Personal Reflection

This reflection will discuss personal diffidence and how it has influenced my academic studies, including my practice within placement settings. Gibbs reflective cycle (Gibbs, 1998) has been utilised as it illustrates a clear structure for the process of reflection. To conclude this reflection will draw together the themes which have emerged and highlight a clear action for future learning that will be used in order to enhance my future practice.

NCSSM Residential and Online students must have a high level of maturity, whether living away from home or working daily without teachers or supervision. Please help us understand why you are mature enough to manage your own deadlines, schedule and academic interest.

When I first enrolled in the class, I didn’t know what was to be expected of me. I was scared the first time I logged onto the computer to see what the course entailed. Then, things changed and I was comfortable with my new lifestyle of doing work on the computer. I began by making myself a schedule with things that I wanted to accomplish each and every day. As I continued to do this and the end of the course started to become visible I started to grow more and more comfortable. I am happy with how everything has gone throughout this semester. I have learned a lot of things this year, as well as being refreshed with things that I obviously struggled with. This course developed me into a better writer; educated me on how to begin the

To do my research I had to have many participants to correctly do my research. To start my research, I began by researching strategies and completing a literature review on the strategies to figure out what is important to aid me in reach the process target of giving effective feedback to the students. After figuring out what feedback strategies I wanted to research, I then use the strategies during the ten-week internships thought whole class instructional lesson three times and also providing feedback to students' one-on-one or in small group settings through my internship. I used the chosen strategies in multiple ways to make the best use of my ten-weeks there to make the best use of my time there, I gave oral

I am very proud of myself for completing my master’s degree this past May. This is my highest educational accomplishment thus far. Also, I feel blessed for my job as a Spanish teacher at Jackson Elementary. Working in a Title I school district has given me the chance to develop new strategies and skills to meet of disadvantaged, at-risk students. Nonetheless, one of my aspirations is also to be an ESL teacher, so I can help English language learners and assist new immigrants with their acculturation process. Additionally, one of my goals is to obtain my Ph.D. with an emphasis in ESL so that I can be properly trained to assist my school district with programs to significantly improve the program for ELLs in my school

I believe I can keep a cool head during difficult situations which allows me to think clearly and not worry. When my team sees this, they feel secure and are able to let go of the negative and keep moving forward. This leads to my team and I being proactive in starting new projects instead of worrying about something we couldn’t control.

that I felt the calling to get my degree. I began to lean on my faith and the knowledge that the

Back in the spring of 2012 I was at a crossroads do I reenlist in the army or do i simple just take my discharge and move on to a new path with a slower pace. The military had been all I knew for the last eight years. These where my brothers we had been to hell and back together. We came face to face with devil in the Middle East and walked away from it uninjured. However the continuous rotations overseas would break anyone down three months in country then six months back in the states it was a continuous cycle that never ended. Life in Ranger Regiment wasn’t easy the mission tempo was fast paced and demanding. I had seen a few guys from the unit break and go into a form of psychos an then med. boarded out. Then there was the guys that got out. It mostly went one or two was with no grey area. They drank themselves into the abyss or they would excel at the new path they ventured out on. All of these guys in every category I had the highest respect for.

This unit, as well as the others, have been an opportunity to grow and to learn and to discover myself in areas that I had not considered in the past. It is causing me to look within myself and to bring out abilities that had not been tapped for years. The first was the desire to move to level two in the CPE program. The realization that the status quo was not adequate. So the additional effort that was necessary to do so has to be applied. Hearing the words for my supervisor when she said if you had not change the way you were doing things we would be having a different conversation. Admittedly I did not want that different discussion. Moreover, the look that she gave with that smile in her head turned to the side I knew we would not have been good. I do not want that look anymore, so I will make sure there is no reason to receive that look. I discovered that this exchange was necessary for me to learn a valuable lesson, that lesson was if we students are willing to put in the work I will supervisor will put the work in to help us/me.

