Reflective diary The WritePass Journal

Reflective diaryï » ¿ Abstract Reflective diaryï » ¿ ). Focussing on an area of development, namely agriculture was useful at this stage to see how international development can apply in specific regions. Session 6 Looking at transnational migration was interesting but academically challenging. I found the mobility of individuals to be a particularly informative way of understanding international development and also understanding why certain regions, such as the UK, seem to be more prone to migration than others. It did however result in me questioning preconceived ideas of international development and to take a more liberal view of people migrating out of developing regions. This was linked with other theories such as how agriculture impacts on international development (Wedman and Martin, 1986). Conclusions: By looking at the facts associated with transnational migration, it became apparent that this issue was actually much more widespread than I had originally thought, as money was often being remitted back to countries where the workers were not actually working, thus creating a movement of finance which was not readily obvious, yet was potentially crucial to the development of those regions that do not have their own internal finances. Session 7 Session 7 was, to a certain extent, an extension of session 5 which dealt with agricultural policy and considered the way in which climate change can work and is relevant to international developments, which I perceived to be closely linked to any country which relied on the climate or natural resources, to gain income. As this is an area of interest to me I became heavily involved in the discussions and as the actual seminar was run by Oxfam an element of reality was also presented from a practical point of view. This was similar to the ERM seminar and brought the theory together with practice (Winter, 1995). Conclusions: I found this very interesting, as I had not previously thought of climate change as being such an important factor in the developing regions. This encouraged me to think about wider issues when looking at a specific international problem. Session 8 This session was also very enlightening, as it focused on the role of non-government organisations, something which I had previously overlooked. My preconceived ideas relating to international development were very much based on government interference and ideas however this seminar made me think on a wider basis about non government organisations. By listening to a non-governmental organisation, a much more proactive understanding emerged, as it looked at ways in which it was motivating individuals to increase their knowledge and how the project could have a direct impact on the finances of a particular group of individuals. Conclusions: This is the first seminar where individuals were looked at in detail, and this gave it a really good human feeling which I found useful to put previous theory into context (Keenan Gilmore 2011). Session 10 Finally, we had the opportunity to look at all of the above issues, in the context of Malawi, and how poverty in this region is being dealt with, as well as identifying the key factors which affected the wider region, such as financial problems (Mulholland Turnock, 2012). This session was the most interesting I found as I had the background knowledge to put into practice and I fully participated in doing so.. Conclusions: Having studied the previous session, this session enabled me to pull together the ideas and also to use statistical data to analyse the level of poverty, in more detail, with a much broader background understanding than had been gained in the earlier sessions. Conclusions My original expectations of this course was that it would be heavily focussed on economics and trade yet there was in fact a much broader range of issues to be looked at. In particular I enjoyed the area of human interactions such as poverty in Malawi and the work of Oxfam in particular as this enabled me to understand the theories that I had previously grasped. I am looking forward to using these theories in more detail for international development studies in the future and in particular for looking at ways in which these different theories can come together to improve development in the poorer regions. References Brockbank, A. McGill, I. (2007) Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education, McGraw-Hill International. p.169 Carbonnier, G (2012) International Development Policy: Aid, Emerging Economies and Global Policies, Palgrave Macmillan Keenan, F Gilmore, C (2011) International Development: A Casebook for Effective Management, iUniverse. Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as a Source off Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Moon, J, A. (2000) Reflection in Learning Professional Development: Theory and Practice. Kogan Page Moon, J (2006) Learning Journals: A Handbook for Reflective Practice And Professional Development, Taylor Francis. p.81 Mulholland, J. Turnock, C. (2012)Â   Learning in the Workplace: A Toolkit for Facilitating Learning and Assessment in Health and Social Care Settings, Routledge. p.75 Wedman, J and Martin, M. (1986) ‘Exploring the development of reflective thinking through journal writing’, Reading Improvement, 23, 1, 68-71. Winter, R (1995) ‘The assessment of professional competences:the importance of general criteria’ in The Assessment of Competence in Higher Education, eds A Edwards and P Knight, Kogan Page, London.