Output Packet Pro Review

Main Advisor and OP Reviewer: Laura Kaestele
Associate Name: Carolina-Therese Winter
Output Packet #: 5
Program: Bachelor of Science
Phase/ALC: PreCAP-ALC1
Date Submitted: January 16th 2017
Date Reviewed: January 30th 2017
Mark: 71
Grade: B
Time Spent on Review: 3 hrs + 0.5 for review forms

Dear Carolina,

Congratulations for coming to an end with the first Action Learning Cycle and following through with your goals and plans! I appreciate your thoughtful reflections and strong efforts to move forward in creating this OP5 Learning Review and your pro-activity in managing your pathway successfully and your diligence to follow through with all required steps. 
I am impressed with your attention and quality of reflection related to action learning, project work, output creation and pathway management. The LR showed how you expanded learning edges in reflective observation, design and documentation. Thank you for the updated profile page on Mahara and getting your portfolio ready. I am looking forward to accompany and support you as your main advisor in the next program cycle!

My review is broken into these sections:
1. PoDAPO Evaluation Form
2. Comments Per Section

Required Next Steps: 
 •	Add a cumulative annotated resource review covering research and resources of ALL OPs. 
 •	Create a skill-flex tracking and assessment document to analyse your overall development.

Recommended Next Steps: 
�	OP goal articulation and direct tracking related to content, presentation and process.
�	Improve the flow of writing and add integration and context to what you do and why.
�	Work on assessment of your learning, projects, progress and work in relation to the field 

I value your curiosity and integrity as an action learner. I feel happy to be a source of clarity, support and encouragement on your learning pathway.

Cheers, 
Laura

OP REVIEW

1.	PoDAPO EVALUATION FORM (attached)
2.	COMMENTS PER SECTION (see below)
COMMENTS PER SECTION

Title and Specification
 –	Your table of content mind map is missing the first page „title and specification“ and a small detail for smooth formatting is to start all text sections in the mind map with the first letter in capitals and then proceed lowercased or make the first letter of every word capitalized.
 –	The abstract doesn't introduce every page of the OP, I am missing a summary on page 1 (title and specficiation), 6 (destiny) and 8 (process reflection).
 –	Otherwise good abstract and specification, I appreciate the clear and informative purpose statements and would encourage you to be a bit more content rich in the specification to expand on context and process of the LR for the reader to understand. What are key outcomes and un/learnings from completing the LR? Why is the LR and reflection process relevant to you, your life and GaiaU pathway? What can readers look forward to in the report and take away for their own work and learning journey?
 –	Please explain what Appreciative Inquiry is in a short sentence, so you don't just drop the name, but actually give some information so readers understand what and why you used it.
 –	Please include one or two sentences context for your section on incorporating feedback to share what feedback you are referring to and from whom, maybe even a short comment on how you processed and integrated feedback and/or how you are refining your ability to receive, give and integrate feedback in this output cycle.
 –	Great notes to reviewers with comments on navigation and technology used, please add the word count here on the first page, so the reviewer knows what is included.

