Posted: May 5th, 2015

Topic 4: Knowledge Workers, Topic 5: Coaching, Counselling and Mentoring, and Topic 6: The need for teams and teamwork

Topic 4: Knowledge Workers, Topic 5: Coaching, Counselling and Mentoring, and Topic 6: The need for teams and teamwork

Order Description

Assessment 2: Journal – reflective practice
Overview

This assessment is a reflective journal which reflects on the issues discussed in class and the potential implications of your learning for professional practice. Through its completion students will reflect on their learning experiences and the potential relationship to current or future practice of employment relations. The focus is on learning through practice. The journal is to cover topics 4, 5 and 6 in the program schedule. Each topic could be covered in around 500 words (up to a maximum of 1,500 words in total). (Topic 4: Knowledge Workers, Topic 5: Coaching, Counselling and Mentoring, and Topic 6: The need for teams and teamwork)

Details
Loo and Thorpe (2002:135) used the following figure below to exemplify the reflective process. As you can see, it starts off with an awareness of the learning situation or event. This awareness might trigger some emotional reaction (positive or negative) or thoughts about the learning event. The second stage of the process is to undertake a “critical analysis”. This involves critically analysing the relevant knowledge and experience you have as well as how you can apply this new knowledge. Self-awareness becomes the focus of this stage. The third stage relates to how this ‘changed perspective’ has changed your emotional, cognitive (thoughts) and behaviours as a result of your critical analyses. The main objective of a reflective journal is to “translate theory into practical action, that is, a praxis” (Loo and Thorpe, 2002: 135).

Reflective process
Source: Adapted from the Scanlon and Chernomas (1997) three-stage model of reflective learning.

In writing the reflective journal, you could ask yourself the following questions:
• What was the learning situation or event?
• What thoughts and feelings did I have about the learning situation or event?
• In what ways do I currently apply the things that I have learned?
• In what ways have I changed (or have not changed) my thinking of the situation? (Describe how or why not it has been changed using critical analysis.)
• How can I use this new knowledge and competence? (That is, using the ‘changed perspective’ or maintenance of past perspective.)
Reflective reports, therefore, relate to your own experiences about the topic for discussion. Thus, unlike most other kinds of academic writing, reflective reports require you to write in the first person, that is, using the “I” and “my” words.

NOTE: This is a journal. And please reflect to me as a student that I have never experience of working before.

Reference: Loo, R & Thorpe, K 2002, ‘Using reflective learning journals to improve individual and team performance’, Team Performance Management: An International Journal, vol. 8, no. 5/6, pp. 134-139.