Individual reflection
A short text in which you look back at the quarter and ask what it did to the way you see cities, planning and your own role in them. It is the only part of the report that is yours alone.
Submit it with the group report, on the studio’s submission date in the Q3 quarter guide. Write it in the template, then delete the brackets and headings so it reads as one piece. The template gives a suggested structure; you are free to use your own.
Download the template (.docx) →How it is assessed ↓What it is
The reflection is not a course evaluation. If you want to comment on the studio or this course, do that in a separate section of the report. It is also not the group reflection: Part 16 of the report holds two texts, a common one in which your group reflects on its strategy, and this one, which you write alone.
- a summary of what you did
- a list of skills you learned
- a motivational speech about “wanting to help communities”
- an analysis of how your thinking changed
- a critical examination of your decisions
- an honest account of where things did not work
If your reflection could apply to any project, it is too generic.
Three layers of learning
Education does more than one thing. The philosopher of education Gert Biesta distinguishes three purposes that overlap in every course (Biesta, 2009, 2020). We use them here as a lens to help you find where your learning happened.
The knowledge, skills and ways of working that let you act as a professional: a method you learned to use, a theory you can now apply, a way of writing or mapping.
Ask yourself: Which method or concept changed what I was able to see in our region, and what could I not see before?
Do not list skills. Name one and show what it did to a decision.
How education brings you into a profession: its language, norms, habits and ways of framing problems. Some of this is valuable; some of it you absorb without choosing it.
Ask yourself: Which word, frame or habit did I adopt from the studio or the discipline without questioning it? “The community” is a common example.
Ask where the frame came from, and what it made you overlook.
How you become someone who judges and acts in your own name, and can question the frames you were given. It concerns responsibility and judgement, not competence.
Ask yourself: When did I decide, speak up, stay silent or give way, and what does that say about the urbanist I want to be?
This cannot be planned or demanded. You can only give an honest account of it.
You do not need to cover all three layers: 300 words is too short for that. Use them to find where your key moment sits, then write about that moment.
We do not grade how much you changed. We grade how honestly and precisely you account for what happened. If little changed, say so and analyse why: what held your view in place? Saying nothing changed without that analysis is description, not reflection.
Four sentences a student might write. Decide which layer each one touches before you open it.
Sentence 1Which layer? Click to check
“I can now run a stakeholder analysis and place actors on a power/interest matrix.”
Qualification, but only half a reflection. It names a skill. It becomes reflection when the writer says what the matrix showed that changed a decision, or what it hid.
Sentence 2Which layer? Click to check
“I noticed I had started calling the residents ‘the community’ because that is how the studio brief named them.”
Socialisation. The writer spots a frame taken on from the brief. The next step is to ask who that word left out.
Sentence 3Which layer? Click to check
“I agreed to drop the housing co-operative from our strategy because it was hard to map. I now think that was my choice, not the data’s.”
Subjectification. The writer takes responsibility for a judgement that was hidden behind a technical reason.
Sentence 4Which layer? Click to check
“I learned that planners must listen to all stakeholders.”
None of the three yet. It is a general statement with no moment, no decision and no consequence. It could come from any project.
Five moves
A structure that works. Use the headings to draft, then delete them so the text reads as one piece. You are free to use your own structure.
1Where I startedInitial position
What did I believe at the start of the project? What perspectives, assumptions, experiences or values did I bring in?
Try beginning with “I initially thought…”.
2The moment that got to meKey moment
Do not try to cover everything. Pick one or two moments:
- a moment of confusion
- a conflict in the group
- a decision that felt uncomfortable
- a mistake
What happened? Why did it matter? What did it reveal about my assumptions?
3What changedShift
“…but when Y happened, I realised Z.” If nothing changed, you probably did not reflect: you described. If little changed, say why.
This is where the three layers help: was the change in what you can do, in a frame you had absorbed, or in a judgement of your own?
4What it did to our projectApplication
Link your thinking to something concrete: a change in strategy, a design choice, a methodological decision.
“Because we defined the community this way, we ended up prioritising X over Y.”
No concrete example means a weak reflection.
5Who I am becomingEmerging role
How has this quarter changed the way I want to work as an urbanist? What kind of practitioner or researcher do I want to become?
Literature is required. Position your experience against literature, earlier projects or the views of others, and cite your sources in APA. This is what makes a reflection academic rather than a diary.
Questions that bite
These questions turn a description into a reflection. You will not answer all of them. Pick the ones that open up your key moment.
Which community?Open the questions
Do not write “we focused on the community”. Ask:
- Which community?
- Who was included? Who was not?
- How did you represent them?
- What assumptions did you make?
Be honest: did you rely on media instead of real engagement? Probably yes, but why? Did your design reflect your own preferences?
