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Critical reflection

In a critical reflection, we examine our biases, compare theories with current actions, search for causes and triggers, and identify problems at their core. A critical reflection is not a reading assignment, a summary of an activity, or an emotional outlet. When we reflect critically, we have two goals:

• to critique our existing beliefs and assumptions
• to transform our beliefs, feelings, and actions

In academic courses, a critical reflection is often part of a formal essay assignment.

Step 1: Get started

A. understand your assignment.

Determine what the assignment is asking you to do. Read the assignment carefully to determine the topic, purpose, audience, format, and length. Some reflection assignments provide students with specific questions and organization requirements, while others may be more open-ended, requiring you to determine a specific focus and organization.

           For more information, see Understand your assignment .

B. Narrow your topic

A reflection assignment can cover a broad topic area (e.g., an entire course or section of a course). To manage the task better, narrow the focus of your reflection to a specific issue or topic (e.g., in a broad course on climate change, a narrowed topic might be effects of agriculture on soil water retention).

For additional help, see  Develop and narrow a research topic (PDF) .

Step 2: Reflect

Critical reflection happens in two stages:

     Stage 1: Analyze.  Consider your chosen topic/issue by asking questions about your      role in a particular event or your stance on a particular  issue. Free writing is a good      strategy at this stage. You can also use       guided reflection models  to help you think critically.

     Stage 2: Articulate. Use this analysis to develop a clear argument about what you've      learned. Organize your ideas so they are clear for your reader.    

The Critical reflection resource describes these stages in greater detail.

Step3: Organize

A. develop a thesis statement.

The reflection and brainstorming that you complete in Step 2 should lead you to some conclusions about your experience. Your thesis statement should summarize these in a sentence or two. Check out  Thesis statements for additional help.

B. Outline the structure of your paper

Although a reflection essay can be organized in a variety of ways, often it follows a structure similar to a research essay, with an introduction, thesis, body paragraphs that support the thesis, and a conclusion. The Critical reflection resource gives additional information about one way to develop each paragraph of a reflection.

C. Organize relevant course or other material

As you present an argument about your learning and growth, you’ll have to connect this argument to concepts and issues discussed in class. At this time, it’s helpful to gather and organize course materials or other research for your analysis. You can use these materials as you write your first draft.

Step 4: Write the first draft

Time to get writing! A first draft is a preliminary attempt to get ideas down on paper. It’s okay if your ideas are not yet complete. Let go of perfection and write quickly. You can add, take out, and revise later.

For additional help, check out Writing a first draft .

Step 5: Revise and proofread

A. evaluate your first draft.

Determine any gaps in your draft. Do you have enough evidence to support your arguments? If not, you can find further insights by looking back on your course materials, free writing, and guided reflection from Step 2.

B. Revise your draft

Print out your paper and work from a hard copy. Read it carefully and look for higher order problems first, such as organization, structure, evidence, and analysis. For more help, check out tips for revision .

C. Evaluate your second draft and rewrite as needed

Narrow your focus to paragraph-level issues, such as sentence flow and transitions. To improve these issues, see Transition words .

D. Proofread and put your paper in final format

Last step! Read carefully to catch all those small errors. For editing tips, read Proofreading strategies . Also, take time to make sure your paper adheres to the conventions of the style guide you're using. Think about titles, margins, page numbers, reference lists, and citations.

Go to the Writing and Communication Centre Resources page for more help on revising, polishing, and proofreading. 

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Designing Assignments and Using LEARN Tools

Designing your assignments, begin with your learning outcomes.

In your remote course, you may create a variety of assignments. These assignments are used to measure students’ achievement of your course-level intended learning outcomes (ILOs). When deciding upon what kind of assignment to choose, consider the depth of learning your learning outcomes require. Do students need to retain, recall, and recognize knowledge? If so, a series of low-stakes quizzes may be a good fit. Do they need to apply knowledge to different situations? If so, consider a discussion or a report.

Review Bloom’s Taxonomy: Learning Activities and Assessments . This resource provides many examples of assignment types that align with cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains.

Consider Student Workload

This is a common question we receive: how much content and assignments should I create? Review this Course Workload Estimator by RICE University to gain an estimation of workload.

Align Learning Outcomes and Assignments

Once you’ve figured out the type of assignments you want to create for your course, you may find it helpful to map out each of your assignments and your ILOs. As shown in the example below, every ILO is measured by at least one assignment in the course.

Design with Mental Wellbeing in Mind

When designing with mental wellbeing in mind, we use approaches that reduce unnecessary stressors and enhance learning. For example, Universal Design strategies support inclusive and equitable learning experiences. Clear expectations and instructions are important for all students. You can also provide more frequent, low stakes assessments with feedback. This way students learn expectations rather than solely relying on heavily weighted assignments. There are late policies that provide all students with a certain number of “slip days” to delay an assignment deadline before penalties. You can learn more at Supporting Students’ Mental Wellbeing: Course Design .

