The Importance of Keeping a Reflective Diary - Assignment Example

Name: University: Course: Tutor: Date: Reflection is the act of engaging our minds into thinking, in order to find a solution to a problem that is not very obvious, when one is in need of changing to something else in future or when one is in need of knowing something in a better way than he or she does. A Reflective dairy is a personal record, where past experiences and achievement, feelings and opinions of everyday. Since they dairy includes both the negative and positive aspects of experience, feeling, thoughts as well as failures and achievement, it can be of use in future to correct the situation to better, and even to its best. One gets a chance to learn from his or her past experiences, achievements failures as a result of assessing them. This gives the importance of keeping a reflective dairy, because human beings are bound to forget, thus a record of their past enhances the remembering of his or her past activities and involvements. (Jasper 2003, pp.180) A Reflective Diary, consist of three parts: Progress part, which in my case I have showed what I did in the project, what I leant and what I can do in case I am given the same project to research on. Problem and learning part, which in my diary I have discussed the problems I encountered and how I overcame the problems. According to the Belbin Test, a team is involved with shaper, chair, innovator, investigator, evaluator, organiser, team worker and finisher. Each team role is characterised by to considering the strength of their character traits. Belbin inventory scores are used to classify an individual on the basis of character traits strength. After my traits were analysed, I fitted to be an investigator. i. Progress Part: During my research, I was involved in a project with other people, and I was keen to find out the latest ideas and development in workplaces. The project was about stress at work. So by trying to find the latest ideas and development in various working places, I knew I could have an ideal of the possible causes of the stress and I could easily know the possible solution to the problem. To handle this, I interviewed individuals in order to get the information about their workplace, conditions and terms, as well as their personal attitude towards their work, and with this I was able to analyse the possible sources of their stress in their work if in any case their was any. When I needed satisfaction as a result of my work, I kept exploring various technique and views since a wider range of views and especially from various people working in various places in various job departments. (Hinchiff 2004, pp.356). This helped me to have a variety of sources of stress in the working places and in different work. This made me provide enough details to my work team. When the team I was working with got a complex problem to solve, I was involved in getting wider application compared to immediate task. I knew by analysing wider field of problem, we (team) could easily solve the problem from the source of the problem, because by just getting the immediate problem, I could have left the underlying one, which could have caused similar problem later. (Hellbeck 2006, pp.380). Problems in workplaces can be related to on sources, thus by getting wider application; I could have got even other possible stresses at work related to the immediate stress. During my day to day work, I made points on behalf of the team I was working with, following interesting ideas and people with this, I went to the ideas which I saw could yield more information to the topic, and people whom seemed to show interest in my research, since they were ready not only to give me the appropriate data, but also gave me examples to clarify their states in their working places, enabling me to come up with more information for my team. The research project report had a deadline on when to have given the report, and the people from whom we were researching were not familiar to us. A time I had to go to even unfamiliar places for the sake of the team to get materials and information for our research. In such cases I was looking any person in these places who could be having specialist knowledge about the work and working terms. (Evans 1999, pp.76). It’s from his or her information that the team I was working with could analyse to come up with the issues related to stress at work. My contribution in the team usually took time and I ensured my judgment and conclusion was relating and considered the subject and topic of our project, despite the fact that my conclusion took some time before being presented to the team. Not in all research that I do this, but for this case when the team was involved, I ensure I took my time before giving my judgment, since I knew each and everyone’s contribution in the team had effect, and for my case, I was committed to give the best for the best outcome of the project report. A time due to many problems which we were encountering during our research for the project, my team mates were deciding to change the project and have a new project which they thought would not have many challenges like the one we were researching for, I looked at the possible ideas that we could use in the new project, and its opening, and after some time, I did not see the change necessary because in research whoever commits him or herself to research for a project has to encounter challenges which in many cases makes the person involved to feel weary, but there is always a way to overcome them, and these are the factors which we discussed with my team mates, and later, they were also in a position to continue analysing the stress at work, as the project.(Emmitt 2007,pp.161). With the strength of every role in our team, our project was successful, because at the end of our research, we were able to get information about stress at work, and its from this information that the widely discussed the topic, and we had the possible causes of the stress at work, as well as the possible ways to avoid the stress. We presented our project. I was involved with the many workplaces and I gave contact to the team. I was committed to providing good network between my places of research, the information and feeling my team members with the information.(Bulman &Sue 2004) This helped the team to get quality and enough information about stress related to work, their sources, consequences and how to solve the problems. In case of the same research project, I could do it better than the one we have done, since we already have an experience, we know where we failed to be thorough during the research, and now we can tell of our roles as per the Belbin Test. In case of similar project, we have hints on possible problems which we might face in the research and their solutions, thus we will use less time to tackle them compared to the time we spent in this research. Having related to many people and places in search for the information, a future similar research will be better due to the already existing relationship thus enhancing a faster and more detailed presentation compared to the one we presented. We can also correct our failures in the future similar presentation thus no doubts it will be better in quality and less time will be required to cover it. Before the research for the project, I never knew the need for the teamwork relationship as well as the need for the relationship with other members of the society whoever after the research, I now know the need and I can easily relate with all members of the society, either in learning institutions, at work, or in any other social place. ii. Problems: As an investigator, I faced many problems during my research contribution for the project. Dealing with both the team in project research and the outside for information and data collection, the problems came from both team and the people I related with outside. The team required a lot from me, which a times to get, in order to give them was very hard. They kept getting demoralised and I had to keep motivating them by proving to them the possibility of successful research and report presentation.(Whitehead 2003). This was also a challenge to me but being the team’s investigator, I had to keep the candle burning for the team. On the other side, to relate with the people outside, that is either working or those had a work experience gave me some challenges. Some of the people were not ready to cooperate. This made the link of ideas and the team’s research project to block. I knew my role in the team and I knew the consequences of failure to facilitate data delivery, thus I had to try by all means to enhance the team gets the information readily on time. I overcame these problems by ensuring that I created a good relationship with the outside people, to enhance a path by which we could have our project ready for presentation. A time a large number of finance was required to enhance my operation and to be specific to facilitate the investigation, and not every time when the money was required was readily available.(Westbury & Hopmann 2000). This posed another, but I overcame this, with the support from my fellow team members. They helped me mentally, and financially. Were it not for the cooperation we had as a team, may be we could not have gone far that we have and specifically to complete our research and present our report. From my involvement in this research, I have been able to improve my communication skills, inter-person relationship as well as public relation skills. iii. Plans. With the information available concerning stress at work, the stress needs to be stopped in work places, by both the employer and employee. Having known the sources of stress while working, people need to avoid them by all means. With this people need to understand that pressure at work in very different from stress. Having known this, we plan to create awareness to all people on how to avoid stress at work, and how to relate with people at work as a well of working under favourable conditions. Appendix We made meetings with other Project team members thrice a week. During the first meeting we elected team officials with a secretary who wrote down the meetings’ minutes. We also ensured that every member attended the meetings by fining those who did not attend without apology. References. Bulman &Sue Schutz 2004, Refletive practice in nursing, SAGE, New York Emmitt, S 2007, Architects’ Design Management, Architectural Press, New York, Evans, D 1999, Caring Professions’ Practice Learning, Ashgate, London. Hellbeck, J 2006, Mind Revolution diary writing, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Hinchliff, M 2004, Practitioner as teacher, Elsevler Health Sciences, New York. Jasper, M 2003, Beginning Reflective Practice, Blackwell, Oxford. Whitehead, T. Mason 2003, Nurses study skills, SAGE, New York Westbury, & Hopmann 2000, Teaching as a Reflective Practice, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London. Read More