Project Design
 –	Nice introduction and emphasis on why reflection is relevant for action learning and a key function of the LR. I agree and would say active and ongoing reflection is a core practice for me as an action learner, project manager and for improving professional skill-flexes. 
 –	Clear and easy to follow structure of the page divided into an introduction, description of the methodology and process applied and final reflections. 
 –	I strongly encourage you to improve on the content FLOW of your writing and weave together your thinking through adding opening, summarizing sentences at the beginning and sharing closing thoughts for integration at the end of a paragraph and/or page. You could use connecting words and references (back) to what you have written, so the reader can follow your line of thoughts with ease and feel well guided through the report.
 –	Excellent use of mixed media to both explain and visualize the applied design methodology, I like having the graphic for an overview of the design and then the mind map to read more about your application process and design steps (or in this case questions).
 –	What I am missing here is more context and information on Appreciative Inquiry as a design method, connecting thoughts from your general short description to why you used it for OP5 and why AI is relevant and useful for the Learning Review. Also I would have liked more explanation to your adaptation of AI as a reflective process. Consider yourself teaching readers how to use this design in an applicable and replicable way.
 –	I love your intentional use of questions for the application of AI and to guide your own refections. Design step 3 has only one question, you could consider adding more. How did my planning and design process go? What methods and tools worked best? How did I make (design) decisions for my learning, project and output work?
 –	Why is it so important to you to focus on appreciation in your review? Do you think AI was a design methodology appropriate for the purpose of the Learning Review? Or would you use another framework for the next time? How can others benefit from using AI?
 –	To clarify as it seems there was a misunderstanding in our communication on design. You can by all means make changes to design processes, but be intentional, explicit and reflective about what you do and why e.g. share how AI works and then explain what changes you made and why to create your own version and how that worked out.
 –	I appreciate you sharing your process, challenges and highlights for working with AI. 
 –	Do add external references here as AI is not a methodology created by you, in order to link to the field and knowledge source. How did you use AI in the same or different way as it is described in these external resources? What can you share with others?

Discover
 –	The define section can serve as an introduction and weaving piece on this page. So yes, do briefly define the Learning Review project and what topic/theme you focus on. Please also provide more context and explanation of the discover design stage, what activities and methods you engaged in (overview of the page content), so I can better understand and potentially apply this myself. And I don't feel lost in the process and have to go back to the project design page.
 –	Great mix of media including images, graphics and mind maps on this page, makes it lively and engaging for me – feeling curious to read the content now. On that note the first mind map is too small for me to read well, it makes sense to give it a bit more space. It is not clear to me whether the mind maps are part of the word count or not.
 –	I enjoy your little section on how you started into this past year and how it forms a framework with how you end the year (destiny page) offering a personal impression about your learning progress and transformation that happened.
 –	I appreciate your clear reflections and comments on challenges connected to future learning opportunities and next steps. Great way of framing with an appreciative and pro-active perspective that can inspire and inform your future work.
 –	The structure of this and the following three pages doesn't always make sense and seems partly fragmented, like how you share about OPs on the discover page and then more details on the destiny page or how there is a pathway management mind map and pathway reflection (discover page) and then reflections on tracking and managing pathway on the design page. It makes it confusing to follow. I am missing clarity in your content presentation and line of thoughts!
 –	Great overview and review of your whole ALC and sharing how it changed and benefited your life and learning pathway. In the way you write it, it makes most sense to me to combine the cumulative review of the ALC and pathway. 
 –	Timeline mind map is great, but not linked or integrated in the text, could be also part of the destiny page (with implementation details). Similarly transition patterns, pathway management and goals (OP4) mind map are just added on the side, no links, reference or short introduction pieces. The same is true for the critical evaluation document you added here. How should I interact and make sense of this as a reader?

Dream
 –	Ah, yes! This time the mind map for the dream phase and questions are clearly visible. Also the page structure is understandable to me, although still missing flow and integration. The inspiration section seems again out of context and hard to understand for me without any explanations. Why did you share that and how is it relevant to the LR? 
 –	What I am missing on this page is more quantitative and qualitative assessment, tracking and evaluation, not just a repetition of the LIPD elements. What were your goals and also if and how you have achieved them.

Design
 –	Well done for integrating these parts on context related to a community, personal and world level, in order to be meaningful and relevant for the OP it would be great to expand and connect them more. How does the context influence your learning and projects?
 –	I like how you give a lot of space and attention to the topic of design and reflect on your own development and learning journey as a designer starting with GaiaU. Great to see your design process and methods spreadsheet, it gives a valuable overview and understanding of your design work and knowledge. You could include resource references and more comparative assessment (difference, applicability, scope, limits, advantages of models) for the next time and of course add new design models you use.
 –	Nice to share your two favourite design models, I found the personal reflections why and how these processes were useful for you the most interesting and valuable.
 –	The specific pathway management tools are well presented in the list. It sounds like the more specific, practical (=physical) and even creative they are the better they work for you. I also notice that you practice and show a strong ability for reflective observation. However, almost all of the methods you shared are for planning and not tracking (record information about what you did/not do over time) – notice the difference. I encourage you to find, develop and use effective planning, managing and tracking tools your next LIPD.