Who gains, who loses?Open the questions
Urbanism is not neutral. Every decision benefits someone and disadvantages someone else.
- Who gained from our strategy?
- Who might be negatively affected?
- Did we ignore certain conflicts?
If your project had no conflict, you missed something. The ethics check (section H) can help.
Your role, not your tasksOpen the questions
Avoid “I worked on maps and reports”. Instead:
- How did you influence decisions?
- When did you stay silent, and why?
- Did you take control or step back?
- Did your behaviour shape the outcome?
Your role is not what you did. It is how you affected the process.
Be honest about limitsOpen the questions
Strong reflections include unfinished ideas, flawed decisions and uncertainty.
You will not be penalised for saying “we didn’t solve this”, “we made assumptions” or “this part failed”. You will be penalised for pretending everything worked.
How it is assessed
Your reflection is read against four criteria. We do not reward vague statements about “helping people” or “being inclusive” unless they are grounded in something concrete. We do not grade how much you changed: we grade the honesty and precision of your account.
We look for: You move from what happened to why it matters and what changed. You name assumptions, blind spots and shifts, and you reflect on tensions, failures and uncertainty, not only on successes.
Retells the quarter. Every problem was solved.
Names an assumption, shows the moment it broke, and says what replaced it.
We look for: You recognise ethical dilemmas: who is represented or excluded, what your design decisions do to people, which forms of power are at play. You reflect on your positionality and responsibility.
“We aimed to be inclusive.”
Names who was left out of the process, how, and what that did to the strategy.
We look for: You see urbanism as a political and institutional practice, embedded in governance, infrastructure and inequality, and you reflect on your role in transitions, sustainability and spatial justice.
The urbanist as a neutral problem-solver or hero.
Sees the urbanist as one actor among others, with limited power and real responsibility.
We look for: You refer to specific decisions, struggles or turning points in your own project, and show how your thinking affected the design or the method.
Could have been written without the project.
Only makes sense with this project: a named decision, its reason and its consequence.
Weak and strong
Two invented excerpts about the same kind of project. Read both before you open the comments.
This quarter I learned a lot about methodology and teamwork. Our group focused on the community and tried to make the region more sustainable and inclusive. I worked mainly on the maps and the SWOT analysis. Sometimes it was hard to agree, but we solved our problems by communicating. In the future I want to apply these lessons and help communities through design.
Why?Open the comments
- “Learned a lot”: no moment, no shift.
- “The community”: which one? Who was left out?
- “Sustainable and inclusive”: ethical cliché with nothing behind it.
- Tasks, not role: maps and SWOT say what the writer did, not how they affected the process.
- Conflict “solved by communicating”: the most interesting part is skipped.
- No literature: nothing positions the experience.
- Empty optimism at the end.
- Could apply to any project. Depth, ethics, role and grounding are all weak.
I started the quarter believing that good data would tell us where to intervene. In week four we mapped heat stress and found that the hottest streets were also those where most people rent from housing associations, so we placed our first interventions there. When we tried to interview tenants, only two people answered, and both were retired homeowners from the next street. I realised we had been designing for residents we had never met, and that I had accepted the map as their voice. I did not raise this in the group, because the deadline felt more urgent than the doubt. In the final strategy we kept the location but made a tenant panel a condition for the first phase. A panel that only advises still risks what Arnstein (1969) called tokenism. It does not solve the problem; it makes it visible. I now see my role less as finding the right place and more as asking who gets to say it is right.
Why?Open the comments
- Opens with an initial position that can be tested.
- One concrete key moment, with what it revealed.
- Socialisation and subjectification: the writer sees that they accepted the map as a frame, and admits their own silence.
- Links the shift to a design decision (the tenant panel).
- Positions the decision against literature (Arnstein, 1969), cited in APA.
- Names a limit instead of claiming success.
- Ends with an emerging role grounded in the moment, not a promise.
Common mistakes
If your reflection feels comfortable, it’s probably not deep enough.
The best reflections expose uncertainty, question your own assumptions, and admit where you got it wrong. You do not need to solve everything: some things may remain open. Urbanism deals with real consequences and wicked problems. Your reflection should too.
Read further
- Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225
Cited in the strong example. Key reading of Session 05. - Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-008-9064-9
The source of the three purposes of education. - Biesta, G. (2020). Risking ourselves in education: Qualification, socialization, and subjectification revisited. Educational Theory, 70(1), 89–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12411
Biesta returns to the three domains and explains why subjectification cannot be produced on demand. - Rose, G. (1997). Situating knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography, 21(3), 305–320. https://doi.org/10.1191/030913297673302122
Why positionality matters, and why full self-knowledge is not possible. - Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
The classic account of reflection as part of professional practice.