Toni-Marie Marsh S1403477
Critically reflect upon your current personal academic journey in the context of educational theory.
This essay reflects on my personal learning experiences and how the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has enabled me to gain a better understanding of my past experiences, and how I can better my future experiences. My targeted area for learning that I need to improve on is procrastination. My choice for this is because I have always been the person who leaves my assignments until the last minute. Procrastination for me began in year seven of secondary school, when a teacher told me that I was not clever enough to do what I wanted to do with my life, which at the time was to be a Vet (see appendix 3). I never really understood why this situation affected me so much until I utilised the MBTI framework. The MBTI is a tool that helps to build a base for personal growth by indicating the individual’s strengths and differences within their personality (opp.com). Using the MBTI tool has helped me to form a solid understanding in why I do procrastinate, by helping me become aware of my strengths and weaknesses.
For me to see which areas of learning I needed to focus and improve on I took part in several reflective writing exercises and wrote a reflective journal after each lecture. I really struggled with reflective writing at first, I believe this is because of my self-denigration. I am not my biggest fan so, writing reflectively and finding out all of the weaknesses and barriers that I face, seemed like it could do more damage than good for me. In my first piece of reflection (see appendix 1) I wrote about a post-lecture activity. The article I wrote was very short and did not go into much depth, I felt I needed to explore and establish what my weaknesses towards reflective writing was, so, I completed a SWOB analysis (see appendices 3 and 4). This is a tool for understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and recognising the opportunities and the barriers that they face (Jasper, 2003). Using the SWOB analysis has helped me to uncover the opportunities I have and helped me to eliminate the weaknesses and barriers I have in the way of my learning. Being able to identify my barriers has enabled me to write in more depth with my reflective journal. This essay will furthermore show how both reflective writing and the MBTI has helped me to gain personal growth within my learning experiences.
The results from my MBTI test was that my personality type is ISFP. At first I was shocked by this result, as I thought that I had more of a preference towards being an extrovert. After learning that the MBTI was about whether you would prefer to recharge your energy alone or with others, I then realised why I have more of a preference for introversion. I would rather recharge myself for the week ahead by relaxing on our own. In my journal article for the MBTI (see appendix 2) I wrote that I felt that I was always overlooked and that no...
