Output Packet Pro Review

Main Advisor and OP Reviewer: Laura Kaestele
Associate Name: Carolina-Therese Winter
Output Packet #: 2
Program: Bachelor of Science
Phase/ALC: PreCAP-ALC2
Date Submitted: October 24th 2017
Date Reviewed: November 12th 2017
Mark: 66
Grade: C
Time Spent on Review: 3 hrs + 0.5 for review forms

Dear Carolina,
Inspirational to see the intention and care you have dedicated to creating a holistic and fulfilling pregnancy for yourself and the child and navigating this massive life transition with high awareness and as an opportunity for rapid personal development. Leaning into and thus growing through this experience. Great efforts and improvements in critical research, abstract conceptualization, transitions and interventions, action learning, personal growth, and dissemination. Further learning edges to expand include editing, writing styles, managing time, design implementation, context transformation, tracking, leadership and professional development.

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

Required Next Steps: 
 •	Ensure sufficient proof-reading and editing to improve language and writing quality.
 •	Add field analysis, critical thinking, context transformation and your contribution next time.
 •	Focus on professional development, skill-building and achievable next steps in the chosen field of your work in at least one of the next two project focused OPs.
 •	Make sure to complete the feedback cycle and your peer's OP review is added to the OP.

Recommended Next Steps: 
 •	Track and show evidence thinking, experimentation, and application of whatever design process, methods and principles you use from start to finish of the project.
 •	Participation in the GaiaU community, contribution, peer support and project collaboration. 

I wish you and the baby all the best for this exciting life transition and look forward to connecting with you again after the program pause months. 

Cheers, 
Laura

OP REVIEW

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

Title and Summary
 •	Clear and concise guidelines for readers explaining how to navigate the OP pages and how to interact with different kinds of technology used. 
 •	Scanning the OP I have seen quite many optional sections in the core report, try to keep the core report lean and consider moving some/all optional materials with a clear reference into the supportive evidence page.
 •	Wonderful to see you taking a huge life transition like pregnancy and living through it with so much intention, purpose and heart while also designing and documenting it as a project to evaluate the context and provide useful methods, practices and tips for women.
 •	Well done for choosing pieces of feedback to integrate into OP2. In the future, it would be helpful to mention who gave you this feedback and when to then describe what changes you made or what new things you are exploring in this current OP.
 •	For the calling questions, I miss context and connection to the writing and research (maybe also design) process of the OP/project. How did exploring these questions shape the project and un/learning journey? How did you create knowledge around these questions?

Project Introduction
�	Wow – powerful, inspiration-driven quotes to frame the introduction and really open up my mind to explore pregnancy and what it means to be a woman in a different, holistic way.
�	Several beautiful images are incorporated into the report, please make sure to reference the source and creator of all of them with respect to somebody else's work.
�	I appreciate your attention and description of goals on this page, however, I would like to see more integration and process/context comments between 1) main goals for the project holistic pregnancy, 2) personal project goals and 3) project overview to not be confused by different set of goals and how they do or do not show up in the report's content.
�	Great mindmap to evaluate the LIPD goals that were met during OP2 and to what extent. I would recommend putting this evaluation as part of the pathway commentary instead.
�	I would encourage you to make this introduction page more concise and when sharing goals, also evaluate their achievement and then directly link that to key outcomes. This would make it much easier for readers to follow your process and thinking.
�	Fantastic historical, global and personal context piece, this really helps to anchor your project and own story and show the relevance of the holistic pregnancy topic. For the future, I would like for you to widen your thinking regarding context e.g. including scientific, reductionist vs. holistic approach or the view, role (highlights, challenges) of women as mothers etc. and to add critical reflection and concluding thoughts to these observations.

Project Design
 •	Excellent description of the Medicine Wheel its historical background, development, and use as a model to understand and harmonize with the cycle of life. When you talk about the quadrants and four directions linking that to sky, earth, and tree, I miss the fourth one.
 •	I particularly enjoy how you emphasize the flexibility of the Medicine Wheel, adapting it for your personal application and how medicine can be understood as an interrelated process of physical and spiritual well-being instead of western „medicine“, doctors and drugs. It shows the depth of research and enthusiasm for this model.
 •	Adding a short summary of why you chose the Medicine Wheel, what it means to you and how you have adapted and applied it to the pregnancy project would be great before moving into design reflections.
 •	The adapted Medicine Wheel containing three project levels is not clear to me, this needs further explanation. The wheel in the graphic contains all those three levels (do the level relate to the colored rings) or is a general design pattern to be used for the three levels...? How can you reduce complexity and choose a specific wheel design for clarity?
 •	The optional description of the Medicine Wheel would be nice to just reference here and link to the supportive evidence where the actual document would be shared to keep the core report lean and without too much extra content.
 •	I want to bring attention to the fact that you are mixing core report (project design) with commentary (output design) on this page. What is the intention and what effects it has?
 •	Interesting fusion between the Medicine Wheel and Dragon Dreaming through the use of the Karrabirdt for mapping out the design flow and actions. What unique qualities do both design models have, what are gaps and how do they complement each other? 
 •	It seems that you experience shows that additionally to the design framework, some practical tools for project and time management are needed for successful implementation. 

