OUIL401- Self Evaluation

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
I’m not entirely sure if this classes as a skill but I feel as though I’ve learnt the mindset children have when they’re making pictures and this resulted in the simplification of the drawings as well as the ability to be spontaneous and not think too much. I feel as though it has been beneficial to me as I have become really interested in shape-based work and I’m going to look into the idea of simplification more in future practice. I adopted this way of working quite quickly and feel as though the outcomes are fairly successful in communicating the idea of children playing with whatever toys they wish, regardless of which gender they’re actually made for. Also, it enabled me to understand that making mistakes and making bad work isn’t always a bad thing, I feel like I changed this ‘bad work’ into some interesting pieces of work. Furthermore, I feel like I’ve developed skills in using Photoshop. I still don’t have much confidence with it but decided to give it a go and actually quite enjoyed using it this time round. This is probably because the tools and techniques I was using weren’t that complex, but I still feel like I’ve improved.
2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your practical outcomes?
The best form of research that I used in my project was definitely carrying out experiments and collecting primary research myself. This informed the rest of the work I was doing, as I was able to find interesting features within children’s drawings. It also enabled me to be able to try out a few different routes in terms of making pictures. For example I used the most common stereotypical features found in the drawings to produce child-like drawings of my own. This led to thinking like a child and this idea of simplification as mentioned before. I then used very basic shapes to produce stereotypical outfits and also did some swaps of gendered toys to reflect the crossovers found in my results. In terms of my essay I seem to have found a lot of the texts that I used online.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
I think one of the strengths within my visual journal was the collection of research to inform my ideas and possible the exploration of different paths leading from this research. I tried a few different ideas before focusing in on swapping the colours of gendered toys as a way of communicating the idea that this should be acceptable in this day and age and then making some more refined/ resolved outcomes from these drawings. Within my essay I’d say the use of many references to back-up my argument may be quite strong? I’m not too sure on that one.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
One of the biggest weaknesses I feel is the amount of work I’m submitting. Unfortunately as I wasn’t particularly enjoying CoP I didn’t really do much work on it until nearer the end. I was a bit lost on where to go with things and didn’t quite grasp the concept of just exploring and not having to make something at the end of it. After gathering research I feel as though I had something solid to work from and this is when I start getting into it. I don’t feel as though my essay is very strong. I seem to waffle a lot as I always have done and after reading through it and changing things so many times I was struggling to make sense of everything. Additionally, the fact that I haven’t used books as reference within my essay is worrying me. I’m not a quick reader and I find it difficult to just skim read through a book and still understand what it’s talking about. I did search for quite a few in the library but the ones that would have helped to inform my essay were in use and so I kind of gave up and looked for more research online. I did find some really good texts though, my references aren’t just extracts from webpages.
5. Identify five things that you feel will benefit you during next years Context of Practice module?
·       Organisation/ Time Management- Not leaving CoP till the end- I am going to make sure to set time out for context of practice each week next year in order to make sure that I have a solid body of work. ·       Library- I plan to take advantage of this resource that we have, and make sure to take out books early to ensure that I the ones that I feel are relevant to my work are still available for me to access. ·       Research- collecting both first and secondary research to inform the visual side of CoP. Although my primary research was really beneficial this year, I feel like secondary research is also really helpful. ·       Choosing Subject- I need to make sure that I choose a topic that I find really interesting as this will ensure that I don’t just push it aside and that I enjoy it. ·       Essay- start working on my essay earlier so that I can get more feedback. I received some feedback quite early on and my final essay was completely different so I’m not sure whether it’s up to a good standard.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance					x
Punctuality				x
Motivation			x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group			x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.