Assignment 4: Bi-weekly Practicum Journaling

Every two weeks, you will submit a reflective journal to the discussion forum for review by course faculty and your classmates. All are expected to engage and support one another by sharing these experiences in a supportive, constructive, professional environment. Journaling is an active learning technique that is meant to enhance reflective practice (Blake, 2005). Reflective practice involves looking back over what has happened in the practice setting in an effort to improve performance or to encourage professional growth (Ruth-Sahd, 2003).

Your Weekly Practicum Journal is:

A personal, introspective subjective account of your practicum experience and how your practicum experience relates to Healthy People 2020 and course objectives. Include events that occurred in your practicum experience, and be sure to describe your thoughts and feelings about those events. How did your perceptions change? What did you learn that was unexpected? Describe your thinking about your thoughts and feelings regarding the new learning you experienced.
Connected to South University’s College of Nursing Conceptual Framework Pillars (Caring, Communication, Critical Thinking, Professionalism, and Holism)
Connected to prior coursework and experiences through reflective analysis.
Written in a scholarly, academic style using APA style format. Two or three sentences are not sufficient nor are daily logs/reports of activities.
As in all assignments, cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format. Support your work, using your course lectures and textbook readings. Helpful APA guides and resources are available in the South University Online Library. Below are guides that are located in the library and can be accessed and downloaded via the South University Online Citation Resources: APA Style page. The American Psychological Association website also provides detailed guidance on formatting, citations, and references at APA Style.

• APA Citation Helper
• APA Citations Quick Sheet
• APA-Style Formatting Guidelines for a Written Essay
• Basic Essay Template

References:
Blake, T. K. (2005). Journaling; An active learning technique. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 2 (1), Article 7. doi: 10.2202/1548-923X.1116

Ruth-Sahd, L. (2003). Reflective practice: A critical analysis of data based studies and implications for nursing education. Journal of Nursing Education, 23(11), 488–497.

United States Department of Health and Human Services, Healthy People 2020. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/overview.aspx?topicid=8

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.