SH4052QA Personal Professional Development Info Presentation Assignment

Introduction

Personal development refers to the idea that individuals continuously attempt to improve themselves in terms of intellectually or emotionally. Professional development refers to the development process in which an individual constantly develop their professional skills (Sadikovna et al, 2021). The main aim of this report is to analyse the personal and professional development along with the action plan by utilising the Kolb’s reflective model. I will share my experience in this report regarding my personal and professional development. This module has had considerable impact on my learning and academic accomplishments. Engaging in different activities, group discussions, assignment and projects has supported me to assess my own competencies and skills along with weaknesses which need improvement. Maintaining relationship with others needs an understanding about oneself. Focusing on self-awareness as well as emotional intelligence can be useful for the people to have in-depth knowledge regarding themselves. Furthermore, this course assisted me to know which type of information share with others. I organised, evaluated and assessed my experiences as well as observations for this reflective report. Kolb’s reflective model stresses on importance of the reflective aspect within learning cycle.

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Main Body

Kolb’s reflective cycle

Concrete experience – Recently, I got chance to participate in project in which I learned about the different skills and knowledge. In the beginning of this module, I was confident regarding my previous skills, abilities, knowledge and competencies which helped me a lot improve my knowledge. It was a great experience and helped me a lot to improve my academic life. It was a group project and I was an active member in this team project. During the project, I failed to complete the daily activities on time and I felt difficulties to manage my time (Vince, 2022). Because of this experience I have learned that I need to work on my time management skills.

Reflective observations – This team project has provided me an understanding about significance of working as a responsible group member to achieve the positive outcomes. All team members were belong to different culture and background and also had different perspectives regarding tasks. It helped to complete the tasks in accurate way because I and my team members found unique solutions to solve problems.

Abstract conceptualisation – Throughout the daily activities and tasks, I and my other team members was assigned to present daily work in the classroom in front of supervisor. It was the major challenge for me as because I was not much effective in communication and always felt difficulties to express my views. After that, I consulted with my supervisor which motivated me to present everyday work in the class. I also began to join the skill development classes so that I can improve my communication abilities (Hanisyah et al, 2023). I also started to make daily time table and divide work according to the priorities so that I can complete important work on time.

Active experimentation – This team project facilitated me to understand the significance of time management, communication and presentation skills in the education as well as personal life. I learned how to convey message and communicate with others in confident manner. I am thankful that this project helped me to know how to present work in front of other people. I also gained knowledge about research skills as I did lot of research to complete the tasks. If I will get chance to do this kind of project in future then, I will definitely use my skills to perform better and finish project on time.

Relationship with our-self

It is most crucial for the people to have good understanding level to make strong relationship with other people. I should pay attention on knowing myself in better way in terms of feelings, abilities, thoughts, attitudes, behaviours, actions and values so that I can make good relationship with my team members. In most cases, actions and feelings of an individual including me tends to be an autopilot means act without thinking which is not bad if we use this kind of strategy sometimes. I realised that when we have no idea about our actions, responses, desires and routines then we do not control our emotions which can highly impact our work. During this module, I also identified that I should take time and do more efforts to know myself. I learned in this project that I can manage my feelings, thoughts and actions by improving self-awareness and emotional intelligence ability. Emotional intelligence refers to the ability of an individual to understand, utilise and handle own emotions positively to release stress and worries, communicate confidently, sympathise with other people, reduce issues and resolve disputes (MacCann et al, 2020). Self-awareness means capability of people to adjust into their own feelings and actions. When an individual is self-aware, they easily know their strengths and areas of improvements and understand what assist them to flourish.

This project has educated me that through become self-aware, I can handle my emotions even in tough situations such as; complex assignments and projects, assessments and exams. I found out that I felt anxious before any new project and exams which impacted my marks. Actually, by practising on self-awareness, I can now capable enough to manage my anxiety level before projects, group activities and exams. Self-awareness includes the manner where people can observe and correctly find out their feelings. Moreover, throughout the module, I realised that although, self-awareness ability is essential to about who I am, but it is not necessary for an individual to pay attention on each factor all time. Self-awareness provides power to the people to influence the results and facilitates to become good decision-makers (Demetriou et al, 2020). Self-awareness offers high level of confidence that’s why I am continuously focusing more on enhancing self-awareness. Through self-awareness, I can interact with the other people and my group members with clarity and good purpose that enables me to understand about the things from different perspectives. By participating in different group activities, now, I am able to understand myself in better way which is necessary for the personal development. I am also capable to make informed decisions regarding my personal life, educational life and future career related choices. In group activities, when I had to work on complex activities I lost my control and felt depressed. I was not able to control my emotions which highly affected my growth. After that, I interacted with my supervisor who helped me and provided me guidance. I identified that because of valuable guidance I handled my emotions and performed complex tasks effectively. It also enhanced my confidence level and emotional intelligence skills. This project was great opportunity for me as it facilitated me a lot to improve my personal life. Furthermore, I found out that self-awareness and the ability of emotional intelligence are linked with each other (Dromer, Kheloufi and Azouvi, 2021). People who have high level of emotional intelligence are able to make adjustment in their life and adapt to the new and complex situations. My emotional intelligence quality and self-awareness allow me to develop SMART goals through identifying my strong skills, weaknesses along with the factors that motivate me to carry out strategies. Moreover, I achieved active listening skills and respect for others and both are essential for people.

