Reflective Diary

This essay aims to critically review my strengths and weaknesses as a self-regulated learner, in relation to key skills which demonstrate my ability to use reflective practice. Also, the essay will identify and implement the learning skills required to complete the modules in Year 2 of the programme. It will produce and make use of individual learning plans that reflect how I could improve upon my interpersonal skills and implement a personal development plan. Furthermore, a demonstration of application of key skills together with learning and interpersonal skills in a variety of settings will be made. The framework this reflective essay will follow has been adapted from the work of Borton (1970) Reach, Teach and Touch;

Learning how to work effectively in a group situation is key to success in many professions as well as in social situations. Groups vary from each other based on the individuals that make up each group, all of us belong to various groups at one time or another. The roles that we fulfill vary from group to

This unit does not introduce much new material. Instead, we expect you to integrate technical and theoretical knowledge acquired from study across your degree. We refer to two frameworks that may support you in carrying out this integration:

Walking into the coffee shop where everyone else , including me now, confronts people in their lives and continues to discuss important topics. The decorations around me are plain and simplistic, nothing special about this place whatsoever. I wait patiently for my invite to show, mentally preparing myself for the conversation that I want to have so desperately. I think of the topics I want to bring up and the ones I want to focus on more than others. Nervously, I continue to wait and talk myself out of thinking that they wouldn’t show at all. A few minutes filled with deep breaths later, finally they’re here. I walk over to the table we agreed to meet at, and sat politely before greeting them and waiting for a response. I cleared my throat and looked at my lap, trying to refrain from saying anything I’d regret. Taking a deep breath, I tried to remain professional while addressing the topic. Finally, my attention was brought to the person seated in front of me, to the world in front of me. With all the courage I could muster I stared dead into its

Chapter number four, awareness of others, was an interesting chapter for me because I feel that listening is what I can do the best, but at the same time I feel that listening can sometimes be my biggest challenge. I have experienced many situations in which I am the listener in a conversation and I’ve learned that my behavior plays a huge role in conversations. If I look bored or if I am spacing out while listening to someone, then I will not be able to connect with him/her in the proper way. Instead that person will feel that he/she is talking by themselves. Just like Miller stated in chapter four “your level of awareness of others makes the difference in your ability to attend and adjust.” This quote pretty much states that to be a good

Using the readings in this module to support your comments, respond to the following two questions in your first post:

Why Don't We Listen Better?" By James Petersen starts out by introducing the reader to him, his life, family, and how/why communication became important to him. The author’s intention for this book is to convey to us what communication is and how we should communicate with the people we come in contact with better as people. Communication is about using proper body and verbal language to talk to people. This book offers to the reader techniques on how to become a better listener. Techniques such as acknowledging, helping people accept themselves and feel real support from the listener (which is described as a good listening) (Petersen, 10). Petersen takes the time to describe communication, a word deriving from the root word meaning "to commune"

One cannot remember all past conversations, but I remember most of the ones where I met certain people or gained something positive. During one of my uncle’s many barbeques, I was introduced to one of his close friends, John Ward, who has a mortgage bank and offered me an internship position. During this barbeque that had many guests, I had a hard time focusing on any dialogues that was not pertaining to the job offer. There were many people and I was talking to many people at the same time. This was an occasion that needed much flexibility, as I needed to talk to John, who wanted to get acquainted with me, and to the many other guests that were there. Even though the conversation ended on a good note and I ended up working for him, I felt the anxiety about appearing unprofessional by being sidetracked by the other people around me. This was definitely a learning experience that made me realize that I have a long path in front of me that will teach me to be a better communicator. Motivation is the key in becoming a good communicator and fortunately, this assessment examined this as

Explain how you were able to use your existing knowledge and competencies from many subjects to succeed in your task.

What comes to your head when you think of writing? Personally, I think of a long dreadful process, that I am not particular too good at. Even though one half of my brain wants to hate writing, the other half realizes how important of a quality writing really is. Over my high school and middle school years I have learned many of my own deficits when it comes to writing. Attempting to over come many these deficits in my writing, I attempt to seek perfection in my limited strengths. I am going to discuss assets and weaknesses of mine, that make me believe that I am no better than just a average writer.

Ever since I began reading as a small child, I have loved literature and the written word. However, even though this has always been the case, I originally was not a literature major when I entered Arizona State University. Instead, I began my college career as a Physics major. What I came to realize after completing some of the required courses for the major was not that I was not good at physics since I had done exceptionally in all my classes, but that I was more interested in reading the articles and writing the assignments for my classes than I was in actually doing research in the physics department. Therefore, even as I was pursuing an entirely different degree, my love of literature and writing was still fundamental to my learning, and it was this that eventually lead to me changing my major to English Literature. Coming to this decision to switch majors was difficult, however the experience was beneficial in the long run. Not only am I now enjoying the work I am doing as a student more, I also understand that writing, editing, and reading critically is important to all disciplines. Had I not first begun my

In this course I learned some of the nuances to managing groups and individuals in an organizational structure. In my current and previous jobs this has been a part of my duties, however, there were additional aspects of organizational behavior that I had not considered. Group dynamics was one of the subjects in organizational behavior that I had never reflected on, considering my background in psychology,

The part of this method that was the most difficult for me, speaking even when not asked. I tend to always have something to say when I'm listening to someone. But, remembering how and what an active listening should do, helped control giving my opinion unless asked by the speaker.

I resumed working on the development of my powerpoint presentation and begun pulling together the NHANES dataset I will be using for my research project.

In conclusion, this class has changed my perspective about working in a group. Since my prior experience with groups was so unsettling, I believed that all groups were going to be the same. However, this class has made it possible to believe that there are groups that respect and take into consideration other members’