Featured image courtesy of Pixabay
Our module has come and gone, assessment work has been graded and it’s time for reflection. By that I mean my own reflection since I’ve completed reviewing your submissions and that’s the topic of this blog post.
At the start of the semester we struggled with dynamic interaction but I hope that the application of a flipped learning approach brought some advantages. You may not all have taken the quizzes or read the relevant unit material before class (which is the idea of flipped learning) but I feel that as the weeks progressed our interactions improved and the formative presentations from the group work during class reflected this improvement. It was heartening to see a number of you refer to the quiz work in your reflections, to quote one of you “I felt that they (quizzes) greatly enhanced my understanding of these topics as they allowed for a great deal of independent learning.” My takeaway is to continue to develop flipped learning resources for future cohorts.
For the first time in several years of teaching this module it was brilliant to observe the cultural interaction within the class and it certainly felt to me that given the diversity of nationalities there was a nice blend in group work especially where self-assigned. In fact, some of your reflections picked up on the importance of this since your future careers will most likely see you working in projects of culturally diverse teams, so what better place to start than in our module? As another of you quoted “I believe I can learn greatly from my current educational colleagues. It is a fantastic opportunity to learn, practice and participate with different cultures both in a professional manner and in a social aspect.” I couldn’t state it better myself!
Another key observation was the progression of your understanding of sustainable development and what it might mean to you in your project management careers. If you recall during our first class on the topic some of you were quite adamant that the financial bottom line onlyis of importance to most organisations. From your reflections I believe that you have progressed from that initial belief to understanding and believing in the importance of the triple bottom line, to quote one of you “it would most certainly be foolish to neglect the triple bottom line aspect in an organisation.”
I ask you to continue to believe this as you participate in and lead project teams in the future. If you aren’t following it already, I recommend the excellent blog by Green Project Management and of course there are lots of other useful resources to check out on their web pages also.
I truly hope that the module has helped equip you with, in addition to the knowledge gleaned, some of the softer skills required for your future careers and I wish you every success. I have certainly learned a lot from you all and this will contribute to my continuing professional development.
I will continue to share articles of interest on Twitter using the hashtag #MN6052 and if you wish, feel free to follow my personal learning journey through my blog at http://eternalstudent587.wordpress.com
Kind regards,
Sandra
P.S. All quotes used are with express permission of the authors.
Sandra Flynn 
Enjoyable and though-provoking read Sandra – thanks!
I’d be interested to know more about how these students apply their learning from this, and related modules, to facilitate or contribute to sustainable development in their workplace, organisations, etc.
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Thanks Pat – As future Project Managers these folks are very well placed to make a difference and who knows, perhaps one or more might even share their experiences with us at some stage in the future 🤞
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