What about Final Exams?

Consider creating a summative assignment or an open book exam. Synchronous final exams are strongly discouraged during remote teaching terms. 

Review Four Ways to Replace the Written, Proctored, Synchronous Final Exam .

Review Final Exams on Keep Learning for more information.

Creating Your Assignment Instruction Pages

It is recommended that you create a separate instructions page for each assignment. If two assignments are strongly related you may want to create only one page. For example, if you have a series of weekly quizzes, you may have only one page for quizzes rather than 10 pages. This is common for frequent, low-stakes assignments like quizzes and discussions. Be sure that your files are clearly labelled i.e., Assignment 1 Instructions; Report A Instructions.

Contact Information for Support

If you would like technical support setting up your Dropbox, Quiz, or Discussion, submit a request to [email protected] .

Dropbox Instructions

Students use Dropboxes to submit a wide range of documents. Dropbox assignments are manually graded. They can be linked to the gradebook. Dropboxes are often used for assignments with longer written answers, essays, reports, hand-drawn work (scanned or photographed), spreadsheet calculations, graphs, and more. Only the instructor and TAs will see Dropbox submissions.

Planning Your Assignment

Dropboxes are used for the submission of documents. Dropboxes clearly organize students’ submissions. You can create a unique Dropbox for each assignment. It also has simple annotation tools if you mark the assignments within the Dropbox (i.e, adding comments or highlights). The Dropbox can be linked to your LEARN gradebook.

With a wide variety of assignment types of available, here are a few resources that can help you get started planning your assignment:

• The UW Library has a series of Assignment Planners for assignments such as annotated bibliographies, lab reports, research essays and more.
• ION Professional eLearning Programs has an Online Instructional Activities Index that will help you get started with a variety of assignments from article critiques to presentations.

Setting Up Your Dropbox

Dropboxes can be accessed on the Course Home page by selecting Submit then Dropbox on the course navigation bar. LEARN Help Dropboxes has a variety of documents to walk you through how to set up your Dropbox including the following information:

• Creating a New Dropbox
• Managing Dropbox Submissions
• Providing Feedback and Grading Dropbox Submissions

If you would like to set up a rubric for grading in LEARN, see Rubrics .

Quiz Instructions

LEARN quizzes support a variety of questions and automatic grading for multiple-choice, multi-select, true and false, matching, ordering, and others. You can also include manually graded questions such as short and long answer. User research at the University of Waterloo found that regular activities and assessments, like quizzes, helped students reduce procrastination, and keep up with online course work (Zeni et al., 2018).

Writing Questions

When authoring quizzes, you can use a variety of different question types and ask questions at varying levels. Review these resources developed by the Centre for Teaching Excellence:

• Asking Questions: Six Types
• Designing Multiple-Choice Questions
• Exam Questions: Types, Characteristics, and Suggestions

Setting Up Your Quiz

LEARN Help has a variety of documents to walk you through how to set up your quiz. See How to Use Quizzes in LEARN to learn about the following:

• Creating a Quiz
• Question Library
• Manage Quizzes
• Creating Random Question Pools in Quizzes
• Grading Quizzes

Discussion Instructions

Graded discussions can be used for reflection, group work, debates, critiques, and more. Discussions are often set up to allow the whole class to see responses. This can enhance peer-to-peer learning and collaboration. Discussions can also be set as a space for group work. Rubrics are recommended to clearly show how discussion posts will be graded.

Creating Your Discussion

When creating a discussion, you first need to decide what type of discussion you want to create. Is it a class-wide discussion? Are there group discussions? How many posts and replies? For a class-wide discussion, we recommend that you chunk discussion questions into distinct discussion posts. Typically, a discussion has at least one discussion post and one reply required of students.

Discussion questions should be divergent in nature; that is, they should encourage students to share diverse responses and learn from each other. Ask questions that encourage students to reflect on course concepts, connect ideas, and apply their understanding. Where relevant, you may ask students to support their responses with quality sources or have them complete a real-world activity and share their experiences.

Students’ replies are what makes a discussion a true discussion. In most cases, replies should be a key component of your discussion assignment. If you will use discussions frequently in your course, consider a consistent structure for all discussions. For example, students will make one post and two replies in each discussion.

Consider this question: what are the three effective practices of public speaking? If students had just completed a module on public speaking, their answers may be repetitive, and the resulting discussion may be rather dull. If you reframed this question to ask, who in your life is an exceptional public speaker? How do they demonstrate effective practices of public speaking? This example helps students connect theoretical and practical knowledge. It will also lead to more interesting and engaging responses. This is a win-win situation for you and your students.

