CPCP Reflection

1) What did you learn about yourself and from this collaborative experience?

The things that I learned about myself during this collaborative experience are, it is okay to take the initiative on things, even if you don't know everyone that is involved in the project. Tiffany, Shea and I were paired up with other members from other cohorts for this project. When we all got into the chat room to present, we all just took charge and we all felt very comfortable about sharing our information with the other group members. As for working collaboratively with everyone in my cohort, I think everyone did a great job on sharing their thoughts and pulled their own weight to get the project done. I would gladly work with anyone from this group again.


2) What did you learn about professional collaboration from this activity?

I learned that professional collaboration doesn't always happen like we plan or hope for it work. We had a one or two members from other cohorts that never showed up to our original meetings for the logic models. I also got the feeling that they were a little clueless on what the whole project was about. We tried to explain action learning/ research and the logic models and some understood it, but some did not. From our point of view we wanted some type of feedback about our logic models, but all they told us was that is looked good. I'm not sure if they knew what to tell us or how to give us constructive criticism on that topic!

3) What can you say about the process of collaboration with other professionals? What was most challenging about collaborating with others? What steps could groups take to facilitate the collaborative process?

Working with other professionals from other cohorts is okay. I would rather work with people that I can see and that I know personally. I think it would not be as hard if the people in the other cohorts were working on the same exact projects and we were all clear on what to do. I felt the guidelines were specifically laid out for us, but with so many people together in one virtual world causes too many technical difficulties. The most challenging thing with working with others on this particular project was not getting any feedback for our logic models. They really didn't know how to make it any better or I'm not sure if they understood it. I know this sounds crazy, but I think smaller groups would be easier. There were just way too many people involved for the collaborative project. It all seemed to work out okay in the end, but no one was able to hear our final product at our last class. It would be great if that could have been cleared up to see if my group saw how her final product came about.

Last Class and ALAR Project Reflection

During our last class we all shared our ALAR projects. I think my group did a great job with presenting everything that must be done to undertake the grant writing process. We realized that many people probably had not even looked at a grant, including ourselves, so we brought a blank grant from the Lowe's Hardware website. It seemed like the easiest to fill out and they offer $5000. We also had our classmates to take the needs assessment survey that Heather conducted with her staff at her elem. school. We took a few minutes at the end to look at the results. I really liked working with everyone in my group. We each pulled our weight and split up all the parts that we needed to work on and typed up our info then emailed to Heather to make our final powerpoint. We met a little early before class last night to go over the final product. I think this project was very helpful to everyone in the class, because I think most people would try to undertake writing a grant themselves. But it really is a group effort or a committee effort. A stronger result will come about, if there is a strong group helping to write the grants.