Reflection Week 1
Start Date
03 February 2009
Reflection
Reflection
In the first seminar for this new module I was introduced to a new lecturer, new colleagues and a new module. After these initial introductions the assessments and there deadlines were given. The seminar was then divided into small groups for the ‘Cultural iceberg’ task. I thought it was good how my seminar group was quite culturally diverse therefore my small group was also. We then carried out this task discussing where each element should be placed.
I think the first seminar went well overall. I got some positive impressions of my seminar leader and was interested by her previous experience in international business. During the task I thought it was good how the cultural diversity meant people had differing opinions on the placement and gave interesting examples to make their point, seeing their different approach/logic interested me. However this diversity in opinions lead to a lot of them between placed around the middle of the iceberg. When producing the ‘me as a culturally diverse person’ diagram I found I heavily relied on the example given to me just changing it to apply to me.
I also had to think of 6 steps to intercultural awareness for next week and complete a ‘me as a culturally diverse person’ diagram. From some reading in the core text book I came up with these six steps:
1. Self knowledge of your own culture
2. Understanding and accepting differences
3. Use of categories and tools in attempts to understand another cultures perspective
4. To challenge these categories seeing their flexibility and accepting variations
5. The analysis of communication behaviour to see what is acceptable and what isn’t
6. Acting on this learned competence in intercultural communication
After being introduced to the reflective writing side of this module in the seminar I was slightly confused as to what was meant. So outside the seminar I looked through my module guide and Brookes Virtual to find out. Once I realised what was required I was slightly worried. This was for several reasons, firstly because I had never written in this style before thought it did not play to my strengths which could harm my overall mark and secondly I was cautious about writing in this personal style then sharing it with others.
Plan
• Organise and plan when I may do the assessment tasks taking into account the deadlines in relation to those of my other modules
• Be more creative in future tasks I am asked to do outside the module
• Develop my reflective writing skills by:
o Taking brief notes in sessions on things I could reflect on later
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Comments about this
Posted by: MATTHEW EDWARD DYSON on 17 April 2009 23:15
In the first week I made a plan to organise my time allocation between the reflections, my virtual group work and my commitments to other modules. So far I think I have been able to follow my time allocation plan relatively well. This is because I was able to completed most of my reflections and drawn up a rough draft for the virtual assignment in the time after finishing my coursework for other modules and before going on my Easter break. However things have not progressed as well as I would have liked over Easter, mainly in relation to the draft for the virtual assignment, and I now have to split time between this and revision for other modules.
I also made the plan to try and be more creative outside this module. I feel I have attempted this well by taking a creative position within a group assignment for my introduction to marketing module. This is best displayed in the poster which I designed for the Rich Poster presentation as part of the module (poster is linked).
Over the nine sessions that I have attended on this module so far I feel I have developed my reflective writing by actually writing a reflective statement each week and also by note taking in class. As this module has progressed so has my skill in identifying things which would be good for me to reflect about later. The ability to recognise these has meant I have been able to discuss them in more detail in the seminar, take more detailed notes on them and therefore enhancing my ability to reflect on these things which I have found particularly interesting.
After looking back at my ‘Six steps to Intercultural Awareness’ I believe that this module so far has made me more Intercultural aware because:
• The ‘You as a Culturally Diverse person’ exercise increased my knowledge about my culture
• Then how we have been introduced to some differences between cultures has encouraged me to be more understanding and accepting
• I have also been introduced to new theories such as High and Low context which has helped me understand other cultures perspectives
• However it was made clear to me that these are flexible, pen to variation and stereotypes should not be made