Personal Relation to Pregnancy – My Story
�	I love the three images at the top of the page such a personal, beautiful and direct expression of pregnancy as a life transition and the body transformation happening.
�	Well done for including the worldview section and putting your personal experiences and observations into a wider cultural context. In the future, I invite you to dig deeper and explore some of the stories (assumptions), values and patterns underlying reality e.g. doctors/society treating pregnant women like a patient or test to find mistakes in a child.
�	What are root causes of how we think form this worldview? What worldview shifts or patrix busting did you experience? What external and internal patrix patterns (pressures) made you do these prenatal tests (feelings being involved)?
�	Fantastic insight into this huge life transition through the mindmap on how pregnancy changed your life including new awarness for the wonders of life, a new sense of responsibility, new habits and routines and a push forward of future plans. This gives me a real-life impression of these effects of pregnancy and how it changes you.
�	The mindmap on daily practices and routines can be an inspiration for other pregnant women to intentionally and holistically go through this experience. How do these daily routines link with personal goals? Enlivening the goals and meeting them day by day...
�	I can totally see how being pregnant triggers a maturing process but would like to hear more on that from your perspective. What shifted from a young woman to a mother for you? How did your self-image and experience of being a woman change?
�	Before diving into the tiny house project, a short background info and connection to the main project of holistic pregnancy would be helpful for readers to understand why this is included here. While do you build a tiny house while being pregnant? Simply bringing up the need for a family home and the natural nesting impulse when being pregnant.
�	Cool that you bought a tiny house construction kit and now document the process through videos on youtube to show a wider audience how to build your own small home. The photos and video material gives a great visual understanding of the project.

Thematic Focus
�	How do the scientific research questions relate to the calling questions from the beginning? In the beginning, you mention three topics prenatal boning, preparation for birth and natural childbirth, now the second two seem to be merged into one holistic birth preparation. Why did you change it? Make sure information is congruent in the OP.
�	It might have been worth moving the thematic focus page before your personal story so the later one can serve as an example and active experiment for the information researched.
�	Valuable information on prenatal bonding and holistic birth preparation with clear explanations as to why it is important (link to context, worldview and challenges), how it impacts your pregnancy, activities and outcomes of your research. 
�	The outcomes and practical methods, daily routines and tips are crucial in this section as they not only ensure and demonstrate a balance between thinking and doing, but also provide applicable practices for other women to follow based on research and experience. Pay attention to a healthy balance and not engage in research/thinking without doing.
�	Well done for writing several blog articles to share the outcomes and experiences around pregnancy and natural birth research and engaging in efforts of survey and dissemination to spread knowledge that is often missing in conventional birth preparation. 
�	Fantastic to see the critical book review sharing a short description, appreciation (valuable knowledge), critiques about the book plus your personal thinking and experience. On that note, I want to also acknowledge your efforts to integrate feedback from previous OPs, expand your learning edges and gain skills in critical evaluation and research.  

Reflection on Project Development
�	Great reflections on transition and intervention points in your project development and identifying two key points 1) lack of balance between doing and thinking → engage practically and develop daily routines and 2) busy working and baby in breech position → stop working on tiny house, reduce (study) work, relax and focus on self care. In addition to the mindmap providing a sense of timing for the project design cycle.
�	From your project reflections one interesting question is how to create possibilities to apply, experiment with and put thinking/research into action and secondly reconsider your relation to time and become more realistic about timing and what you can achieve how quickly e.g. first preparing yourself and giving birth, then potentially becoming a professional in this field with additional experience, skill building, training and TIME.
�	I hear it was challenging for you to have a supportive environment and people to learn and exchange with. Apart from your idea to visit more courses next time how else could you connect, exchange and learn together with other women? How could you initiate buddy relationships or small circle of women to form and meet? What role does community play in your life and for being a mother? How can you create a community of support?
�	I appreciate your honest assessment of having created professional goals that are too high and thus unachieved (dealing with this setback or rather sit back on the ground of reality) while keeping a positive attitude and clearly seeing your long-term goal of becoming a natural health practitioner while acknowledging immediate outcomes and benefits for your own pregnancy and personal experience that enable you to give advice to other women.
�	I feel glad to read your comments on future pathway and next steps focused on birth, family and home and a designed in baby-pause with joy and flexibility to embrace with experience fully and then continue with project work adapted to life situation and new possibilities that might differ from what was outlined in the LIPD.

Managing Time and Promises
�	Well done for following up on the management systems outlined in your LIPD and sharing your experiences and reflections with the monthly design of SMART goals and daily action planning and tracking sheets.
�	One of the amazing opportunities of conscious time management and tracking is to notice gaps, increase productivity and reveal unrealistic expectations and un/learn them like you describe here: “I recognized that one learning edge for me is to assess how many goals I can reach in how much time and how deep I want an insight to the topic.“
�	I want to point out the difference between planning (future focus) and tracking (past focused) and how to balance both in a healthy, productive way to create structure, clarity and focus while allowing flow, emergence and change to happen, which are captured through tracking and can inform and improve planning. 
�	It might be helpful for you to plan a bit less, but keep up good tracking to learn more about work and time management. In addition reflect on how you can set up planning/tracking systems that are clear, simple and reduce stress by requiring less energy input for maintaining them than the energy output (increased productivity, focus etc) provided.

Supportive Evidence
 •	Interesting piece on critical knowledge evaluation describing the challenges of living in an age of information and being flooded by all sort of valuable and irrelevant or even harmful information as a pregnant woman and your process of finding clarity and direction to find and engage with knowledge aligned with your values and worldview shared in the annotated resource review and critical book review.
 •	I appreciate how you emphasise the relevance of information based on each individual and their life situation, the focus on empowerment (natural birth) instead of problems (diseases and contingencies) and the efforts to digest and also share valuable information in the blog.
 •	Multitude of supportive evidence with further information and materials on the design, tiny house, thematic focus, managing time and un/learning journey. As written before I would encourage you to keep these documents on the supportive evidence page and just reference and link (not display) them in the core report to keep it lean.
 •	Have you created both these videos? Great efforts in dissemination. How can you increase the audience of your website/blog? 
 •	Happy to know you have a good buddy connection with Mona and actively engage in the Mentor and Advisor Training. How else do you want to engage in the GaiaU community?