring to technical

articles• Write user-centered articles that solve user-motivated problems• Build a web-based knowledge base using new software

• Reflect: Think back and record 1-3 lessons you learned. How will you apply this to future work or ways of thinking? What did this project teach you about yourself?

Graduate Discussions• How to prepare for and facilitate meaningful discussions around topics

important to the profession• How to synthesize and critically evaluate research and other academic

genres of writing• How to engage in meaningful academic discourse

• Reflect: Think back and record 1-3 lessons you learned. How will you apply this to future work or ways of thinking? What did this project teach you about yourself?

Reflect on your own work this semester

• What have you learned about yourself this semester? How can this information help shape the way you work or think?