Reflective Journal on Personal and Professional Development

This project report includes critical understanding of reflective learning concepts and personal development. It also describes individual approach to reflective learning and continuous professional development.

Individual Reflective
Report

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................5
RFERENCES...................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Reflective journal can be explained as the personal records of learning experience of
students which helps them to record their past experience effectively (Deeley, 2022). The main
purpose of reflective journal is is to grab opportunities which are based on learning experiences.
All these are considered as beneficial for student as it helps them to develop their skills, gather
research data and promote professional development. Reflective journal can be used to explore
situations from the perspective of an individual. Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on
action of an individual in order to take critical stance on it. It enable an individual in own
understanding regarding their skills, abilities, competencies ans also workplace practices.
This project report includes critical understanding of reflective learning concepts and
personal development. It also describes individual approach to reflective learning and continuous
professional development. This project includes an understanding on individual reflection while
attending professional and personal development module in their university.
MAIN BODY
Reflective Journal writing can be understood as an assessment task for writing down the
experiences that an individual had or planning to have (Genua, 2021). This could be further
analysed as listing out the reasons for the particular action or experience. It tends to be helpful in
getting glimpses of several experiences especially the long term one. These are a reliable source
for understanding and learning from a course, a placement or a time abroad. It lets you check
your development progress and keep a record of it, that can be look back after a certain period.
The main purpose of this journal is to teach an individual the difference between the theory and a
real practice or fieldwork of an organization.
Gibbs' reflective model is the most popular reflective model of all times when it comes to
the journal writing (Alt and Raichel, 2021). It is the circular representation which drives through
six stages that involves, description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan.
This model proves to be a good framework for writing down different experiences. This can
either be a solo experience or might be a club of experiences. This practice is originally build for
repetitive or frequent experiences but these principles can be applied to the single or solo
readings as well.
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Description: It is the detailed description of the whole situation or experience (Dobson,
2022). I have enrolled myself in Continuing professional development module in my university
for achieving employability and study skills. The module included learning related to research,
use of ICTs, communication skills both verbal and written, teamwork, time management,
problem solving ability etc. We were also taught the benefits of learning these skills, I was
assigned a assignment in the module in which we were divided in teams of five members each.
We were asked to prepare a power point presentation. For doing this assignment we needed
differentiated activities which can help us in completing out project. We all were new to each
other so we were not aware of our skills, abilities and interests. I was not good at some skills like
team work, research and time management. None of us was good at team management in the
team, it created problem in completion of task on right time. We all were having different
perspective of writing, due to which our content was not matching with each other. We had to
prepare it again and again to get meaningful content, this was so time consuming. We faced all
these problems because of lack of team work skills in us. I tried to motivate my team members
and suggested them to write in a specific style so that out content can match with each other. I
decide to do more team works so that I can improve my skills and do better time management.
Feelings: In this phase an individual explores feelings or thought which occurred during
the situation or experience (Bhuwandeep, 2022). I felt very nervous upon getting a task which
required time management, problem solving and research skills. I was not good at team
management skills and never worked in team previously. I searched some literatures on team
work which helped me in understanding the situation. Every person bring some strengths and
weaknesses while working in a team. We were divided in team, all of us were unknown to each
other and didn't not know what strengths and weakness each possess. I was hesitating in
contacting with them which created communication gap between us. I got frustrated upon
knowing that our content does not match with each other, we needed to work again and again to
match our work. This decreased our morale and confidence to continue with the projects. We
were feeling demotivated, but than realised that problem arises at every phase of life so we need
to face it with enthusiasm. So I motivated my friends to continue with the work by finding some
solution. When we completed our project I felt more confidence in me and decided to further
work more in team to increase my skills and abilities.
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Evaluation: It overall evaluate the experience of a situation whether good or bad
(Shankar and Gopalakrishnan, 2022). We were divided among teams, although I was not having
experience of working in a team. It was very difficult for me to cooperate with my team
members. We were not able to manage our time to complete our task. Our content was not
matching with each others, this was consuming time to do the work again and again. We were
feeling demotivated upon not able to write good content for our assignment I think the reason of
this situation was that, we hadn't planned how we were writing and structuring the sections. I
was not good at team management, research and problem solving skills so I was not getting any
solution for this situation. Though I repeatedly motivated my team mates to do work and write in
same style so that It can be matched. My communication skills were although good so it was
helping me to communicate with them properly. A proper communication was established
between us so we started work again with a proper style of writing. My communication skills got
improved upon establishing good network between our team.
Analysis: In the previous step we focused on what had happened now we will extract
some meaning out of it (van der Vleuten, van den Eertwegh and Giroldi, 2019). I think the
