Reflection on Self-Assessment

In this journal entry, I will be describing my reflection in regards to the Self- Assessment activity that I undertook during my first workshop for "Critically Reflective in Social Work Practice" subject, using Driscoll's (2007) reflective cycle, a framework for demonstrating my ability to reflect on the activity. According to Driscoll's (2007), three prompt questions needs to be taken into consideration when writing the reflection that includes, "What exactly happened? "; "What was positive or negative about this? Why did this happen? "; "What will you do next time? " The activity was all about the self-assessment in regard to my background, personal experiences, reasons for choosing social work, formal and informal learning that I can incorporate in the social work practice, skill, knowledge, and values that I have now, and things I look forward to achieving during social work-study and career as well to set my goal for the semester, which I found to be exciting. The activity was instructed to be done with the classmate who was next to me. Initially, having the conversation in a new environment with a new face was challenging for me as we both didn't open up in one instance so, our conversation began with building rapport from the common things that we had, which made us comfortable, to begin with, the further conversation. I was able to communicate clearly with my partner according to the instruction without hesitation about my culture and tradition, knowledge, exposure, and experience to choose social work, things that I value. I felt comfortable and respected by my partner that helped me to share more openly as well I was captivated by my classmate's knowledge and experience. Everything standout very positive to me in doing the activity, as it helped me to explore and unpack myself. The whole activity has provided me a new insight into self-reflecting through active listening as well as the power of clear communication, which helped us to know about each other experiences and perspectives. One thing that made me realized through the interaction was the differences in our culture and the things we value but the respect and empathy between us, lead us to explore more about each other. The only negative thing that I felt was the hesitation of my partner, in the beginning, to open up the conversation which later was minimized when I started the conversation and made her comfortable discussing the common things we had. To conclude from the self-assessment activity I realized that we were reflecting on the things that we actually are in our daily life, and it is greatly influenced by the way we communicate with each other and the emotions that we have. From the activity, the key home take message for me was the importance of respect and empathy to each other as well as to make me self-aware through continuous self-reflection that will aid me in the future practice of social work.