Relationship with others

We live in society where different types of people who belongs to different background, culture, religion, race, ethnicity and education live with each other. It is most crucial for an individual to focus on making good relationship with others to survive in the society. Recently, my teacher conducted a group activity in the classroom related to education. I actively took part in the group activity as I want to improve my skills and abilities. Because it was a group project, I had to perform tasks and activities regarding project with my other group members. At starting of the project, I felt little nervous because I thought about the outcomes of the project. After that, my supervisor encouraged me and provides guidance and this guidance helped me throughout the project. First, we all team members divide the roles and responsibilities among us so that each group member aware about their duties. I realised that dividing roles helped to make group more productive and competent. After that, I and my team members made strategies how to do tasks and carried out the tasks. During the project, I used my communication skills to interact with other members and supervisor so that we can do our duties. The act of communicating facilitates to fulfil our requirements and also assists to be connected with other people (Celikkalp et al, 2020). Because of my good communication skills, I interact with other members in confident manner and express my ideas and opinions related to tasks. I also motivated other team members to express their creative ideas to solve tasks and as a responsible team member I always listen to other’s thoughts attentively which is crucial in group work. During the project, I realised that I need to improve my presentation ability because when my supervisor called me to present my work I felt little nervous which impacted my presentation.

We all team members had to solve both easy and complex tasks which need more concentration. I utilised my problem solving skills to find out the alternative solutions for the problem. In starting, I faced difficulties to identify the appropriate solutions but after that I analysed the problem in-depth manner and again tried to find solutions. I understood the problem first and did research about the problem to discover creative solutions. I made the list of possible solutions and evaluated all solutions to narrow down the options. Furthermore, I expressed my creative ideas and solutions to the team members and they also communicated their ideas to solve problems. I also have good decision-making skills and used it to make informed decisions throughout the project. Whenever I need to choose best solutions for the problems, I always utilised my decision-making skills and select suitable solutions to solve problem. Throughout the project, when I made decision I always think twice and consider all aspects because one poor decision could negatively impact the overall project (Wilson, Joiner and Abbasi, 2021). Sometimes, conflicts also happened while working with other during the project. Conflicts is common part in group project because each team member had own perspectives and opinions about particular things. But, it is our responsibility to respect other’s viewpoints and feelings and should not hurt their sentiments. Many times some group members did not agree with the decisions and raised questions which were good thing. In this kind of situation I always tried to be calm and listen to their thoughts. To reduce the conflicts, I explained about the benefits of the decisions so that they can understand why the particular decision was taken. Because of my good communication skills, I convinced team members which ultimately helped to complete the project on time. During project, I realised that if we do not respect other people’s opinions then it can create conflicts among people which highly impacts the relationship. If we focus on this thing then it will be helpful to reduce the chances of disputes among members. I always tried to be act as responsible person whenever I joined the group debates or group discussion.

I must say my emotional intelligence and self-awareness abilities helped me to control my feelings when I don't agree with what other opinions and show respect which is important. I realised that, in situations where arguments can happen anytime, communication is a major factor to make sure that the situation is solved in courteous manner (Stamer, Steinhäuser and Flägel, 2023). In addition, when conflicts happened while working I tried to control my feelings and frustration and I noticed that it really helped to minimise the chances of increasing conflict situations. This project facilitated me to understand that strong communication holds a valuable place in creating and nurturing relationship with people. In addition, I have learned that I need to focus on my language that I utilise when I talk to other people so that I can reduce the risk of fights or arguments. I always think before I present my side and speak in polite way and I believe that each person should use this technique before speaking about anything. It has facilitated me to make sure that I win attention of people when I speak in group. Furthermore, I also utilised my time management abilities to priorities my work and complete tasks within time limit (DeMink-Carthew, Netcoh and Farber, 2020). I was capable enough to manage my time which facilitated me to easily decrease stress and boost confidence level which further facilitate in team work. I always show respect for other people’s time and make sure that I always be on time so that other person’s time is not wasted. Because of my strong skills and competencies, I and my team member have completed the project successfully and got good marks. Overall, my all skills and strengths helped a lot to make better relationship with others.

