Assignment 3: Critical reflection portfolio

Curtin University, Faculty of Humanities Academic and Professional Communications (COMS1007)

Assignment 3: Critical reflection portfolio

Assignment 3: Critical reflection portfolio

Worth: 45 Marks Due: Week 12 (midnight on Sunday)

Reflective and critical thinking are vital in whatever discipline you are studying – skills in these levels of thinking make you a successful professional in your field. Critical reflection is not the same as ‘being critical’. It is a specific term that refers to identifying and challenging the assumptions you make. Instead of assuming that something is true, you identify the assumptions you are making when you believe it, and then challenge these assumptions. You can do this in any part of your life, and you can apply it to the assumptions underlying all texts you read, hear and watch. This assignment is designed to encourage and teach you to think in critically reflective ways in the discipline you are studying, reflecting on:

• yourself as a learner

– what works for you and how you need to adapt to university study

• your discipline and your future professional life
• ideas introduced to you in the rest of your course Mount Barlong portfolio – basic information

Assignment 3: Critical reflection portfolio

This portfolio involves the Mount Barlong group project, which will give you experience of communications among stakeholders in a complex building project, and require you to reflect critically on the understandings you have developed. This is an imaginary building project that has been created with the advice of design, planning and building professionals in order to make it as authentic as possible. Mount Barlong is an imaginary town in a mountainous district of an Australian state. Its agriculture and timber industries are dying, which has led to the town itself losing inhabitants and infrastructure. A development company is seeking to build a large multi-building resort development on the edge of the town. Stakeholders in favour of the development are meeting those concerned about its impact to try to reach decisions that will please all stakeholders, and be passed on to the State Planning Department for their final decision on whether to approve the project, and what form the project will take. Group task Your tutorial group will be divided into three teams: the development team, the government team and the community team, with each member taking a different role in the negotiation, and taking part in a team presentation to the rest of the class. While this is a group task, you will submit an individual portfolio, and your marks will be individual. The purpose of organising it this way is that you will have opportunities to reflect critically by sharing your ideas and resources with each other but your final mark will not be affected by the performance of other group members. You will conduct the group components through online discussion boards. 2 Individual critical reflection portfolio (due before midnight on Sunday in Week 12)

Marks: 45 marks Your team’s task in Weeks 8 to 12 is to prepare a multimedia portfolio in order to present your case to the other teams in Week 13. You will submit your individual part of this portfolio to your tutor for assessment in Week 12. You will use a group discussion board to develop your team’s portfolio. Your Critical Reflection Portfolio

• Collection of 4 primary texts, which support your team’s position, making a range of assumptions about the built environment and complementing the texts chosen by your group members. For written and visual texts, include the texts themselves in your portfolio, with correct Chicago authordate referencing where relevant. For published multimedia texts such as films or webpages, include a full URL where your reader can access the texts. For previously unpublished multimedia texts, upload them to YouTube (Unlisted section) and provide the URL.
• A critical reflection of 150 words under each text, explaining why you chose the text and how it supported or challenged your own assumptions on the built environment issues that face your team.
• Final critical reflection of 500 words on this project and on the unit overall, examining how your thinking has changed over the semester. What have you learned? What are you satisfied with and what would you like to have done better?

In what ways have you changed your attitudes to yourself as student, to your discipline, and to issues that you have been studying? Then reflect forward on where you would like to take your communications processes in your future studies and professional life: what processes will you build on in your future studies and what will you do differently? Week 13 In your Mount Barlong team (developers, government agencies or community members), present your portfolio demonstrating your team’s case for the redevelopment to the rest of your class, and take part in an informal negotiation between the three groups. The aim of this negotiation will be to persuade the visiting State Minister for Planning of your team’s position on the development. You will conduct this negotiation through a discussion board in Week 13, making brief regular postings throughout the week to argue your team’s case to the other two teams. Your participation on this discussion board will form part of your Contribution assessment for this assignment. Formatting and submission Download the appropriate template from the Assignments section of Blackboard and fill in the front page. Then copy and paste your texts (or links to them) and your critical reflections, and name the file in the format you adopted for Assignments 1 and 2. Submit the document through the Blackboard Assignments tab before midnight on Sunday in Week 12. If for some reason you lose the formatting or layout of this template, here are the formats required: - 1.5 line spacing, 12 point Times New Roman, and 2.5 centimetre margins - Page numbers on each page 3

Assessment Criteria: Assignment 3: Critical reflection portfolio

• Selection of texts to show a range of range of assumptions
• Critical reflection on the individual texts, exploring how they represent your position and/or challenge your assumptions
• Thoughtfulness of final critical reflection on the unit
• Contribution to the project, as evidenced only in your contributions in the tutorials and to the final presentation.
• Formatting and submission of assignment