Reflective Diaries

One method of appraisal will be individual diaries kept by all of us. These will be an excellent means of evaluating the course as we go along, and will also be used to appraise us individually as students at the end of the course. These diaries are not confidential, but can remain anonymous. Only when we are being assessed as students will we need to add a name (or number) and they will then become confidential - and only seen by two people - myself and an outside moderator.

Diaries are intended primarily to give us a written means of evaluating the course both as we go along, and when we plan the following course. They should generally indicate what has been useful, what has been useless, what we don't need to repeat, what could be improved upon etc.

Should we decide to give a Certificate at the end of this course, (which we almost certainly will offer) one of the criteria will be these Diaries. Diaries are not confidential and will be available for all to read. However, when they are presented for Certification then confidential pieces can be added. So anything that you send to me will be for all the others to peruse.

You are asked to keep a Diary commenting on just about every thing you do.

They need to convey the following:

1. A description of what you are doing or have done.

2. Your own response at the time of receiving the directive or exercise.

3. Your views on its usefulness to you as part of the learning process and as useful as part of this particular course. Should we keep it, scrap it or maybe present it differently?

4. What questions come up that we should find answers to?

5. How does carrying out the task (whatever it is you are carrying out) affect you personally? This you may reserve as confidential for the end of the course.

6. Any wonderful ideas that occur to you that we might consider incorporating in the course.

All your answers to comments that are requested for each week can be entered into this diary.

Access the Reflective Diaries page to submit your entries. Use the drop down menu to select your name. Ensure that you retain a hard copy for yourself as well.

= Entry for your reflective diary (clicking on the icon will take you to the reflective diary page)

No	Actions	Task objectives
1a		Peruse other counselling sites via search engines and get an idea of what's going on in cyberspace to do with e-mail counselling. If you feeling daring enough try visiting chat rooms. Or spend time on researching for what you would like to teach (see note below).
2a		A brief entry into your diary commenting on what you deduced from your trawl, and could you send it to me by Thursday 8th December.
3a		We would like counsellors to take a subject, research it out and plan a method of teaching it to the rest of us. eg. Chat rooms, Code of Ethics, Confidentiality for clients, Short term counselling with e-mail (this has been taken). Real-time counselling by e-mail. Methods of payment. Researching something. Relevant IT etc. etc. etc. etc. You may well think of something that we haven't. Choose something that really interests you. I only need a subject title at the moment - how and when you will present it can be worked out later. If you have no ideas then we can discuss it.
4a		A good title for this training course. Something memorable that we can be used in advertising for further students. A good name for our web-site. (Concerning the Training Course). If you know how, check that the name(s) you suggest are available.

No	Actions	Task objectives
1b		Read through the following selection of quotes from your combined diary entries. Please respond with your comments(see notes below) where requested. (To access, please click here to take you to the archive page)*
2b		A list please of the useful sites you have visited so that they can be shared.
3b		Consider a few sentences that describes who you are, and your main interests. I will then let you have a copy of everybody with names, telephone numbers and the self description.
4b		In order to start to get to know each other I am giving you another counsellor's e-mail address, and he/she will be given yours. Please make contact and converse in any way you like, and then see what kind of image you have of each other. Then let each other have that description and see how right or wrong they think your image is!
5b		Please write a brief report of this in your diary - and let me have it as soon as you can. What is it like to make contact with an unknown other in cyberspace? Some suggestions of what to write about! .......What does this tell us about clients contacting us as counsellors? Does it matter if their image of us, and our image of them is nothing like it is in reality? What is virtual reality? It is a known fact that when a sense is withdrawn (blindness) the other senses work more sensitively. We have many senses withdrawn here, so does this heighten other senses? If no, can we develop this insight, and if so how?
6b		Some of you have met Diaries in your previous counselling training, and some of you haven't, so I will write a screed on them and send it out to all of you on the 'send copies to'. From this you should get everyone's e-mail address and their names. I'll send it in a day or two. Please let me know when you have received it!

'This report to me really needs to include at least some of the following:

A brief description of what took place at the meeting:

The response of the group as a whole

Your own response at that time

Your considered reflections as you write the diary entry

Your own concerns/suggestions for this course that did not come up at the meeting,

Any wonderful ideas you might have, that you would like to communicate.

Questions you would like answered'

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Reflective Diaries

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