Friday, 21 March 2014

Reflective Learning Journal #10


I am in the midst of another group report, this time focusing on the redevelopment of Sidwell Street, Exeter. Our task is to make recommendations to the City Council about aspects of Sidwell Street to be preserved in its regeneration. I am, once again (since it seems few other want to take responsibility), the group manager; designating roles, setting deadlines and organising meetings; as well as writing my own section and editing the report. As a group, we decided to focus on social welfare, environment and sustainability, and the economy. This meant that each section had 200 words, giving the introduction, methodology, literature review and conclusion 100 words each while the executive summary has 500 words.
A group member and I have finished writing the social welfare paragraph. At first, our focus was wrong. Instead of recommending aspects to preserved, we began to recommend aspects to developed, including crime rates along Sidwell Street which we were aiming to compare to those in the High Street, but after re-reading the question we noticed our mistake. Now, in my opinion, the section is written to a decent standard, focusing on retaining character through independent and multicultural shops, which add diversity to the area, and public transport. The majority of our facts came from the city or county council, such as the 2011 census and the city council’s official document on Exeter’s redevelopment plan, another source came from a website and one source came from a book. I think that there should have been more journal references and that the paragraph should not have mainly focused on council documents but, due to limited words and the amount of things we wanted to discuss, it would be difficult to do so. I think it is good that we used our own data from the questionnaire, otherwise it would only be mentioned in the methodology section. However, I believe that there needs to be more references to our fieldwork journal within the report because, currently, there are not enough. We also have not used many resources outside the reference list, which is something to consider.
There are still two people who we have difficulty communicating with and, as a result, I get very stressed because I don’t know whether their section is completed. However, everyone is working which is an improvement on the last time. There is one person, however, who needs help with writing their section, so I wrote them a plan. I have yet to know whether they will upload it by tonight, as the introduction and conclusion need to be written by the weekend. Sometimes, it feels that this report is not as organised as the previous one. This could be because we used a week to finish our essays and therefore the timeframe was shorter. People in the group have told me that I am too proactive and that they do not work at my speed. Where I begin to work on something within a week of receiving the task, the majority of the group leave things until the last week. I can’t do this, I get far too stressed if something is approaching the deadline. In my opinion, being proactive is a good thing because I am not stressed when it comes to the last week but when people work slower than me I am not very good at keeping calm. I think this is something I need to work on, perhaps addressing my impatience.


~ Jones' Journal

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