reason behind our failure of work again and again was that we were not focused upon a single
style of writing which was creating problem in matching the content. All of us were having
different perspective of doing the project and we did not discussed anything about project in the
beginning. We were also unaware about the skills abilities and interests of each other. After
failing in matching the content we decided to do discussion about what skills we have and what
are our interest areas. By knowing all these things we can allot work according to the skills of
members which will result in efficient work. We distributed work according to our interest
among ourselves because I myself enjoy working in areas which match y strength and decided to
follow same style of writing. I and other two members of my group were good at Information
and Communication Technology which helped us to manage and monitor our learning, to think
creatively and critically, work collaboratively, engage in ethical decision making etc. All these
things helped us to complete our assignment effectively, I think working in teams and
establishing good communication between team members can have productive work.
Conclusion: In this step we will summarise our learning and highlight what are the
learning outcomes of the situation (EEshboeva, 2019) (Flak, 2021). I learned that working in a
team need proper communication, without this the work will not be completed efficiently. I
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learned that we must keep on discussing the activities that should take place in the group work so
that their will be no confusion regarding work or formate. I learned that a group must divide the
work, it should be planned that how we want each section to look like. Doing all these things
earlier would have made it possible to submit correct project without wasting time on rewriting it
again and again. I thinks Groupthink theory would have helped us to predict that our plan will
work or not. This theory would have helped us to get more opinions ans suggestions from group
members which would have resulted in well planning of activities for the project. If we would
have known the strengths and weakness of each others than it could have made the work
distribution part easier at the beginning. Distributing the work according to the skills and interest
can make it enjoyable and easy to perform. Searching literature on team management had helped
me to understand the perspective of individual working in a team. It guided me in proper
distribution of work, effective content development and motivating my team mates. If I had good
problem solving skills that it would have helped me to face the situation with positive attitude
find solutions. Learning and developing skills will enable an individual to perform activities
efficiently and effectively. Enrolling in the module helped me to develop and improve my many
skills like research, team management and networking, communication skills, problem solving
ability and also use of Information and Communication Technology.
Action plan: In this step one will plan what things are to be done differently in related or
similar situation if arise in the future (Brewer and Flavell, 2020). It can be extremely helpful
about hoe an individual will help itself to act differently. An individual should not only plan
what to do differently but also should make sure activities happen according to the plan. I will
discuss with the team members about the strengths and weakness they have, when engaged in a
team work next time. I will also ask them to describe what skills they possess and what are their
area of interest. This will help to understand my team mates better and will us to divide the work
according to the interest areas. I decided to implement Groupthink next time while working in
group this will help me get more opinions and suggestions from team members to implement it
in our discussion and distribution of project. I will ask everyone to plan out what we expect how
our work should look like, this will enable us to perform activities keeping in mind the layout of
our expectations. I will keep on remembering that I want best result possible which will make me
disagree when feeling uncomfortable with any decision. I decided to continue learning,
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developing and improving my skills so that, they can be implemented in further activities or task
and even in my general life.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is concluded that reflective model helps Individuals to improve their
own thinking ability from their past experiences to implement them in similar situation in future.
This help them not to repeat any mistake they made earlier, which reduces the risk of problem
arising. Gibbs' reflective model is used to prepare an individual reflective model. Gibbs' model
of reflection is a framework which is used by an individual to examine the experience they gain
from any from any situation and provide guidance about what steps are to be taken if the same
problem arises again. The Gibbs' model of reflection contains six stages which involves
description of of a problem, feelings at the time of situation, evaluation of the experience,
analysis of the situation, conclusion of the whole situation and at last what action plan to be
made if the same problem arises in the future.
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RFERENCES
Books and journal:
Deeley, S. J., 2022. A Critical Reflective Journal as Praxis. In Assessment and Service-Learning
in Higher Education (pp. 87-194). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Genua, J. A., 2021. The relationship between the grading of reflective journals and student
honesty in reflective journal writing. Nursing Education Perspectives. 42(4). pp.227-
231.
Alt, D. and Raichel, N., 2021. Reflective Journal Writing and Multicultural Diversity. In Equity
and Formative Assessment in Higher Education (pp. 41-55). Springer, Cham.
Dobson, J., 2022. Virtue Ethics, Aesthetics, and Reflective Practices in Business. Philosophy of
Management, pp.1-13.
Bhuwandeep, 2022. The impact of reflective practices on student learning in remote internships
during COVID 19 pandemic: a qualitative study. Reflective Practice, pp.1-15.
Shankar, R. K. and Gopalakrishnan, S., 2022. A Reflective Entrepreneur: Ashok Vasudevan and
the Journey of Tastybite. Journal of Management Inquiry. 31(2). pp.219-226.
van der Vleuten, C., van den Eertwegh, V. and Giroldi, E., 2019. Assessment of communication
skills. Patient Education and Counseling. 102(11). pp.2110-2113.
Flak, O., 2021. Level of Similarity of Team Management with the Use of System of
Organizational Terms. In Eurasian Business Perspectives (pp. 19-35). Springer, Cham.
Brewer, M. L. and Flavell, H. L., 2020. Teamwork, collaboration and networking: self-reported
behavioural change following pre-licensure interprofessional clinical learning. Journal
of Interprofessional Care. 34(2). pp.184-192.
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