This personal feedback applies the Gibbs Reflective Cycle, which is a widely-used framework employed in reflection on individual activities or experiences (Gibbs, 1988). Gibbs’ theory has been of great help to me, especially in terms of providing inspiration for my personal evaluations.
For this group presentation, we selected the Customer Based Brand Equity Model as our research topic, the jewelry brand Pandora as the research subject, and Tiffany & Co. as our central competitor to serve as a contrast explain the product diversity and unique identity of Pandora. We then used the CBBE model to analyze the business and explore its global impact and efforts towards sustainability.
Our team consisted of 6 members, who divided our tasks according to our strengths, interests, and needs, and we employed collective work style. We organized formal face-to-face group meetings four times throughout the mission, and conducted regular social media communications and feedback each day to ensure that each element was fully integrated and to avoid redundant or overlapping work effort. The overall cooperation process was very smooth, and the seriousness and enthusiasm of my classmates greatly helped and benefited me.
I was personally responsible for the chapter on Pandora’s brand position and analyzing the importance of CBBE. After my instructor noted the issue, I realized that the CBBE model had some difficulties in being applied to Pandora, and I need to increase the depth and breadth of academic theory used in the paper. Through a process of gradual refinement, I completed my responsibilities in a manner which deeply satisfied both myself and my team members. My communication with both my teachers and team members served as a huge boost to my completion of this group project.
Generally speaking, participating in this group activity has brought me three main feelings.
Firstly, I’ve learnt more critical thinking techniques in academic field. This group activity is an opportunity to test our learning outcomes and cooperation skills, while my focus as a student has always primarily been on my own research and writing efforts. Therefore, my academic ability has been significantly improved after this group practice. For example, I did a serious study of the CBBE model, but ignored the content of the global impact and the model’s connection to the selected brand. This made me realize that only managing knowledge is not enough, the key is to apply theories to practical issues.
Second is my satisfaction with the improvement of my working attitude. The process of working with others requires a great deal of difference from completing this project independently. When working on a project by myself, I was free to arrange my own time and schedule tasks according to my own needs, but working as a team taught me to communicate and coordinate with my teammates. During the four group meetings I participated in, I experienced some problems in arranging my time with the other team members, but after a process of consultation, our problems were effectively resolved. Learning to cooperating and coordinating with other teammates can definitely benefit my whole life.
In addition, I’ve been stimulated by the exploration of my personal character that I have engaged in through this project. I am very grateful to have received additional opportunities for group cooperation through the process of studying. As an international student, this cooperation is inherently both transnational and cross-cultural. Our team is multi-racial, which deepens both my curiosity and understanding of other cultures as I have completed my group work. Through this event, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my interest in communication and cooperation far exceeded my imagination. The depth of this experience is not only important for my future cross-cultural brand communication work, but also serves as an experience and improvement for my personal character and vision.
This group cooperation experience has greatly benefited me. Regardless of the outcome of the process or the final presentation, there have been a great deal of advantages already. These benefits include the positive feelings and results mentioned above, and also our collective satisfaction with the results of our team’s final presentation, although it has been somewhat incomplete. Overall, this experience has been both enjoyable and productive.
However, our cooperative efforts have not always been entirely smooth, and small conflicts were present. For example, during our tutorial meetings with our teacher, two of our members were never present because of their personal reasons, and this frustrated the rest of us, causing some small disturbances and dissatisfaction among some of the rest of us. This provided us with something of a negative start. However, after contacting the absent team members, we held another group meeting to relay the contents of the last tutorial to them, thus restoring the general progress of our team efforts. The overall results were positive and helped us in moving towards an effective resolution.
I am also very appreciative toward the process of the experience evaluation, which has given me the opportunity to think more positively and face this experience, and reflect on it.
Thanks to everyone’s efforts and serious learning attitude, and strong communication skills, this group activity was very successful. Although I served as an informal leader in the group, I enjoyed the progress of our group’s project and enjoyed the connection between the team members. Various studies have shown that teamwork is an important capability that requires active attention to the process, mobilizes subjective initiative, and promotes teamwork (Richard & Steven, 2011). The most important step of this process is to set a unified and clear team goal, and then p