Assessment-

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 the value of critical reflection in professional life.

Task Description

The assignment requires the writing of 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 the modern business corporation is unethical by its very nature.
Information: A suggested reading is e-Reading 4 - 'The unintended consequences of good ideas' by Charles Handy, in the Harvard Business Review. v. 90, no. 10 (Oct. 2012). You may, however, also choose to anchor your reflection in any of the other readings from the ethics section of the unit.

Way of making sense: Useful conceptual background is provided by the segment of the course which discusses ethics and the history of business.

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 society has had positive consequences, or some other personal experience.

2. The second reflective piece requires you to reflect on how you can contribute to social or environmental sustainability through your work.
Information: Spend an hour working through the careers workbook. Your choice of the values that are important to you, or important in your chosen profession may provide a starting point for the reflection. You may find additional help from e-Reading 8 - 'The kind of capitalist you want to be' by John Mackey, in the Harvard Business Review. v. 91, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 2013). You may, however, also choose to anchor your reflection in any of the other readings from the unit.

Way of making sense: Useful conceptual background might come from the segments of Business and society about being professional and about sustainability.

Personal experience: You may know of people who have acted to bring about social and environmental sustainability - friends, family, role models...; aspects of their life may be particularly relevant to your own aspirations.

3. The third reflective piece requires you to reflect on how cultural experience is can help you develop as a professional in contemporary society.

Information: A suggested reading is eReading 14 - 'Code switching between cultures' by Andrew Molinsky, in the Harvard Business Review, v. 91, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 2013). You may, however, also choose to anchor your reflection in any of the other readings from the being professional section of the unit.

Way of making sense: Useful conceptual background might come from the segment of the unit which discusses being professional or from the part on ethics.

Personal experience: This may be experience you have had in working (or living) in different cultural situations, or gained through contact with others, or from films TV and the like.

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 website.

2. Relevant elements of the textbook include (but are not limited to) chapters 3, 5, 7 and 9.

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 entry need 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 at: http://resource.unisa.edu.au/course/view.php?id=246