The Importance Of Reflection In Personal And Professional Growth

Defining Reflection

Reflection refers to the process of thinking deeply about something that can help people in understanding things in a better light. Reflection can help us in learning and one consciously looks at experiences, feelings along with responses and the interpretations can help us in gleaning important fact. The reflection on the academic along with the professional practice can make the personal beliefs along with expectations more evident for the people.

We can reflect by thinking regarding what we have done in the past and the manner in which we did it. Reflection involves critical thinking and it helps us in identifying the things that we would not notice otherwise. Reflection can help us in spotting patterns and provide use with useful clue about our nature that can be of benefit for our life and our profession. The great benefit that one can get from the practice of reflection is that it can provide light regarding why a particular thing is done in a certain manner and recognizing our feelings can help in understanding our strengths along with weakness (Shaw & Glowacki-Dudka, 2018).

Reflection can provide us with the chance of building our strengths and developing strategies that can help in minimizing our weakness. An individual can grow during the process of reflection because it helps us in utilizing our strengths and we can make the best use of our faculties that can help us in progressing in our professional path. Reflection can help in analysing our deeper instinct and what a person could have done for getting a better outcome. Reflection can help us in our personal growth and it can help us in reaching our goals.

Personal growth can be said to be an important experience in our life. Reflection can help us in avoiding the mistakes that we have once committed and it can help us in avoiding similar kind of incident in the future. It can help us in getting a correct picture in relation to an incident and help us in determining in what way an incident could have been dealt in a better manner (Smit & Tremethick, 2017).

Reflection within the ambit of professional experience can help in improving the job performance of the employees. Reflection can help the individuals in an organization to perform a work more effectively the next time he performs it. Reflection can help us in the aspect of conceptualizing and applying concepts that can augment performance of employees in a company. Reflection in the professional arena can help in the bridging the gap in between ‘high ground’ pertaining to theory and that of ‘swampy lowland’ in relation to practice (Bodgener, Howard & Rial, 2017).

How Reflection Helps in Personal Growth

It assists in the exploration of theories and applying them within our experience in a structured manner. Reflection can help an individual in finding solution to the problem in an organisation. The reflective practice in an organisation is action-based and it can help a professional in dealing with complex situations. It can help us in understanding theory and practice of other people in a better light. The employees in an organization can view the experiences in a better manner and the events do not seem to be isolated when one is reflecting.

Part 2: A report and evaluation of the team work component of the

project.

In the course of my multidisciplinary project, I got the opportunity of working with computer science students. This was a new experience for me and it helped me in learning a lot regarding working within a team. In the event of studying in schools and colleges, we get the opportunity of working with people who are mostly from the same field (Delhey, Deutschmann & Cirlanaru, 2015). It hence does not allow us to learn about important facts regarding other subjects.

There were some incidents that I had to encounter when I was working in the multi-disciplinary project that taught me a lot regarding how to cope with opposing views in a team. The computer science students knew a lot regarding their particular field and seemed to be confident in their field. A conflict took place regarding the sources that we would refer to while working on the project (Calco & Veeck, 2015). There were some team members who felt that only journals should be referred to while working in the project whereas we felt that both books and journals can be referred to while working in the project. This created a kind of debate and hence there was some kind of confusion while working in the team. In the end, the conclusion was reached that the journals and the books published by renowned publishers would be used while doing the project.

Another incident that took place was that there was a portion which dealt with the management aspect and I felt that I should be given the chance to handle that entire arena as I am from the management background. I felt that I had gathered enough knowledge regarding the discipline and I have the sole right of dealing with that part (Kim, Wong & Lee, 2018).  Some of my opinions were opposed to by other members of my team and they did not like my views. Eventually what I did was instead of going against them straightaway I tried to make them see logic regarding why I wanted to go ahead with my opinion. The conflict arose on the issue of project budgeting.

How Reflection Helps in Professional Growth

I felt that SGD $ 800 would be sufficient for doing the project whereas the computer science students felt that it would take around SGD $ 1200 for the completion of the project. They felt that more resources would be required for doing the project that increased the cost of the project (Quiñones et al., 2018). I on the other hand felt that doing our project with the minimum amount of resources can help us in teaching a lot regarding cost management that can come to be of great use for our professional life. I thought that the minimum resources can be utilised to the complete extent that can help in the successful completion of the project. In the end the project mentor came forward and helped us in solving our problem.

Please assess yourself and your team members on the following

behaviours that have been reported as critical for the successful

completion of projects.