SMART development plan

I have managed my emotions and know myself in better way because of my emotional intelligence capability and self-awareness. Now, I can set goals and committed myself towards the goals until I accomplish them. I realised that setting goals and objectives gives direction to the life and help to get success in life. If an individual who is student or learner do not set goals then it can negatively impact their future career. SMART refers to specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. It helps people to develop, monitor and achieve short-term and long-term goals (Do, An and Krauss, 2024). I also make three SMART goals as I want to develop my knowledge and skills and get good job in future. I want to further improve my communication abilities in 4 months by participating in skill development classes. My second goal is to enhance time management skills in 3 months through making different strategies. I also desire to learn a decision-making skill as I identified it is one of the major skills for job and employment. The detail of one objective is given below:

• To improve communication skills within 4 months through joining the skill development classes

Conclusion

As per above report, it is concluded that it is most important for a person to concentrate on their personal and professional development because it would be helpful in career development and prepare person to response positively towards changes. This report has described about the personal academic experience in an excellent manner. Kolb’s reflective model has utilised to explain about the group work in which I participated in my academic life. I honestly say skills, competencies, knowledge and experiences that I have obtained in group project. This module has helped me to know my strengths, competencies along with the weaknesses. I have learned that through understanding myself better, I can control my feelings and thoughts which further help to reduce the conflicts among people. I also learned about two most important skills which were self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Both abilities helped me to make strong relationship with others and it will definitely help me in my future workplace. This report has also discussed about the SMART development plan which was most useful tool for people who want to improve their knowledge. By using SMART approach, I developed the meaningful goals and set time to achieve goals. I presented my strategies and resources in excellent way to improve my communication skills. I believe that valuable skills, knowledge and experiences that I gained from this module will absolutely help me in my future to get my desire job in good company. My strong skills and knowledge will allow me to complete projects and tasks accurately and develop my professional life.

References

Books and journals

• Celikkalp, U., and et. al., 2020. The smartphone addiction levels and the association with communication skills in nursing and medical school students. Journal of Nursing Research, 28(3), p.e93.
• Demetriou, A., and et. al., 2020. Cognitive ability, cognitive self-awareness, and school performance: From childhood to adolescence. Intelligence, 79, p.101432.
• DeMink-Carthew, J., Netcoh, S. and Farber, K., 2020. Exploring the potential for students to develop self-awareness through personalized learning. The Journal of Educational Research, 113(3), pp.165-176.
• Do, N.X.B., An, T.S. and Krauss, C., 2024, May. SMART-Goal-Buddy: Goal-Setting Oriented Adaptive Learning Paths. In International Workshop on Learning Technology for Education Challenges (pp. 319-331). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
• Dromer, E., Kheloufi, L. and Azouvi, P., 2021. Impaired self-awareness after traumatic brain injury: a systematic review. Part 1: assessment, clinical aspects and recovery. Annals of physical and rehabilitation medicine, 64(5), p.101468.
• Hanisyah, W.A., and et. al., 2023, February. The Effect of Kolb's Learning Cycle on Students' Critical Thinking Skills. In PRISMA, Prosiding Seminar Nasional Matematika (Vol. 6, pp. 65-69).
• MacCann, C., and et. al., 2020. Emotional intelligence predicts academic performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 146(2), p.150.
• Sadikovna, M.A., and et. al., 2021. The place of art in personal development. European science, (2 (58)), pp.98-100.
• Stamer, T., Steinhäuser, J. and Flägel, K., 2023. Artificial intelligence supporting the training of communication skills in the education of health care professions: scoping review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, p.e43311.
• Tyurina, V.O., and et. al., 2022. The impact of the project method on the development of leadership skills in students.
• Vince, R., 2022. Reflections on “behind and beyond Kolb’s learning cycle”. Journal of Management Education, 46(6), pp.983-989.
• Wilson, R., Joiner, K. and Abbasi, A., 2021. Improving students’ performance with time management skills. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 18(4).

Author Bio

Andrew Carter   10 years | MSc in Management

I am Andrew Carter and graduated with distinction, earning a Master of Science degree in management from Cranfield University. I am very well aware of the problems students face as I was a student once. I want to take them out of such a situation and for that I have been helping them for 10 years. I have completed more than 500 management papers for students in provided time.