Assessment - Reflective pieces

Purpose

The capacity to reflect is an important element of professional life. It enhances the capacity to evaluate current knowledge and to understand and accept personal weaknesses and strengths. This assignment will enable you to develop critical reflection skills and recognise its value in professional life.

Task Description

The assignment requires you to write three short reflective pieces. Each piece will reflect on a specific content within the course. The three pieces in total should not exceed 2000 words.

Each piece requires you to bring together:

1. information from relevant readings

2. concepts from the relevant part of the course

3. personal experience

Turn these over in your mind and reflect on the topic, and write in the first person about your considered view.

The total word length for this assignment is 2000 words. You may choose to allocate approximately equal words to each of the three pieces.

Specific information about the 3 reflective pieces

You are required to write three separate reflective pieces for this assignment:

1. The first reflective piece requires you to reflect on whether (or not) corporations can be a force for social sustainability.

Information: A suggested reading is-eReading 08- 'What kind of capitalist you want to be', by John Mackey (2013) in Harvard Business Review, 91 (1), p 34.  Another relevant reading may be eReading 10 by Friedman, M 2007, The social responsibility of a business is to increase its profits, in Corporate ethics and corporate governance, Springer, New York pp.173-178.  You may, however, also choose to anchor your reflection in any of the other readings from the sustainability section of the course.

Way of making sense: Useful conceptual background is provided in the segment of the course which discusses ethics and social sustainability.

Personal experience: This may be experience you have had of occasions where a business has placed undue value on profits with unfortunate consequences, or where concern shown by a business for the society has had positive consequences, or some other personal experience.

2. The second reflective piece requires you to reflect on whether or not 'business and ethics' is an oxymoron.

Information: Suggested anchor reading- eReading 04- 'The unintended consequences of good ideas' by Charles Handy. 2012, Harvard Business Review, 90(10), page 36.

Way of making sense: Useful conceptual background might come from the segment of the course about ethics.

Personal experience: This might be examples of people and businesses who have acted ethically or unethically and the consequences of their actions.

3. The third reflective piece requires you to reflect on the relevance of cultural awareness in your future professional life.

Information: The careers workbook might help you identify the profession that you seek to join. If you are already a member of a profession, the careers workbook might help you identify the values that are important for that profession. A suggested reading is eReading 01 - Challenges of cultural relativism from Rachels, J (1993). Elements of moral philosophy. New York: McGraw Hill.

Another relevant reading may be eReading 14 by Molinsky, A (2012) Code switching between cultures, Harvard Business Review, 90 (1), p 139-143.

You may find eReading 03 by Platts, J (2003) Developing competence and trust: maintaining the heart of a profession, Professional Ethics 11(1) p3- 18 useful. You may, however, also choose to anchor your reflection in any of the other readings from the course.

Way of making sense: Useful conceptual background might come from the segment of the course which discusses being professional.

Personal experience: This may be examples of people who have acted ethically, or unethically, and the consequences, it might be a time when your personal values were challenged, or any other  relevant  experience.

Reflective writing records the writer's thoughts about individual learning and experience. Whenever you use ideas from a source, reference them using the UniSA version of the Harvard Guide.

Resources

A number of resources are available to assist you with this assignment:

1. There is a comprehensive Help resource for Assignment 3 in the Assessments block on the course learn online site.

2. Relevant elements of the textbook.

3. There will be exercises in class to assist students in understanding the concept of reflection and to provide an opportunity to practise reflective writing. This will occur before the first piece needs to be written.

4. The Learning and Teaching Unit has a number of resources specifically addressing the practice of reflection, as well as an item on reflective journals in its Assessment study guide series.

5. The online resource 'An introduction to reflective practice' includes a section on reflective writing and is available on the course learn online site.

Attachment:- Assignment.rar