My Role as a Facilitator During Group Discussions Essay

My Role as a Facilitator During Group Discussions - Essay Example This paper is essential in every aspect of my academic life as it unearths my role as a facilitator during our group discussions this semester with my roles during such learning processes clearly highlighted. Individual group learning stems from the fact that as learning process becomes significant to the learning process, significant attempts shifts the learning process from the instructor’s perspective to a student learning characteristics with emphasis on an individual’s ability to organize and sustain a learning process for knowledge acquisition and learning management. (Duncan, 2006) My earlier pre-college life offered very little meaning as to what Occupational Therapy (OT) really entailed. In my wild thoughts, I had always thought of Occupational Therapists as individuals with no clearly defined role often taking up counseling roles to justify their qualification in the field. Having enrolled for an OT has indeed changed these preconceptions. Ideally, I had never experienced group learning or group facilitation as a teenager and my earlier experiences worked very little for me to improve on that general perception and so I was somehow nervous on how to set the ball rolling in motion. The College of Occupational Therapists, (COT) views â€Å"people as occupational beings† and that the discipline empowers people to fulfill or enhance their role as occupational beings. (Sabonis-Chaffe & Hussey, 1998) Within this regard, Occupational therapists ‘promote function, quality of life and the realization of people’s potential in experiencing occupational deprivation, imbalance or alienation† (COT, 2009) through collective efforts of persons. I had never had an experience towards group work and influenced what impact this would have had in my presumed social functions as an occupational therapist. My reflective interest in group facilitation derived from a creative group conducted during my course placement. Reflection, in es sence, is an old phenomenon; investigative studies by Boud, Keogh, and Walker argued that reflection is essential as it enables people to focus on their learning and experiences thus creating a new informed conceptual framework of understanding. Subsequently, group leadership assists members to capitalize on the various skills, ideas, and talents that exist among the group members for goal formulation and achievement. Putting together my leadership skills and learning process during the therapeutic classes, I facilitated a creative brainstorming session to reflect upon various issues in occupational therapy and group dynamics.  Ã‚