Professional blog

Reflection Journal

Overview:

Welcome to the week 6 reflection journal. Throughout the course you will reflect on your weekly research experience and make connections to previous learning as well as the university learning outcomes.

Directions:

In the week 6 reflection we will be focusing on the following university learning outcome:

Critical Thinking

Please respond to all the following items in your reflection journal.

How does Critical Thinking connect with the course material this week? How did Critical Thinking help you with your research this week?

Write down at least one specific aspect of Critical Thinking that you need to still develop and describe how you could work on developing that aspect.

How does Critical Thinking connect to achieving your career goals?

Based on your work in the course as well as general education courses at Grantham University, explain what Critical Thinking means to you.

Describe a specific assignment, presentation, or project you worked on in one of your past courses at Grantham University that allowed you to develop Critical Thinking?

Write down at least one question you have about your organization, your research project, or this course in general?

Failure with the Best Intentions

It’s a fact of life that when individuals work together in some capacity, there will at some point be a “failure” or some factor that changes, causes chaos, or anxiety in meeting a particular goal. When we look specifically at members of a group working together in service-learning, there are some common challenges:

• Ambiguity – Difficulty anticipating the unknown

• Responsibilities – Specifically, responsibility to community need. Conflict may arise between personal beliefs or commitments (i.e. who has what responsibility, what does that look like, why does it look like that?)

• Trust – Reliance on others whom you do not know well – this is an issue with all stages and phases in service-learning environments

• Adaptability – Flexibility in the face of rapidly changing conditions – this is the key characteristic associated with the ability to think creatively and with problematic situations

• Redefining Success – Unexamined assumptions about the role of failure and success

Challenges do not arise always as a result of a situation within the service-learning group or the project in regard to the tasks – if you recall there will be community partners involved as well. These are the organizations that represent the whole reason you are working with them and since they are an organization – changes can occur on that level as well. These may include changes in the organizations’ staff, infrastructure changes, or the perception of need or a community issue (maybe the soup kitchen does not see the increase in more homeless people so therefore do not see a need to solve a “non-existent” issue).

Regardless of where the conflict or challenge occurs (within the group or extending to the community partner), it is crucial to resolve the conflict civilly and constructively.

This is accomplished by:

• Identifying the root of the conflict

• Listening to other’s views

• Working on the source of the conflict – not the individuals involved with the conflict

• Demonstrating that all views have been heard and understood

• Generating possible solutions based on common goals with tasks which are achievable by everyone

Another option for overcoming these roadblocks discussed throughout this chapter involves the D-U-E Process. This is a framework for understanding social, socioeconomic, cultural, or personality differences that may make effective listening more challenging, and therefore difficult to complete the resolution civilly and constructively.

• D – Describe what is observed
• U – Understand there WILL be differences in social, socioeconomic, cultural and personality differences and be willing to look past those differences by finding common ground
• E – Encourage communication