Flex.falmouth.ac.uk. 2021. Log in to canvas. [online] Available at: <https://flex.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/911/discussion_topics/19877?module_item_id=49169> [Accessed 16 March 2021].
This week and continually throughout your studies, we ask you to engage in open and honest critical reflection. Reflection can be employed on-action for past experiences, in-action for the present and for-action in the future. Use the forum below to share some reflections about your present situation, using all three perspectives:
Reflect on-action – What critical incidents led you to enroll on the course?
Reflect in-action – What critical incidents, if any, are you experiencing?
Reflect for-action – How are the first two points shaping your outlook for the future?
For me, I would have to say that the events leading up to this were mainly due to hating my current career path. I've always worked in management but I've never enjoyed it. I've always been a lover of games & film, so when I met a couple of indie developers who do this for a living, it made a huge impact on me. Over the course of our friendship I was shown so many things before being told I should give it a go. Eventually over the course of doing my own personal studies over the last 18 months, I decided to try in a official capacity.
Thinking about my current situation here, I would say the only thing I struggle with is probably the reflection side of things. Even though I keep my blog updated on what I am doing, there is always this feeling of is it good enough? Am I doing the right thing? I am trying to overcome this by being more reactive to completing it. Having the blog open whilst I work so I can capture everything in real time, and making sure I am covering what is expected of me during this course.
The future is something I think about a lot. What do I want to do? Do I want to work for a company again? Do I want to be my own boss? I am quite confident that the course and my current method of making games is a great way of getting noticed or a way for me to enter an industry job. I am already putting into place industry standard practices that the course has exposed me to, so I am confident that I will be able to choose either path when i am finished.
Finally this week we were also asked to go through all of our journal entries and tally up the amount of times certain domains were used. For example, there are 5 domains, each with certain defining characteristics. These are: - Dispositional domain
- Affective domain
- Interpersonal domain
- Cognitive domain
- Procedural domain
For myself, I outlined the below after reviewing my journal. It really made me think about the kind of emotions I bring to the course, to my work and even to my personal life. In the video this week about the importance of reflection Alcwyn Parker discussed a book by Chade Meng-Tan called "Search inside yourself". I ordered the book and will be reading it over the course of week 6 reading week.
Step 1
Review each of the entries you created in your journal one at a time. Which of the five reflective domains are mentioned? Now that I have gone through the 5 domains and edited my blog accordingly the following domains have been mentioned.
- Procedural Domain - Dispositional Domain
Step 2
Tally up the number of times each reflective domain tag is used throughout the journal. This data could be visualised in a table or documented in text form. Note this down and acknowledge any imbalances. Which domain is the most dominant in your journal? Which domain needs more consideration in your reflection? Consider how you can address any imbalances in the future. The Procedural domain is the main domain mentioned in my blog. It appears a total of 6 times. There is a direct correlation with the Dispositional domain however as this too does appear a total of 4 times. Reading into this more, there does tend to be a connection between the two. For example, Procedural domain personalities are able to adapt their behaviour to the changing conditions of the simulated world, and respond appropriately in mixed-initiative interactions with learners. This requires a good understanding of the goals and causal dependencies in the procedures being taught. The Dispositional Domain tends to relate to people who are stable and relatively consistent over time. These people also tend to be Lexical, Theoretical & statistical in their approach. Looking back at my Myers-Briggs test this certainly looks to be my most defining traits. I feel more of the Affective domain needs more focus looking back at my blog and my tags. It appears once out of all of the writing I have done and was quite early on in it's inception. To be able to remedy this I need to write more personally about how I feel and or how I was feeling at the time. For example during the 48 hour game jam. There was a mixed bag of emotions during that weekend. Step 3
Review the content in your journal. Acknowledge entries that could be used to help formulate a SMART goal. Identify the highest priority entries and create two or three SMART goals that build on the reflection from the journal entries. Remember, SMART goals must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. 1) To be more transparent with my blog and consider all domains when writing reflectively. This can be measured by looking at date marked previous entries and comparing them to entries added after this date. This will be obtainable as I will have constant reflective time over the course to practice this. This is also relevant to the topic because as Alqwyn Parker stated in the video, you will most likely fall behind if you only focus on one of these domains in your reflective writing. The time in which I have to achieve this is by the due date of the journal review or submission.
