I have finally completed semester 1 of Year 11 and with this completion came the marks from all of my IT assessment. I submitted 6 tasks over the semester, and ranked 1st and 2nd in the faculty (ranking against myself). This is obviously a great result, my IT subjects barely being my strongest subjects across all scaling groups, however there were areas of significant improvement. These blog posts in particular were of poor quality, landing the final score of around 80% for both IT strands. My other IT assignments in comparison averaged above 95%, meaning if I were to bump up the quality of these reflections, my overall unit scores would significantly improve, potentially into the territory of above 95. This seems a very lucrative goal, as it would bump 2/4 subjects up by ~5%, helping me to get closer to my 99+ ATAR goal.
A mistake I made in journal entries during semester 1 was not looking enough into the task sheet and subsequently not including many of the crucial aspects of the rubric. Upon receiving my marks back, I now have both the task sheet and feedback from the semester 1 attempt, giving me a lot of information to improve quality.
From reviewing this information I found that my journal entries were very informative, giving a proper explanation and insight into the topic I researched that week, however the entries were lacking in the reflective side. Due to my analytical mind, and the norms of formative writing, I often find it unnatural to reflect on my own thoughts and feelings whilst writing these entries. This is something I will have to improve on during the semester. Another area I had not included was the ethical implications of the classwork I was conducting, which is similarly unnatural.
Looking through my feedback, the biggest three areas of improvement are listed in order: 1. Reflection (+ 4.5 marks) 2. Explanation of Work (+ 3 marks) 3. Ethics (+ 2 marks). Addressing these three sections perfectly would boost my grade from 80% to 95%. Additionally, talking about the problems in my week in more depth would add another 1.5 marks. Considering this, I have devised a structure to better hit these categories.
As I am clearly quite good at giving explanations of my work, I have decided to designate a section of the entry to this, and in addition I believe this will allow me to make better explanations as I disregard the idea of reflection during writing. Generally the writing structure of this will be - what is a problem I had, how did I solve it, and how does the solution work? At the end of this explanation, I will discuss the ethics surrounding the topic. Seeing my weakness in reflection, I have decided to designate a later section to answering some reflection questions in the task sheet, specifically those more related to my thoughts and feelings about the topic. This section must also discuss my interpersonal and intrapersonal skills like planning, time management, use of techniques and ability to work collaboratively. The use of images and other eye-catching media is almost a requirement for every blog post I do, especially if it is relevant to the topic.
The idea with this structure is to perfect the journal entry format, meaning future entries will be easy to write, and address the rubric very well. This groundwork will be especially helpful during heavy assessment periods, as quality will not fall with the higher focus on other tasks.