Deeper and longer-lasting learning is developed through personal reflection and self-appraisal (Zubizarreta, 2009). Reflection is a process of examining and interpreting experience to gain new understanding. This reflective journal is assigned as development for your Global Leadership Development Plan at the end of the semester. Focus your reflections on the connections you make between what you have learned and your own opinions, experiences, and life events. Ultimately, self-reflection and dialogue with yourself will result in insights as to: • how and why you think the way you do about leadership, especially global leadership • what actions you took or what choices you made while you were learning the new content • what those actions or choices really meant to you in your personal and professional life • what learning and growth has occurred • how you can change your practices in the future • your changing belief regarding your role as a leadership professional • experiences, ideas, and observations you have had, and how they relate to the course or content • what you found confusing, inspiring, difficult, interesting—and why • lingering questions you have about the content you are learning • how you solved a problem, reached a conclusion, found an answer, or reached a point of understanding What kind of writing style is expected for the Reflection Journal assignments? As it concerns your thoughts, reflective writing is mostly subjective. Therefore, in addition to being reflective and logical, you can be personal, hypothetical, critical, and creative. You can comment based on your experience, rather than limiting yourself to academic evidence. Reflective writing is an activity that includes description (what, when, who) and analysis (how, why, what if). It is an explorative tool often resulting in more questions than answers. However, this is a graded, academic assignment. Use full sentences and complete paragraphs. The paper you upload should not be a first draft, freewriting assignment. The use of freewriting to generate the first draft is highly encouraged, but then read your paper critically, make sure the organization of your ideas make sense and accurately reflect the kind of growth and personal development you are looking for. Unlike academic research writing, you may absolutely use personal pronouns like I, my, or we. However, please keep colloquial language to a minimum (i.e. kids, guys, stuff).