behmgaddie

[behmgaddie]

A1 E-Portfolio BGaddie

Entry 1 - (Slightly) New Beginnings

The Holmesglen Bachelor of Sports Media course was a real change to what I had experienced before during the Swinburne Diploma. Something that I really enjoyed about week 1 was being able to meet new people and the fact that during class we did activities to get to introduce ourselves helped with that, as research conducted by Hawkins et al. (2023) shows that a positive learning environment helps promote social engagement. Having every class be in the Library Workshop room B also helped create consistency for me.

Holmesglen. (n.d.)

I felt myself comparing a lot of what I was doing to my Swinburne Diploma, as whilst I was starting this new course, there were 5 people who joined me on the journey.

Through my connections from last year, I also started a podcast using Holmesglen's studio that they provide to students. Not only a general footy one, but also a St Kilda fan podcast.

Holmesglen Podcast Studio (Gaddie, personal communications, 2025)

With mental health being a big focus for me over the past 2 years, and studies showing a higher percentage of depression among university students, as shown by Sheldon et al., (2021), I felt it was important to ensure that I made positive connections in this course.

References

Hawkins, G. T., Chung, C. S., Hertz, M. F., & Antolin, N. (2023). The School Environment and Physical and Social‐Emotional Well‐Being: Implications for students and school employees. Journal of School Health, 93(9), 799–812. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.13375 

Holmesglen. (n.d.). https://www.holmesglen.edu.au/current-students/library/about-the-library 

Sheldon, E., Simmonds-Buckley, M., Bone, C., Mascarenhas, T., Chan, N., Wincott, M., Gleeson, H., Sow, K., Hind, D., & Barkham, M. (2021). Prevalence and risk factors for mental health problems in university undergraduate students: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 287, 282–292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.03.054

Entry 2 - Makes the Dreamwork

My group project was based around media coverage in Australian women's cricket, as I worked alongside Stacey, Seba and Hugh. For our group, what worked was that a lot of time was spent on planning and structure, ensuring that the content we researched was aligned to the rubric.

Holmesglen 2025)

However, something that could have been improved was our communication between members, but also the feedback we provided to each other over the course of the project.

Whilst I felt as if I was completing the work assigned, I also felt that others weren't necessarily working to the best of their abilities, and I struggled to go about communicating this.

As Burgess et al (2021) suggests, pinpointing deficiencies is something plenty of students struggle with, even if they are able to provide positive feedback towards peers. This is something I will look to improve as the semester progresses.

Teamwork Survey (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

I felt we progressed well early, with work getting done and setting out well. However, we did start to veer off course, especially in class, with Seba struggling to not get distracted. There was also the infamous ‘Chicken Steak’ argument, which was a major distraction. I think if we were a bit more focused during class, then we wouldn't have been as rushed over the weekend, reducing stress levels and being able to more thoroughly proof-read work and ensure as minimal errors as possible.

The experiences I gained through this project have allowed me to better understand my skills as they stand, as I wasn't sure the quality of my work, more specifically being able to write academically. I focused a lot on the 'extra's' of the assignment, rather than writing a specific body paragraph.

This is something I will look to change in future group projects, whether in the Academic and Professional Communications class or any other. If I can improve this, then the overall teamwork and quality of work will hopefully improve.

References

Burgess, A., Roberts, C., Lane, A. S., Haq, I., Clark, T., Kalman, E., Pappalardo, N., & Bleasel, J. (2021). Peer review in team-based learning: influencing feedback literacy. BMC Medical Education, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02821-6

Holmesglen. (2025) BHE101_A1Rubric_2025. Holmesglen Brightspace A2 Rubric https://holmesglen.brightspace.com/d2l/le/content/519205/viewContent/5136528/View

Entry 3 - Self Learnings

In the middle of 2024, I was diagnosed with high-functioning Autism and showed signs of ADHD and OCD. This felt like a huge relief, and I finally understood why I struggled with deadlines and focus. Part of my sessions with a psychologist developed around strategies to help work through my issues. As written by Fletcher-Watson (2023), an official diagnosis can help lead to relief from self-judgement as well as facilitating greater mental well-being.

ADHD Management Techniques (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

Some of these strategies also seemed to overlap with the strategies I have started to implement with my university work. The problem arose when I started to get more involved with extra-curricular activities, such as the podcasts I was on and helped produce.

As these activities started to overlap with assignments, I felt myself relying more and more on the strategies I picked up, including organising my work better, prioritising the work and ensuring it was structured as well as making sure I was conscious of when I was becoming stressed.

Mid-Semester Assessment Map (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

With a study conducted indicating that up to 93% of university students experiencing some stress in any way, according to Waterhouse and Samra (2025), finding ways of being able to cope with the work became important.

As multiple assignments became due at the same time, I felt myself leaning more towards delegating the work, which became quite helpful, as well as being able to take a break or have a snack when required, in order to keep myself sane.

