The Reflections

Reflection in the Extended Essay

• The Reflections are worth 17.64% of your final grade, so it's worth paying a lot of attention to them!
• Observations about how thinking has changed and progressed are valued by examiners.
• Let a sense of intellectual growth come through. You are asked to show how your thinking has changed.
• Do not include comments like: I wish I procrastinated less etc.
• Show evidence of critical thinking, it is not about the content of the essay, but rather the decision making and the thinking. How has you thinking about the topic changed?
• Use the language and words of the approaches to learning framework from the MYP. (Also scroll down for image)

More information:

• Reflection in the extended essay focuses on your progress during the planning, research and writing process. It is intended to help you with the development of your extended essay as well as allowing you the opportunity to consider the effectiveness of your choices, to re-examine your ideas and to decide whether changes are needed.
• The emphasis in the extended essay is on process reflection, characterized by reflecting on conceptual understandings, decision-making, engagement with data, the research process, time management, methodology, successes and challenges, and the appropriateness of sources.
• You will be encouraged to informally reflect throughout the experience of researching and writing the extended essay, but you are required to reflect formally during the reflection sessions with your supervisor and when completing the Reflections on planning and progress form.
• Reflections need to relate to your essay and your learning process:

1. What did you do (what was your research process)?
2. What did you find out about the research process? What information was difficult to find in your research?
3. Make it tied to concrete actions related to your research process.
4. Time management, organization, finding sources, complications in writing or addressing certain aspects of your essay are all possible topics BUT Don't just say, my time-management skills were poor. Say what strategies you adopted that you want to use in the future that helped improve your time management.

You are required to do 3 reflections: each one is about 7% of your overall EE grade. Once as you refine your topic (developing a workable research question), once in the middle (once your are developing an argument around your research question- at the end of this you should have a viable argument, sufficient sources and a clear understanding of the writing process - a good outline, and near the end of the process-once the final version of the document has been submitted. This should be a celebration and final reflection about what you learned in the whole process.

First meeting; bring mind map, sources, some ideas of where you are going with your research.

1. Questions to address in your first reflection:

• Don't say "interesting". Be specific and descriptive. Show analysis and evaluation.
• How did you go about finding your topic? How did you narrow this down to something you could write about in an EE?
• How did you go about finding your research question? How is your 'argument' developing?
• What was difficult about finding your first sources? What help did you get from your supervisor?
• possible sources and methods, personal reactions to research.

Second meeting: Outline or draft of paper, sources

2. Questions to address in your second reflection:

• Describe your research process. Has your topic changed? Why?
• Has your research question changed?
• What aspect of your sources or research process is challenging?
• What aspects of organizing your paper is difficult?
• What are you seeing differently now than when you started?

Evaluate your process so far.

Final meeting: bring final copy and any journal you have kept through the process.

3. Questions to address in your final reflection:

Evaluate the decision making for your research process. In the future would you go through this process to write an essay the same way?

How did you respond to set-backs?

Show engagement by being specific with your research. How did you interact with the topic, with the research?

• Was my research successful?
• If I changed approach or strategies during the process, why did I do this?
• What did I learn from the experience in terms of my understanding of the subject area and/or the skills needed to undertake research?
• How has my understanding of the topic and research process developed throughout the task?
• If I were to undertake this research again, would I do it differently – if so, why or why not?
• What has affected this?
• If I did do the research again would I change the theories applied, the methodological approach? Would this have led to a different outcome?
• What can I conclude from this?
• Were the strategies I used for undertaking my research the most appropriate for achieving my outcomes?
• What, if any questions emerged as a result of my research that I was not expecting? Would these questions influence my approach if I were to undertake the research again?
• Source