One of the experiences that I had during my second week as an intern is that I had a homeless client who suffered from a mental health condition which I cannot disclose due to confidentiality. While I was doing her intake, I had to think back to some of the information that I learn from my previous courses in college on how to help someone in need who is suffering from any kind of mental health condition. The intake with the client went pretty well and I was very proud of the way how I handled a situation like that because I had my resources to think back to. I did get a little scared because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to take on challenge of working with someone who has mental health issues but the results came out very positive for me. After my second week of being an intern, things continued to run very smoothly for me. Even after I just started doing the intake and case management duties, I still had some times where I would forget things and remind myself what I needed to do correct it.

I found this exercise very helpful, reading the scores form each of the sections has given me a lot of insight into what I am good at, and what I can improve on in my field. I scored high in the adapting practice and in linguistics competence and health and health care disparities. To me, this shows me that I am good at communicating effectively in terms of making sure clients understand what options they have and how we can help them find the best decision which will benefit them the most. The results indicated that “Items contained in this…adapting such care to individual patients in the practice environment.” (National Center for Cultural Competence, 2). I have just recently experienced something similar to this, and I can see that even though I am at an internship, I can still see myself taking these things into my everyday life.

Growing up, I was never good at writing and struggled with it. In eighth grade, we had to write a paper on our superhero and I wrote about my mom. I saw everyone wrote two or three pages while I wrote one. I felt a bit weird about that and I knew it was not a good paper. Prior to sophomore year of high school, we had to read a book called Jane Eyre. I did not like reading and read only half the book and just looked up summaries online. I had Miss Figueroa for an English teacher that year, and I was so scared and nervous because she was a difficult teacher. We discussed the book, and then we wrote a rough draft essay about it. In October, we had to take a P.O.W. Exam on this book, which had three essay topics to choose from. I remember my rough draft was the same exact topic as the one on the exam, and I thought this is going to be easy. A few weeks later we got our results back, and it required a three to pass and I got lower than that. I made mistakes on grammar, my paragraphs were not consistent, and my introduction and thesis were not being well- written. This made me so sad because I could not graduate high school without passing this exam. We had to write in-class essay on novels we read and essays at home. I remember struggling to come up with topics to write about and forming ideas. It took me so long to finish these essays, and they were never well written. I was never good with timed essay tests as I felt like I was being rushed and had no time to check my work or

Since early on in life, numerous individuals have been hearing people talk about college. Parents usually encourage their children to go to college, get a degree, get engaged on campus, be someone great in life and be important in the society. Hearing people talk about their college experience can push someone to go there and see what is there and how is that going to improve himself/herself. When actually going there, then come the experiences and the hard work and experiences come along in every aspect, such as academic, career, and personal facets of someone’s life.

For each of us, there comes a time when we can look back and pinpoint the exact day that altered the course of our life, for me, one of those days was April 13, 2010. I was 14 years old when I fell off my bike and broke my elbow. After consulting multiple orthopedics, I was told I would never regain my range of motion, but with the help of a certified hand therapist, I was able to regain full range of motion and prove the doctors wrong. Months later I had surgery to reconstruct my elbow that had not healed properly, but again I was able to regain full range of motion thanks to my therapist. While the doctors were able to fix my arm, it was the therapists who were able to give me my quality of life back. It was at this moment that I knew I wanted to be a therapist. During my freshman year of college, I began to develop an ulnar claw which eventually led me to undergo ulnar nerve transposition surgery. After spending countless hours with a certified hand therapist I knew this was what I wanted to spend my life doing. I had been going to school with plans of applying to physical therapy school, but the experience I had recovering from ulnar nerve transposition led me to alter my course of study and transfer schools. Today no one would ever know that I had something wrong with my arm or hand other than the scars which motivate me and remind me of the impact an occupational therapist had on my life, and my ultimate goal; become an occupational therapist.

Throughout my life, I have turned to the Bible for guidance and understanding. My mother encouraged me to be involved with the church. Two previous experiences that impacted my life included learning that no age limit applies to God’s kingdom, and my future is planned.