Na’Kisha Sherrard, MS
University of Phoenix
Lessons Learned Paper Connecting with a group of doctoral students for the first residency is very frightening. Several students admitted to having feelings of misperception, worry, or uncertainty. Meeting someone new is certainly not comfortable, however the expectations and anxiety of a doctoral program is sufficient for someone to ask why one would choose to undertake a huge venture. This residency has motivated me to endure in my program. There were several eye-openers that revealed development and improvement as a doctoral student. In the last five days, various lessons and experiences were taught and learned but the most important lessons for me include the learning team experiences, scholarly writing, and reflection on the lessons learned.
Learning Teams During this residency experience, I acquired a lot about learning teams. In my academic and professional experience, I have been a part of numerous teams. I have had some bad encounters with teams during my duration with the University of Phoenix and presumed that the team experiences at residency would be similar. I definitely applied my situatedness but I understand now a cohort of different personalities can form a successful team where all opinions are heard, all ideas count, all contribute and all appear to demonstrate an authentic interest for one another. Dr. Sally played a major role in team experience. She encouraged an atmosphere of empathy, hope, and interest. She was our main supporter. I appreciate and value the honest disposition Dr. Sally showed. Her charisma made us feel we belonged to the team. We completed several team assignments that allowed us to develop our learning team skills. We had various chances to work in learning teams. We reviewed course articles, course competencies, and were given several activities to develop team organization. We presented assignments on
References: Mezirow, J. (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: A guide to transformative and emancipatory learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Wellington, J., Bathmaker, A., Hunt, C., McCulloch, G., & Sikes, P. (2005). Succeeding with your doctorate. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.