Lessons Learned Paper

Lessons Learned Paper Na’Kisha Sherrard, MS University of Phoenix Lessons Learned Paper Connecting with a group of doctoral students for the first residency is very frightening. Several students admitted to having feelings of misperception, worry, or uncertainty. Meeting someone new is certainly not comfortable, however the expectations and anxiety of a doctoral program is sufficient for someone to ask why one would choose to undertake a huge venture. This residency has motivated me to endure in my program. There were several eye-openers that revealed development and improvement as a doctoral student.

In the last five days, various lessons and experiences were taught and learned but the most important lessons for me include the learning team experiences, scholarly writing, and reflection on the lessons learned. Learning Teams During this residency experience, I acquired a lot about learning teams. In my academic and professional experience, I have been a part of numerous teams. I have had some bad encounters with teams during my duration with the University of Phoenix and presumed that the team experiences at residency would be similar.

I definitely applied my situatedness but I understand now a cohort of different personalities can form a successful team where all opinions are heard, all ideas count, all contribute and all appear to demonstrate an authentic interest for one another. Dr. Sally played a major role in team experience. She encouraged an atmosphere of empathy, hope, and interest. She was our main supporter. I appreciate and value the honest disposition Dr. Sally showed. Her charisma made us feel we belonged to the team.

We completed several team assignments that allowed us to develop our learning team skills. We had various chances to work in learning teams. We reviewed course articles, course competencies, and were given several activities to develop team organization. We presented assignments on thinking models, constructing meaning, team presentations, and scholarly writing. The diverse assignments and activities we had in addition to the combined efforts of Dr. Sally and the students have made me reevaluate the idea of working with a learning team in my classes to come.

While are listening to other doctoral students in a learning team communicate what they got from learning; I was able to get another viewpoint that also gets me thinking. My brain absorbed more information from listening to other student’s views. Understanding from other students also makes me try to pay attention to my lessons in a manner I would not have thought of without getting reactions from my learning team. I will be unbiased in the future and not believe that I will experience a negative encounter with a learning team experiences.

I will guarantee to show encouraging traits of a team player and stay helpful. Individuals provided with new information and abilities are supposed to not only better themselves but to be instantaneously inspired to change the world (Mezirow, 1990, 47). I am excited about my next learning team experience and look forward to making a difference. Scholarly Writing There was so much knowledge gained about scholarly writing and what it includes. These past five days has strengthened what I previously understood about this subject.

Throughout several assignments we have did in class, I learned that scholarly writing must be involved. There are certain parts of scholarly writing that are not flexible. Scholarly writing must be written in third person, written for a reason, cannot be prejudged, avoid suppositions and be backs by evidences, theories, and data. I also learned new terminologies that have to do with writing such as anthropomorphism. Trustworthy sources must be used in scholarly writing. I learned a great deal about the choice of sources to use and about scholarly writing.

The constructing meaning assignment helped reinforce the importance for trustworthy and legitimate sources in scholarly writing. I believe the assignment we accomplished personally where we had to select and analyze an article helped show how significant it is to use the correct sources. The resources used can also be deceiving and seem to be qualified, but may only be just an opinion of that author. To avoid this, we must use scholarly, peer-reviewed articles to back up our statements. One of my ultimate disappointments as a college and graduate scholar is not putting more importance on learning to become a critical writer.

Although I think I obtained a great knowledge from awesome universities, this is one subject where I was dissatisfied with myself and the instructors. I desire that they would have held me responsible to being a critical writer. I would definitely tell an individual that is looking into pursing their doctoral degree, if writing is a weakness you should be not embarrassed. It is better to be mindful of this task and do all that can be done to improve it as early as possible. Search for assistance immediately to learn to write appropriately and it will help throughout one’s education and career.

With all the information I obtained about scholarly writing, I plan to use it to numerous types of writing I will do in the future. I can use this knowledge I acquired on this subject for different types of writings at the scholarly level during my studies at the university and beyond, upcoming course assignments, discussion replies, spoken conversations on the subject and my dissertation process. I can give this knowledge to my colleagues and well as other doctoral students to help advance their writing. I can also use what I acquired when I begin my study process whether it is on quantitative or qualitative study.

Reflection One of the most valuable topics I learned was reflection. Reflection is scholarly and emotional activities in which a person engages to discover their encounters in order to guide new perceptions and gratitude (Mezirow, 1990). I also learned the variations amongst critical reflection and reflection. The process of critical reflection covers three points: discovering suppositions that motivate views and behaviors, examining the precision and rationality in how we tie suppositions with our encounters of realism, recreating suppositions to make them more general and encompassing (Mezirow, 1990).

During the different course activities we completed, I learned the value of reflection. This residency offered several chances for the students to reflect on what was learned. There were several practices used to promote reflection during this experience at residency. Our nightly journals were just one of the ways we could reflect on what was covered every day and focused on what we learned on each subject, how we can use what we acquired, what we learned about ourselves and how the class information and encounters have shaped our means of reflecting.

This was not the only way of reflection we practiced during the residency. We encountered other types of reflection that inspired the practice of critical thinking. The residency essentially began with a type of reflection on why we were personally here and out purpose statements. We integrated reflection methods as we finished our reviews of the articles and talked about how we will use what we absorbed on writing assignments in the future. We also learned to reflect as a team. The comments we gave other teams was a type of reflection.

We were able to help enrich their presentations while reflecting on methods we can individually advance personally and on a team. I can definitely foresee myself encompassing the lessons I learned on reflection. Dr. Sally made a recommendation to start journaling and I plan to apply the practice of journaling my reflections. I intend to use my critical thinking skills and reflection while working in teams and at work. Previously, I felt that reflections were strained when I finished my weekly summaries in previous courses, however I do understand the significance of reflections.

This valuable practice will continue to develop me as a scholar, practitioner and leader and improve me be self-conscious so I can supportively touch others around me. “The processes of writing and reflection can help to clarify some of the whirling and unfocused thoughts that sometimes get in the way of more productive thinking” (Wellington et. all, 2005, p. 36). Conclusion Year One Residency was very gratifying. I have developed resourcefully and individually because of this knowledge. Although, when I arrived I was unsure of what to expect, I was relieved rather quickly.

I met some awesome doctoral students and gained a great deal of knowledge that I can apply to my everyday life. This has been a rewarding and I am excited about Year Two Residency. References Mezirow, J. (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: A guide to transformative and emancipatory learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wellington, J. , Bathmaker, A. , Hunt, C. , McCulloch, G. , & Sikes, P. (2005). Succeeding with your doctorate. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.