Setting Up Your Discussion

Discussions can be accessed on the Course Home page by selecting Connect then Discussions on the course navigation bar. LEARN Help Discussions has a variety of documents to walk you through how to set up your Discussion, including the following:

• Types of Discussions
• Creating Forums and Topics
• Composing, Reading and Deleting Messages
• Subscribing to Forums and Topics
• Grading Forums and Topics

Sample Wording

You are encouraged to add this wording in the description area of your first discussion forum.

Resources for online discussions:

• How to use the Discussions tool: LEARN Help Discussions
• Student Guidelines for Communicating in Online, Professional Contexts
• Online Discussions: Tips for Students

Guidelines on Use of Waterloo Computing and Network Resources

Given that online components of this course are hosted on a UWaterloo server, there are Guidelines on Use of Waterloo Computing and Network Resources that you should be aware of. These Guidelines govern the appropriate and ethical use of these resources, inform users of expectations and responsibilities assumed in the use of Waterloo computing and network resources, and clarify the context. Misuse of the University’s computing and network resources may result in disciplinary action within the University. Any such action undertaken will be governed by relevant Waterloo policies.

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Cannabis Culture: Planning, Searching and Citing

• Planning, Searching and Citing
• Researchable questions
• Evaluating Sources
• Reading and note taking
• Writing, revising, and formatting

The resources linked below will help to provide step-by-step outlines of what will be required for the different assignments in this course.

• Where Do I Begin?
• Research Essay: Assignment Planner

To find peer-reviewed academic articles try searching any of the following

• Scopus Peer-reviewed literature from scientific journals, books and conference proceedings, covering the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Coverage: 1966 - present
• Web of Science Web of Science includes topics in the physical and natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. more... less... Web of Science is comprised of several databases. The Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI) covers journals in the medical, physical and natural sciences, and engineering fields. The entire database extends back to 1899. The Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) covers journals in the social sciences. The entire database extends back to 1898. The Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) covers journals in the arts and humanities. It also selectively covers relevant items from science and technical journals. The entire database extends back to 1975.
• Library Catalogue you can search for books as well as articles covering a variety of disciplines
• JSTOR Can be used to search for full text articles, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
• Google Scholar Google Scholar can be used to find peer-reviewed articles as well as other materials. Use caution and carefully assess your sources found here.

These guides can help you with your writing style &  especially with formatting citations.

• APA Citation StyleGuide PDF from UWaterloo's Writing & Communication Center for APA citation style
• APA interactive module UWaterloo Library's interactive module for APA 7th edition (includes a quiz)

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Q. What types of assignment planners does the Library have?

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Answered By: Aziz Aboueleinin Last Updated: Apr 17, 2024     Views: 40

The library has the following types of assignment planners. Each planner has a number of steps, due dates for each step, instructions on how to complete the steps, and a printable checklist.

• Annotated Bibliography
• Article review
• Critical reflection
• Literature Review
• Policy brief
• Research Essay
• STEM Poster Presentation

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Assignment Planner

The Assignment Planner is an online open source research and writing resource that helps you plot steps towards completing an assignment over a projected timeline. It breaks down the research and writing process into numbered steps, suggests the time it should take you to accomplish each step, and helps you manage your time between now and the assignment due date. The Assignment Planner is intended to help you complete your assignment by focusing on small steps, giving you sufficient time to work through the writing and research process. The assignment planner can help you:

• Visualize how much time you have between today’s date and the assignment due date.
• Get a sense of what you need to accomplish and how much time should be allotted for each step.
• Clarify what the assignment is asking of you as the researcher.
• Understand the demands of the research and writing process.
• Make the assignment manageable by breaking it down into steps.
• Stop the last-minute rush of writing assignments just before they are due.
• Avoid plagiarism and the improper use of source material.
• Become a stronger researcher and writer while honing your critical-thinking and time-management skills.
• By providing you with resources to support your research and writing.
• Connect you to on-campus supports such as the Laurier Library and Writing Centre.

Writing Centre | Credits and Acknowledgments | Your thoughts on the Laurier Assignment Planner

The Research Project Calculator is a project funded jointly by MINITEX and MnLINK to develop Cool Tools for Minnesota secondary school students and their teachers. It is based on the original Assignment Calculator from the University of Minnesota Libraries .

Contact Us:

Digital Scholarship Unit

Main navigation, assignment planner.

The Assignment Planner breaks down various projects into manageable steps based on your due dates. Each step includes hints and "how-to" links.  You can also add each step to your calendar using button "Add to Calendar" .   

Any interim due dates provided by your professor  (for working thesis, bibliography, first draft, etc.)  take precedence  over dates suggested by the Assignment Planner.

If you have any questions or comments about this tool, please contact us.