Individual Reflection on the Learning Experience of Working in a Group for the Poster Assessment

Dr.Glenda McDonald set this group project in the third week of this semester. The majority decision favored an assessment of the HIV/AIDs situation in South Africa. This evaluation focused on various aspects of the disease within the South African community including the social determinants of that health issue, the links between cultural and health and the important considerations for nurses and midwives regarding culturally sensitive, safe and aware nursing and midwifery practice when interacting with individuals with the health issues)

The study based on an entirely new target for me to design for which I found interesting and as some of my group members were natives of South Africa hence provided descriptive information about every detail that was pertinent to the completion of the project. The topic of HIV/AIDs in South Africa is a complex social problem in Sub-Saharan Africa whose understanding require working closely with the existing social systems. We had to work with the natives of South Africa both in the rural and urban areas.

Our high levels of sociability, assuring participants and with the knowledge of the common culture in South Africa, looking for study participants from different cultures was another thing about which we would not worry. The fact that this project accounted for 50% of the total marks earned, it was easier to designate roles based on the particular topic of interest for every group member. Though we shared out the various issues among team members, it was sole discretion to explore the other items not designated to them and provide critique on the work done by colleagues.

My initial research point involved a comprehensive exploration of the World Health Organization (WHOs) database on HIV/AIDS in S.A. I chose this approach because the database provides a first hand and general impression of the trend just at a glance. I then used a general idea for using the WHO database countercheck them against the information I download the data from the vUWS site from the university or UWS library books. The learning approach here was basically to read and analyze the diverse materials with a common objective of making a succinct determination of the HIV/AIDs situation in South Africa. The most intriguing part of the research was on social determinants of health in HIV/AIDS and links between social and health respectively. Nituben had a topic on implications of nursing and midwifery practice while Josephine was to design a poster and a sliding draft for the initial presentation.

We used a wiki as a development platform set by Josephine and administered by me. To some certain degree, I wanted to ensure it is clearly and concisely laid out for aesthetic reasons and the sake of clarity, which all members had agreed on. I also helped to find relevant statistics as well as picture materials. I volunteered to set up a viber group chat to encourage communication and exchange opinions, and it worked smoothly and helped reduce miscommunication. The topic every team member had researched and analyzed on was sent to the chat group so I could bring all the content together.

I remained actively involved in the group through always contributed with ideas and feedback to any group discussion and felt I made some good points in the process did not always agree with group decisions. Nonetheless, such is the nature of a collaborative project think the team collaboration overall was good, although sometimes I have wished for more positive vibrations in times of stress. There were many Email discussions, comments left for each other in the chat group to push the project further.