References

Fletcher-Watson, S. (2023). What’s in a name? The costs and benefits of a formal autism diagnosis. Autism, 28(2), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231213300

Waterhouse, P., & Samra, R. (2025). University Students’ Coping Strategies to Manage Stress: A scoping review. Educational Review, 1–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2024.2438888

Entry 4 - You to Me

Feedback has always been something I have struggled with taking on board, so when during a lecture I realised I needed to include it in assignments, something had to change.

During our lecture, we were assigned to provide feedback towards another student for our first 3 entry submissions. Ardill (2025) suggests that peer reviews are a positive indicator for the development of critical thinking skills and self-reflection skills, but mainly to incentivize independent learning.

A1 EPortfolio Surveys (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

I found it a very interesting process to go through, as it was never something I did at prior University courses. It was helpful not only receiving feedback to improve on, but also being able to better understand the guidelines and process to grade someone else's work, which I found helpful to then improve my own, which is also supported by Stancic et al., (2025)

For the assignments I have received feedback from, it appears I should continuously read through the rubric and guide, ensuring I have included all the correct information and have responded to the question.

A2 Sport for All (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

In my A1 for Steve's assignment, whilst I was able to thoroughly answer part 1 of the question, I also 'don't explore why... in sufficient depth.' This is something I will ensure I don't do again, as missing the brief loses easy marks.

For Steve's A2 assignment, which was in a group, we were told to 'rehearse, rehearse, rehearse' and as many of the final assignments are group presentations, this is something I need to do to ensure I am able to get high marks.

References

Ardill, N. (2025). Peer feedback in higher education: student perceptions of peer review and strategies for learning enhancement. European Journal of Higher Education, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2025.2457466

Stančić, M., Milin, V., & Gašić, A. (2024). Peer feedback in higher education: How students’ roles affect providing and receiving feedback. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 83, 101408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2024.101408

Entry 5 - Assigning Tasks

Something that I feel I have done quite well in my assessments is being able to hit a solid baseline in all my work. Whilst I haven't yet received a lot of feedback from some submissions, I felt as if the work I completed was always to a good and consistent level, even if there was room for improvement.  

As Lailah Gifty Akita once said; "Every beginner possesses a great potential to be an expert in his or her chosen field."

Email to Simone Wearne (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

Something I feel I can improve in my assignments is sending through drafts to teachers to ensure that the work I have done is heading on the right track. This also allows me to receive more feedback to be able to improve my work, which is in accordance with what Morris et al. (2021) set out to identify. Not only sending through drafts but even meeting with lecturers to receive feedback can help clarify any mistakes I may have made.

Email to Simone Wearne (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

Heading into the last couple weeks of class, I felt a huge load on my shoulders, as there were still 5 assignments that needed to be presented/submitted (including this one). I felt it was necessary to speak to Simone personally, just to be able to freely speak my mind about how it felt like everything started to get rushed and mold together.

Thankfully I was able to get some helpful responses and worked through the issues I had, which will hopefully allow me to work to my fullest potential.

References

Lailah Gifta Akita. (n.d.) https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/42924634-think-great-be-great-beautiful-quotes-1

Morris, R., Perry, T., & Wardle, L. (2021). Formative assessment and feedback for learning in higher education: A systematic review. Review of Education, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3292

Entry 6 - Back to the Future

Knowledge

Over the course of the 12-week semester, something I was very surprised about was the ability to formulate ideas for the assignments. In every group assignment I was in, it felt like I was the generator, but even for individual assignments, my brain was able to process the topic and spit out a solution.

I was also continuously improving with the formality of work. Laid out by Dorji (2021), continuous feedback sessions as well as constantly re-visiting completed work allows for greater improvement of academic writing. It was helpful not only through the lectures but also whilst completing this assignment.

Skills

An area that I feel have developed in are my communication skills, both with classmates during projects as well as with lecturers. There were moments during the early parts of semester where I wasn't clear in my communication, however I was just not communicating when I needed. This included submitting assignments late without notice or not sending an email for class attendance.

Attitudes/Behaviours

Thankfully, this was something I changed and became a learned behaviour, as I was letting lecturers know if I was late to class, going to submit an assignment past due date as well as being able to meet up with lecturers more often to discuss assignments.

Email to Davin Sgargetta (Behm Gaddie, Personal Communications, 2025)

At the start of the semester, I often felt myself procrastinating and hence becoming overwhelmed with tasks, especially when they tended to overlap. As the weeks progressed and as I started to adopt better learning and planning strategies, my worked seemed to flow more seamlessly.

As I started to develop a more positive mindset towards feedback, largely seeing it as a tool for growth rather than direct criticism, my confidence in academic writing started to grow. From this, I began approaching tasks with greater clarity and purpose. These changes have helped me become more capable and in control of my learning and study.

As the great saying goes, "The game's not over until the fat lady sings." (Notes and queries, n.d.). And that is semester 1 finished.

References

Dorji, J. (2021). Enhancing academic writing skill through mini lessons and revision. JET (Journal of English Teaching), 7(1), 56–66. https://doi.org/10.33541/jet.v7i1.2272

Notes and Queries (n.d.).| guardian.co.uk .https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1893,00.html