how to write a reflective report on group work article

You may also see memo writing examples & samples. Examples of Reflective Assignments. I think we thought that this approach would save us time when piecing together the sections in the end, and therefore we didn’t think it through. We therefore had to rewrite most of the assignment to make it a coherent piece of work. I think if we had challenged our assumptions about our plan - by actually being critical, we would probably have foreseen that it wouldn’t work. It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn’t go well. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford. I think by remembering I want the best result possible will make me be able to disagree even when it feels uncomfortable. The process for writing the reflection will largely remain the same. Think of an important event. If I have any concerns, I will tell the group. I think the fact we hadn’t planned how we were writing and structuring the sections led us to this situation. Group work assignment: For an assessed written group-work assignment, my group (3 others from my course) and I decided to divide the different sections between us so that we only had to research one element each. Seen this way, reflective writing is simply another sort of mirror, a way of being able to examine ourselves and our work to see if we have presented ourselves in the best possible light and used the best possible resources. How can I make sure that I can act differently next time? I was certain it was going to work, and therefore I had little motivation to actually do the rewriting. Another theory that might help explain why we didn’t predict the plan wouldn’t work is ‘Groupthink’ (e.g. To write a reflective short essay, you need to have the right disposition as well as the momentum. Jarvis, 1991), where members of a group make a suboptimal decision because individuals are afraid of challenging the consensus. What do you think other people were feeling about the situation? Moreover, planning how we want the work to look, before we go off on our own is helpful. Before we came together and realised we still had a lot of work to do, I was quite happy and thought we had been smart when we divided the work between us. Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t work in the situation. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act differently – such that you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will make sure it happens. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other. Some characteristics of groupthink that were in our group were: ‘collective rationalisation’ – we kept telling each other that it would work; and probably ‘illusion of invulnerability’ – we are all good students, so of course we couldn’t do anything wrong. If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently? Remember that you are not just writing to say something but to share an important lesson in life. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all material is copyright © The University of Edinburgh 2020. Moreover, I will suggest writing one section together before we do our own work, so we can mirror that in our own writing. 1. If you find that only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on those. Test it out and see how it works for you. Lastly, I will remember the dangers of groupthink, and what the theory suggests to look out for. The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. This is easy to do and remember in a first meeting, and also potentially works as an ice-breaker if we don’t know each other well. We expected we could just piece the assignment together in the afternoon the day before the deadline, meaning that we didn’t have to schedule time to sit and write it together. The diary then becomes a place for you to communicate in writing with other group members. Your feelings and conclusions will come later. Janis, 1991). I’m confident this current experience will be enough to remind me to suggest this if anyone says we should divide up the work in the future. Lastly, I will ask if we can challenge our initial decisions so that we are confident we are making informed decisions to avoid groupthink. That contributed positively to the group’s work ethic. Groupthink is where people in a group won’t raise different opinions to a dominant opinion or decision, because they don’t want to seem like an outsider. Dividing work according to individual strengths is useful. It works like if you have a friendly conversation with your mates, talking about the last film you’ve watched. Moreover, I will continue to have people self-identify their strengths and possibly even suggest using the ‘Belbin team roles’-framework with longer projects. Moreover, the fact that two people from the group cancelled plans motivated us to work harder in the evening. I learned that when a group wants to divide work, we must plan how we want each section to look and feel – having done this would likely have made it possible to put the sections together and submit without much or any rewriting. This model is a good way to work through an experience. I think the reason that our initial division of work went well was because each person had a say in what part of the assignment they wanted to work on, and we divided according to people’s self-identified strengths. If you need to create reflection essay, this article might be most helpful for you to read because it will convince you that there is nothing complicated with your assignment. At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the future. Finally, I will speak my mind when I have concerns, by remembering it can benefit the outcome. Reflective writing will take all of your honesty. What were you feeling before and after the situation? What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me understand the situation? However, when we sat down it was clear the sections weren’t written in the same writing style. Here is the same scenario, which was used in the example above, however it is presented much more briefly. Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. It covers 6 stages: This is just one model of reflection. What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better? In a reflective essay, a writer primarily examines his or her life experiences, hence the term ‘reflective’. Like everything in English, there is a process you can follow to produce a reflection statement. Gibbs G (1988). I learned that using people’s strengths is efficient. What was good and bad about the experience? When I’m working with a group next time, I will talk to them about what strengths they have. However, it didn’t work not having foreseen/planned rewriting the sections for coherence and writing styles. I searched through some literature on group work and found two things that help me understand the situation. When we tried to piece the assignment together it was written in different styles and therefore we had to spend time rewriting it. The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number What do you think about the situation now? What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)? You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and ask yourself why. How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved? The things that were good and worked well was the fact that each group member produced good quality work for the agreed deadline. Even though the specific task may vary. The process for writing reflection statements looks like this: This can be either a stand-alone experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example meetings with a team you have to collaborate with. Make sure you respond to what is being asked of you in your reflective assignments — avoid guesswork. The main points to include here concern what happened. Potentially I would suggest writing the introduction or first section together first, so that we have a reference for when we are writing our own parts. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders might be helpful. For an assessed written group-work assignment, my group (3 others from my course) and I decided to divide the different sections between us so that we only had to research one element each. When we realised we couldn’t hand in the assignment like it was, I got quite frustrated. How to write a Reflection Statement – a step-by-step guide. Belbin’s (e.g. Lastly, I learned that we sometimes have to challenge the decisions we seem to agree on in the group to ensure that we are not agreeing just because of groupthink. A journal requires you to write weekly entries throughout a semester.May require you to base your reflection on course content. The process of dividing sections went well. Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. How will I develop the required skills I need? If done with a stand-alone experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you can apply your conclusions in the future. Belbin’s team roles (2010) would suggest something similar. I thought our plan would work and felt good about it. Looking back, I’m feeling satisfied that we decided to put in the work. This is where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future. I have experienced working this way before and discovered when I’m working by myself I enjoy working in areas that match my strengths. Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning from experiences. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to include it. You might have other prompts that work better for you. While we didn’t think about our team members in the same way Belbin does, effective team work and work delegation seems to come from using people’s different strengths, which we did. Further Education Unit. Up until now you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning from it. In reality, it ended up costing us far more time than expected and we also had to stress and rush through the rewrite. Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how they may have impacted the experience. Freedom of information publication scheme, The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding questions to ask yourself and an example of how this might look in a reflection, Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more briefly using this model. I have done it before and it seems to work well. What were you thinking during the situation? Therefore, two members of the group had to drop their plans that evening so the assignment would be finished in time for the deadline. “Recognised body” which has been 2010) team roles suggests that each person has certain strengths and weaknesses they bring to a group. However, by thinking about each stage you are more likely to engage critically with your learning experience. I will use Belbin’s team roles to divide group work in the future. Given that a couple of people from the group had to cancel their plans I ended up feeling quite guilty, which actually helped me to work harder in the evening and get the work done faster. In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. Reflective writing requires you to think about things and how they went, what went wrong, and what you could have done to change the outcome. You don’t have to answer all of them but they can guide you about what sort of things make sense to include in that stage. Depending on the context you are doing the reflection in, you might want use different levels of details. What do you think other people feel about the situation now? For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined below. The purpose of writing a reflective essay is to provide a platform for the author to not only recount a particular life experience, but to also explore how he or she has changed or learned from those experiences. The things that clearly didn’t work was that we assumed we wrote in the same way, and therefore the overall time plan of the group failed. In other words, reflective writing requires the writer to take a deeper look into his life. Gibbs’ reflective cycle is arguably one of the most famous models of reflection leading you through different stages to make sense of an experience. The reason piecing work together didn’t work was we had no plan for what it needed to look like. Always know what is being asked of you. The last part can be explained by ‘groupthink’ (e.g. A learning diary is similar to a journal, but may require group participation. We had given ourselves enough time before the deadline to individually write our own sections, however we did not plan a great deal of time to rewrite if something were to go wrong. Study your marking rubric so you know how your work will be marked and evaluated. It seems natural to me that this is also the case in groups. Types of reflective writing assignments. What were you feeling during the situation? It should be a natural response to the previous sections. members of the group appeared to automatically trust the content of peer-reviewed journals and I sometimes felt that what was presented back to the group was accepted as factual as long as there was a reference attached. SC005336, VAT Registration Number GB 592 9507 00, and is acknowledged by the UK authorities as a granted degree awarding powers. We were so focused on finishing quickly that no one would raise a concern. Short example of Gibbs’ reflective cycle: In a group work assignment, we divided sections according to people’s strengths. When we had to rewrite it, I felt frustrated. Next, if we decide to divide work, I will insist that we plan out what we expect from it beforehand. 3. Try to be as objective and honest as possible. Gibbs originally advocated its use in repeated situations, but the stages and principles apply equally well for single experiences too. I think being aware of groupthink in the future will be helpful in group work, when trying to make decisions. What is being asked of you in your reflective assignments — avoid guesswork coherent piece work! Felt frustrated you to write weekly entries throughout a semester.May require you to communicate in with. Will make me be able to disagree even when it feels uncomfortable a. Body, registered in Scotland, with registration number GB 592 9507,! Costing us far more time than expected and we also had to most. 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