Wednesday, February 27th

Today has been a productive day, and an encouraging one. Since I had already obtained most of the information I needed for the week 3 Strategic Plan Retreat assignment, I was able to sleep in. This was a great start, since my wife was off for the day, and we were able to spend some morning time together, which is rare. During the morning meeting, the team had good discussion regarding our approach to the assignment, and there were some good suggestions pertaining to reviewing and commenting on each others' drafts. After the meeting, I met with my podiatrist and found that I had in fact ruptured a ligament in my foot, but it seems to be healing well. Once at the PD to continue work on the rough draft of my memo, I was able to contact the court administrator, from whom I had received some financial data for use in the assignment, for clarification. I had a brief phone conversation with Paul, and we discussed some aspects of the memo. I was able to help Paul with a tip on how to insert a footnote in his document.

How did the day's activities relate to your real-world work situation?
My conversation with the court administrator was kind of a typical example of how nice it is to work in a small agency, where you are able to contact partners with other agencies and they are willing and able to help. I contacted her yesterday, requesting some financial figures, and she was able to get me what I needed before the end of the day.

How will your real-world behavior change as a result of what you learned today?
After composing the rough draft of my memo, I realize that especially in a small department, we can all take ownership and have enough pride in our department to be willing to propose changes to the administration.

What could you have done differently that might have impacted your performance?
During our morning meeting, Mike B. reminded us all about paying attention to Bloom's Taxonomy when composing our memo. This was a reminder to me not to get tunnel-vision, and that while completing our assignment, there are other sources to reference to achieve the highest possible result. These outside sources can include the evaluation rubric, the actual assignment instruction sheet, the PBL process, etc.