Journal

 

What I have learned from this course is very useful in my life and it relates to some of my experiences, that I came to understand during this course. After learning how to plan and evaluate projects, I learned to plan my day according to what I want to accomplish and assess at the end of the day in work and in my personal life. In the course, I found that planning is all around me and in all work places. Having to plan my assignment taught me that a good plan is a key to any success.

I remember one time writing down what I needed to start and complete a project on making a volcano model of a mountain in seventh grade. I came to find out in this course that practical examples last longer in our memory since I have never forgotten about mountains, and as such, practical activities are very appropriate in learning. One of my experiences with these activities was when we had to assess the needs of a project of choice, and come up with a plan that would best fit it. After this activity, and the activity needing us to write reflective report on the project, I learned to reflect on my life and activities after a day. I learned to assess my success, what I achieved or did not, and why. I learned that reflective reports are supposed to be part of learning, since we were able to learn more on our success or failure. I hated having to compete in class with other people through presenting my work in front of class members. I found it hard since I was not much extroverted.

I remember one day when I attended a seminar where a guest speaker addressing a topic in management gave a real life example that related to management. My view of management was controlling people below your position and influencing their performance. After his sermon, I learned that management involved influencing the performance of the whole organization including positions above you. If a guest speaker would be addressing us, I would love to hear his perception on the effects of project management to the organization using his experiences. This topic would help one understand what would be good for an organization from a project management view.

I found that taking the role of planning was easy for me during our team works. This made me develop a liking for this particular topic, which I feel inclined to by my role in the team. The lecturer used different methods in teaching this subject proving that planning is different for different projects, and needs specialization, which carried my curiosity to this topic.

I found learning to be interesting when there are practical examples used. The group activities are interesting. Using activities that are more practical such as participating in practical work for organizations, where students are allowed to take part in organizations as a part of practical lessons would be interesting. Inviting regular guests would make it interesting, as they would provide different perspectives to learn from, and organizing symposiums with other classes and schools, which would involve competitions, would make learning more interesting and interactive.

Sometimes understanding what a question requires one to do is difficult. I remember one incident at the start of this course when I did not complete an assignment in time after I misinterpreted a question that needed a discussion. This resulted because English was not my first language, and more still, we were new and interaction among us students had not taken root. This made me reluctant to consulting other students. After forming teams, discussing what a question requires was one of the first things that our group did before answering it. This made it easier to know the content needed, hence completing assignments became easier.

At the beginning of our course when we formed the teams, due to lack of proper understanding of each other, several conflicts occurred. In one of our first assignment, where we were supposed to complete a detailed analysis of needs of a certain project, we had to go outside class to get the information we needed to make the report more practical. We visited a building project. Each person was supposed to have a role that would define what he or she would analyze. This was the major conflict since the person given the responsibility of defining the roles tended to have a little idea about the project in question. We analyzed the needs that were very basic and earned very few points. Generally, in a team there are those who do not like failing and one of us was this type. She blamed the person and suggested that she should be the leader. This brought quite a conflict among us. We revisited the contract and found that it was important to avoid blames as learners and focus on the problems that arise. We decided to meet and discuss the way forward. We found that it would be necessary to allow the person who had a better understanding of a certain project to lead the group irrespective of his or her role in the team. The contract was quite helpful in determining the way forward for issues that arose.

After the conflict, we learned about each other’s background and characters. This was very helpful in creating a good rapport between us, and better understanding for me. This made me free to talk and express my points without holding back. At first, I felt as a stranger since we were new to each other concerning the cause. This made me hold back a little, especially since I did not know how the others faired in the subject and my English skills were not advanced. After learning that each of us had a problem, we became freer to participate. Back at junior school, one time I was paired with a student that I did not know well when my friend was absent. It was during a physical education lesson and I did not feel free with him. This stopped me from enjoying my lesson. I learned that being friends is very important in working in a group, since it creates a free atmosphere.

Diversity of team members in a group is important to learn from, but it can make the relationship of the team unstable if not all group members are free with each other. In my class, we were not very diversified in terms of nationality but there were several Indians and Chinese students. I found that these people in groups did not openly engage in discussions. However, I found that giving defined roles made them contribute since they had to answer questions from other members about their ideas. I realized that teams are very important in creating relationships among different people since we are close friends out of working together.

When I reflect on my role in the team, I find that a team can never be successful without full participation. At the start of team works, several people were withdrawn and spoke or contributed rarely. Soon, our team lacked enough ideas that were necessary to complete the tasks. The lecturer asked us to give each person a part of the task rather than each coming up with general ideas on all questions. This ensured that even those who held back contributed and the team improved tremendously. My roles and those of others have to be combined to complete a task.

I found that work distribution is very critical in a team when I was given a role of structuring the questionnaire for our task, which needed skills of recruitment to make it better. I was not the best in this area, something that cost the time since it did not meet the details needed. Somebody else did it and it was better, and the work went smoothly. I learned that each person has a role to play in a team that ensures continuous flow of tasks, which makes it easier to complete. Issuing each person with a role ensured fairness since everybody participated.

The course is quite demanding and completing the assignments that are large needed extra time from us. We would organize ourselves during class time where everybody would take a task home, and upload them through email for the others to view. I learned that commitment from each member was crucial to meet the deadline of such tasks. Meetings would be organized outside class, which all members had to attend.

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