Surnames	Aye Chan Ko Ko	Nan Kay khine	Aung Myo Hein	Phyo Lwin Oo	Tint Myat Phoo Aye
Participates in group discussions	5	4	4	5	5
Offers ideas/suggestions	5	5	4	5	5
Is open to criticism /questioning	5	5	5	5	4
Acknowledges expertise of others	5	5	5	4	4
Does not dominate group discussions	5	4	5	4	4
Willing to give and take; flexible	5	5	5	5	5
Listens attentively to others	5	5	5	5	5
Follows through on promises/ deliverables	4	5	5	5	5

Surnames	Aye Chan Ko Ko	Nan Kay khine	Aung Myo Hein	Phyo Lwin Oo	Tint Myat Phoo Aye
Grade you would assign for project contribution (HD, D, C, P, N)	HD	HD	HD	D	D
Grade you believe they would assign you	D	D	D	D	D
Relative contribution to projects (divide 100 points BETWEEN all your group members – total points allocated = 100)	17	17	16	16	17

Part 3: An overall reflection on how your professional identity has

developed throughout the project.

According to me, professional identification is a kind of social identification and refers to sense of the oneness that the individuals have towards the profession. It helps in representing the degree to which the individual can define themselves to be professional members. I think that professional identity refers to the alignment pertaining to roles along with responsibilities that are consistent with the practice that is accepted by a specific profession. According to me, professional identity helps in describing how the individuals are perceived within the occupational context and the manner of our communication with other people (Crain, 2017). I think that work socialisation along with the observation of the peers can help in the creation of professional identity for an individual.

I learnt in the course of my skills audit that my strengths lie in relation to management along with analytical ability. I have got the ability of listening to other people that can help in preventing miscommunication while working within a team. I have got excellent verbal along with written skills that can help me in managing my team. Everyone within a team should be capable of understanding what another person is saying and I think that I have got this ability that can be of great help in the event of working within a team (Rossini, Rincón & Rutkowski, 2015).

I think that I also have the analytical ability that can be of great help in relation to problem solving and it can help me in the evaluation of complex problems. It will enable me to think in a critical manner that can be utilised while working in an organisation. The analytical skills will help me to notice and keep track of the details. This can help me in following the instructions in the proper manner and it can help me in performing my task with a lot of precision (Batselier  & Vanhoucke, 2015).

A Report and Evaluation of the Team Work Component of the Project

The areas that I need to improve relate to my flexibility or adaptability. This can help me in the field of effective adjustment while working within the framework of a team. Flexibility can help me in staying unbiased when dealing with things that can greatly help in the functioning of an organization (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). 

I have learnt a lot about the industry when I was working in the project. Our project was mainly related to the software industry and it helped me in learning a lot of aspects about the computer industry. I have learnt some facts regarding the publication of the software and the kind of business model that are made use of by the software companies (Muller, 2017).

I can conclude by saying that this project has provided me with the opportunity that can help me in the aspect of self-reflection and how to act in a professional manner while working within a team.

References

Batselier, J., & Vanhoucke, M. (2015). Evaluation of deterministic state-of-the-art forecasting approaches for project duration based on earned value management. International Journal of Project Management, 33(7), 1588-1596.

Bodgener, S., Howard, J., & Rial, J. (2017). The value of reflection. Education for primary care: an official publication of the Association of Course Organisers, National Association of GP Tutors, World Organisation of Family Doctors, 28(3), 157-158.

Calco, M., & Veeck, A. (2015). The markathon: Adapting the hackathon model for an introductory marketing class project. Marketing Education Review, 25(1), 33-38.

Crain, S. P. (2017). Open source security assessment as a class project. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 32(6), 41-53.

Delhey, J., Deutschmann, E., & Cirlanaru, K. (2015). Between ‘class project’and individualization: The stratification of Europeans’ transnational activities. International Sociology, 30(3), 269-293.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Kim, J., Wong, C. Y., & Lee, Y. (2018). Transformative Learning Through an Online Global Class Project in Teacher Education. The Teacher Educator, 53(2), 190-207.

Muller, R. (2017). Project governance. Routledge.

Quiñones, E., Bertogna, M., Hadad, E., Ferrer, A. J., Chiantore, L., & Reboa, A. (2018, June). Big Data Analytics for Smart Cities: The H2020 CLASS Project. In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Systems and Storage Conference(pp. 130-130). ACM.

Rossini, M. O., Rincón, S., & Rutkowski, A. F. (2015). The link class project: Collaborative virtual teams between Peru and the Netherlands. Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, 20(39), 137-140.

Shaw, L., & Glowacki-Dudka, M. (2018). The experience of critical self-reflection by life coaches: a phenomenological study. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 1-17.

Smit, E. M., & Tremethick, M. J. (2017). Value of Online Group Reflection After International Service-Learning Experiences: I Never Thought of That. Nurse educator, 42(6), 286-289.