2) Focus more on the development part of the blog. The development part of my blog is the hardest part for me to write for. I feel like I always know what to say in other sections, and when it comes to development, it has already been covered. I will start using the development part of the blog for my own personal games as well outside of my studies. Again, this can be measure by looking at previous entries in the development section and comparing them with the newer entries to show I am acknowledging this smart goal. In terms of attainability, I have more than enough projects and prototypes being worked on that can show additional writing and reflective writing skills to cover this smart goal. The development part is relevant because of the mandatory nature that comes with the reflective journal. Time bound scale of the goal is to be completed by the submission deadline of the reflective journal.
Procedural Domain and Dispositional Domain:
These are the two prominent domains associated with my blog. There are some cognitive domain entries in here but the main bulk of it is built around these two.
I started this sprint by first reading into the domains and understanding what they meant to me. I could relate to these as I remember taking a Myers Brigs test through an employer which lead to me understanding my management and personality style better. Below is a piece of work I started working on after trying to incorporate more emotion and feeling into my work. There is a sincere inspiration from Silent Hill in my work which I think helps me understand and show more of the domains such as Affective Domain.
I have also been working more on my rapid ideation game which is due next week. It is coming along nicely and has a lot more visuals going for it. I am trying to ensure I have something unique and that looks visually pleasing.
A futuristic western setting based off of the ideas from my mind mapping sessions & theme reveal. So far I think it is going well and I see myself having this completed in time for the deadline this Wednesday.
This week we are discussing critical reflection and deliberate practice. As mentioned in the development practice section of the blog I have been hard at work on the rapid ideation game we started working on last week. The game is coming along nicely and I feel it captures the theme well on multiple levels. Looking back on my idea, I probably could have simplified it though. For a prototype I feel it is quite ambitious and could result in some frustration over the course of the two weeks.
I have the setting down and in a playable state but I have left out minor things like footstep sounds and music at present as this will be secondary to getting the prototype up and running.
I am looking at my journal again now and planning on spending the weekend on it in time for the review. I feel the journal is going well, however there is always that sinking feeling that something might be wrong. I think my main issues looking back lies within the domains used when writing reflectively. This is my first time ever writing like this so it makes me nervous as I really want to make sure I get this right.
I have updated my Kanban board on Trello to ensure I make time to watch the videos on Canvas this week about the Importance of Reflection and Holistic Reflection.
Discussing my understanding of Reflection:
Reflection and practice are deeply personal and must be specific to me.
It is important to explore the nature of reflection and that is why I bought the book search inside yourself.
I have experienced difficulties, project failures and such as the 48 hour global game jam in regards to the packaging issue. I feel like I have learnt a little from these failures in terms of what I would do differently next time and allotting time for other aspects. This has caused me to avoid doing things in the same way as I have in the past.
I can't say embracing these issues are easy or ways of seeing these as opportunities for learning. To me, they are demotivational and somewhat downright frustrating. I know I should not expect perfection, but it is so hard sometime for me to cross that emotional barrier and tell myself to get better with more effort.
I have started working on my rapid ideation game where I have spent two hours last night after the webinar mind mapping potential ideas.
I created a legend on the top left to show my thought process in case anyone wants to understand it further. For now though I have updated my Kanban board to reflect changes in my working life. The thought process behind this one really has me impressed and really liking the ideas that have come out of the mind map.
Looking at the Epic marketplace there is a free asset this week for a western town by KK
I will use this asset to form the basis of my rapid ideation.
Tunnel Card
The Fool Card
Lady Justice card
Newspaper for the vendor in the game.
I have also been working on Textures and designs of tarot cards for the fortune teller and my own newspaper articles for the events that happen in the game. This has been very rewarding for me as it is nice to take a break from the engine work and coding.
I feel like it's going to take more time if I want to see this project through to completion but right now it is looking good and running smoothly.
Design. Design, K., 2021. Western Desert Town in Environments - UE Marketplace. [online] Unreal Engine. Available at: <https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/western-desert-town> [Accessed 28 February 2021].
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