Final Reflection
For week 13, I am required as an individual to reflect on this trimester for AUD176. I am required to reflect and present in my lecture what I have created this trimester, what I have learnt during this trimester, what I have learnt about my own reflective practices during this trimester, what I am planning to improve for the next trimester, and lastly, where I think I fit on the overall grading scale and why.
Multiple projects have been created, whereby for AUD 176, I found it extremely helpful and informative. I have a personal interest in audio and recording, so I appreciated the opportunity to collaborate and work with different members on various projects. I began this trimester without knowing and understanding how to work with protools. Nowadays, I can confidently say that I can fluently work on the protools. I found it really helpful the continuous feedback and rigorous approach of learning journals that we applied by Randy in order to ensure that my and other students as future audio engineers, are reflecting on the process in a successful way. I found it really usefull and helpful to learn about the different aspects of the audient studio desk, as this is something that I have never used before. I am mostly a digital mixer user, and in the beginning, I found it quite difficult to work with the audient studio setup as it was all analog and required signal flow knowledge that I did not have at 100%. It was also really interesting to learn about the different audio processing skills and understand the way in which audio desks have successfully developed over time and why they developed.
Having the opportunity to continually reflect on my transferable skills and on my weekly content learnt provided me with the opportunity to reflect on what I had learnt on a weekly basis and on how I could improve for the future. Furthermore, having the opportunity to have in-presence lessons also allowed me the time and opportunity to assist the students with a reflective process and at the same time learn where I could potentially be falling behind based on the mistakes and errors that they made. Through this reflective practice process, it also allowed me to cross-check and apply what I had learnt and received feedback on my other units, AIM110. The final project, which had links between both units, was for an AIM110, on which I feel I really applied my knowledge from AUD176 successfully.
For the next trimester, my plan is to improve my organizational skills. Due to the fact that I will be undertaking 50 unit credits at the same time, I will be required to continually ensure that my learning reflections are completed on a daily basis instead of at the end of each week. I am also aiming to more frequently ask for feedback from my lecture to try and understand exactly where I am falling behind and where I am succeeding. This will allow me to show continuous progress and improvements within the course, which is what I am required to do in order to achieve the high distinction grade I aspire to.
For the upcoming trimester, I will also be looking to collaborate more with the film and game students to give me an opportunity to apply my skillset and learn skills within a real-life context. Over this upcoming break, I am also looking to apply the the mixing and audio content I have learned in this unit to a real-life situation as I am looking to film and start my own personal podcast through the application of my learned musical production skills. Mixing has always been one of my greatest strengths, but I believe that with AUD176 I have severely been able to improve this skill and demonstrated it throughout all three of the completed projects.
In terms of the overall assessment guide and grading for this unit, I believe I should be able to achieve a HD grade. Despite all the technological issues faced with my website, I was also able to submit and present both my learning journals and project submissions within the given time frame. Another reason why I believe I should be able to achieve a high distinction grade in this unit is due to the fact that I have been able to continually reflect on my work on a weekly basis by asking for in-class feedback from my lecturer, Randy, and my peers, and then acting on the feedback provided.
In terms of the challenges encountered during this trimester and the way in which I addressed them, the main issues were the learning journals and the website platform. My website was at times not syncing and synchronising with my lectures' webpage, which resulted in information that was reflected on my side not being reflected on Randys' end at times. This could definitely affect my overall grade and be considered an inconsistent reflective practice. However, I had ensured that every week I demonstrated what I had learnt and what I had reflected on the previous week. The challenge which I had severe issues with this trimester however, was the collaboration and teamwork between other peers in my class. Upon speaking to them various times I personally do feel that I was at a disadvantage in certain scenarios with my group/team members. Despite all the comunication issues faced I always decided to not give up and continue to strive for excellence and try and work with my team members to try and make them learn what they were doing wrong, but at the same time, attempting to manage to achieve my own grades and ensure that I was getting what I deserved.
In terms of my transferable skills learnt this trimester, I personally think that I was able to reflect on all of the set transferable skills at different times throughout the course, however, focusing more on certain aspects in comparison to others. An example of where I feel that the transferable skills section was continuously reflected upon more than others was interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills state that it is the ability to communicate with other team members and the lecture. This skill was one on which I was continually working on and asking for feedback. The skills which I feel were also a great reflection during this trimester were problem-solving and critical thinking. I was continuously able to problem solve issues that arose through our project submissions and project creations, but at the same time, I was also able to critically think of solutions that were applicable to different scenarios that were faced and challenges encountered throughout this trimester. A massive transferable skill, but one that I feel I reflected on many times during this trimester was collaboration and team player.Throughout this whole unit, I did face issues with my team members, but using the skills that were taught to me by Randy and I that have personally developed, I was able to communicate in different ways to ensure that each of my team members would understand what was wrong but also find solutions that would not only benefit others within my surroundings, but myself at the same time. I will continuously strive for excellence in the upcoming trimester and ensure that my lectures can see my reflection of improvement when it comes to teamwork and communication.