Destiny
 –	Fantastic overview of your OP work! The format looks inspired by my OP5 ;-) I like how you describe the action learning fields, design process and outcomes for every OP.
 –	Small editing note is to start your bullet points the first letter of each word in capitals like you would for the beginning of a sentence.
 –	Great project summaries and beautiful layout of the page and balance of written texts and visual materials, it really helps to share a “visual story” of your project work. How are these projects connected and allow you to achieve your overall learning goals? 
 –	What skills did you develop? For skill-flex development and tracking I would encourage you to change formats and not use a mind map, which doesn't really say a lot (just listing skills with no assessment), but rather a spreadsheet for a more progress (quantitative) evaluation and then transfer that into a visual chart, table or graphic.
 –	Interesting goal evaluation table including long-term goals, skills needed, intended effects and what you did towards achieving those goals. I would like to see two additions: 1) for each long-term goal several SMART sub-goals and 2) a progress assessment for meeting your goals (e.g. goal achieved, partly, gaps, not fulfilled, re-negotiated, adapted).
 –	I appreciate your honest reflection on challenges and dys/functional learning and working patterns that you translate into learning edges and build on to articulate goals for the next phase.

Supportive Evidence
 –	I appreciate your reflection on knowledge validation and how you write about your progress and development in this area, what you did to research and work with knowledge and what are learning edges and new goals for the next ALC.
 –	Well done for creating this short glossary of terms, would be great to continue expanding in future OP writing.
 –	Clearly label un/learning journal (or blog) entries so they are easy to find as part of the OP requirements.
 –	Put participation records, word count (makes sense to add to the first page) and digiphon into the commentary of your OP and clearly distinguish between output and project content – commentary and core report.
 –	Use the supportive evidence page for supplementary materials relating to OP, project work and pathway engagement. I would have loved to see more (visual and written) evidence of outcomes of your projects, learning efforts and pathway.
 –	For sharing documents an alternative to dropbox is google drive or embeded (pdf) documents, so the information is directly visible on the page. Also I recommend to use widely compatible formats like doc or rtf and xls for any documents to download.
 –	In the LR you are asked to share a cumulative annotated resource review covering the research and resources of your entire ALC (not just the pevious OP), besides in your OP4 I could not view the resource review in dropbox, please fix that.
 –	The design reflection and critical evaluation documents get lost easy without any explanation, context and reference to highlight them. These are really awesome outcomes of your LR that deserve to be recognised as they demonstrate critical thinking and comparison and can benefit readers to exand their own thinking and skill-flexes.

Process Reflection 
 –	What you call process reflection here is part of the OP commentary, which consistcs of two parts, one related to the output and another to your pathway. Next time I would invite you to put the OP design, process, goals and reflections in the front of the OP to set the stage and provide the framework on which the report is built upon.
 –	The first few paragraphs on this page fit well into the commentary, but the course on learning visualisation and process reflections belong in the supportive evidence.
 –	What is really missing in your output process is a clear articulation of OP goals related to content, presentation and process as well as direct tracking and evaluation of these goals.
 –	I love the hand-drawn graphical flowcharts for the OP process and resistant bees, beautiful way to convey information and demonstrate your creativity, action learning and presentation skills.
 –	For further epxanding your design skills – How could you distill and articulate a design process from the seven process steps you shared here? How could you name and describe the design steps in a way that is applicable and useful for others writing their OP5?
 –	Beautiful to read how the LR served you not only to review and evaluate your past ALC an thus deepen and harvest the learning and outcomes but also to inspire the next one! :-)