Reflection Account Assignment 2022

Running head: REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT
Reflective Account on My Volunteering Experience
[Jo Richardson Community School]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT
Reflecting writing on personal working experience is a good way to look back to things
that helped to learn something and also those were problem generating. Be it the good or bad
outcomes of such pieces of work, reflective writing is always helpful in identifying areas of
improvement and setting personal professional goals. According to Moon (2001), personal
development planning can and should involve various forms of reflection as well as reflective
writing. The author says that much has been written about reflective writing; however, it still is a
mysterious activity for many. Being an increasing point of discussion in recent times, reflective
writing should be given a try to see whether it is beneficial in the given context.
The purpose of this reflective writing is to reflect upon the work experience that I had
working as a volunteer for Jo Richardson. Jo Richardson is a secondary school situated in East
London. This piece of work should definitely help me to figure out the good or bad in me. This
writing should be an analysis of my professionalism on a large scale. Moreover, the findings of
this reflective account should let me believe whether I am fit for the industry I was chosen as the
volunteer for or else.
Now, I will take the help of various scholarly articles to assess my performance as a
volunteer of Jo Richardson and utilize these findings in my professional career ahead.
A general approach to reflection as opined by Moon (2005) is somehow related to the
notion of learning. We reflect on something only when we intend to know more about it and
learn something from it. The tendency to reflect upon things happened in the past or recall it over
time is a general tendency that we normally carry. However, doing reflection in an organized
way is something, which is rare. People tend to skip such practices either intentionally or else.

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REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT
However, reflective writing can be very beneficial in a personal professional career. Moon
(2005) identifies various scopes for reflection writing such as self-development, academic as
well as non-academic learning, critical review, emancipation, empowerment, considering self-
process of the mental functioning, decision making and so forth.
In the research of Moon (2005), reflection supports learning if not the direct source to
learn new things. It does so by proving the pieces of evidence for things were in the past and
generating appropriate learning conditions. Reflection helps to learn new skills in many ways.
Reflection slows down the learning process as it requires the learner to give time to reprocess
ideas. Reflection helps learners realize that they own certain knowledge as the learner has
essentially been a part of its creation. Things which learner reflects upon exist in a complicated
or an unstructured form. It challenges learners’ skills to reflect upon the experience and thus
enhance their ability to deal with the complex things (Moon 2005).
The definition and concept of experiential learning can be understood from what David
A. Kolb writes about it. Kolb says that to gain the ground in experiential learning it is important
to reflect on the experience. David A. Kolb in collaboration with Roger Fry created a famous and
widely used reflection model. The model has four distinct elements such as concrete experience,
observation and reflection, the formation of abstract concepts, and testing in new situations
(Infed.org 2020). This model has been in use time and again. David A. Kolb says that there is no
such restriction to begin only with the concrete experience. Instead, the learner can choose to
start from any one of these elements. However, to do anything one must have something to
reflect upon. It is this very point that makes sense for the way elements of the model are being
presented.

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REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT
In the research of Leigh (2016), reflective writing and reflective practices are considered
as being integral to professional programs within the United Kingdom and the other parts of the
world. However, reflective work will be fruitful only if the basis of judgments for the piece of
reflective work was to attain certain qualities and skills in professional development programs.
As far as my viewpoint is concerned, the effectiveness of reflective writing depends majorly on
the quality of data being used to reflect upon (Bladon and Bladon 2020). The person should
know the appropriate time to do such things, so that, it does not affect their daily work schedules.
Additionally, things to reflect upon should make sense. The person should have this much
understanding of reflective writing to do justice with the practice and attain its potential benefits.
Having played the role of a volunteer for Jo Richardson, I am in a good position to reflect
upon my experience of volunteering. Volunteering according to me is a good way to interact
with new people. Now, the question arises like what is so good there in interacting with new
people. The answer is it gives the opportunity to face new challenges and be able to explore the
hidden excellence in the individual. With regards to my experience of volunteering for Jo
Richardson, I could say to have learned so many things. I could add more to my human capital.
I could know how to identify the diverse behaviors of the client. Being the volunteer, I was
responsible for building the feeling of attainment and aspirations in them. I also received training
at the school on mentoring skills. All these did not just help me experience a completely different
role but also realize the challenges therein being the mentor for someone. I strongly believe that
these gains will help me to pursue a good career as the mentor of a firm. Besides, it gave me a
sense of attachment to the education service industry. Hopefully, I will be looking to pursue a
career as a mentor in this industry at least in the short-term to develop some good professional
skills.