Stage 2 - Reflecting on and making sense of your research.

 Stage 2 of our creative process is to reflect on the research making sense of it, explaining and analysing why and how it's been useful.

For this task you need to allocate at least a column to explain how the Gibbs reflective cycle is used, explain that this has to be done after your research and prior to starting the practical work. 

There are a number of links in my blogs that explain how you use the Gibbs reflection, use the explanations to create your own. (Do not copy re-word in your own writing style). 

It's important to emphasise that the final stage 'Plan' becomes the plan for your first practical activity. The plans are also described as being your 'Intentions' and that it's useful to head this section of your work "Action plan/Intention".  

Click here for an explanation of how to use Gibbs reflections in your work

FAQ's_________________________________

I'm confused about the analysis part of the Gibbs what do I write about this?

So, the Gibbs Reflective part happens after an activity, in some cases the activity is research, but most of the time the activity is practical work... A photo-shoot, a session in the darkroom or a session working with Photoshop and so on.

The part that students struggle with is the analysis section, not knowing what to write. 

In the case of writing a 'Gibbs' after research you basically have to write about what you have learned from doing the research. Why has it been useful to you? What parts of the research are you going to carry forwards and use in your own work? What did you learn that is going to be useful to you, not only now, but also in the longer term? 

Important - also explain where you would be if you hadn't done the research? This is a what if scenario... "What if I hadn't done the research" If you explain the impact of not doing the research the work suddenly goes from being descriptive... I did this and I did that to being analytical - this means you look at the worth of the research in more depth showing that you understand how important the research was. 

Generally, if you question what you do, and it worthiness - asking what if I hadn't done it. Or why does that work so well. It generally means you end up writing a whole lot more on top of a description. Students hate it, but it's the difference between passes and higher grades.

https://www.bradfordvts.co.uk/teaching-learning/reflection/