My Personal Experience and Ambition - Coursework Example

Reflective Statement It is extremely important for individuals to be in a continuous learning mode on a lifelong basis. Continuous learning will help in grooming the personality of the individual. As it is said knowledge is power and knowledge allows individuals to remain up to date with the happenings in their surrounding environment. The knowledge gained can be beneficial for individuals in their personal life as well as their professional career. I am inspired towards studying as I have a strong passion in gaining beneficial knowledge. The new beginning course has assisted me in identifying my strengths and weaknesses. I strongly believe that knowledge frames a positive personality for any individual; hence I am always working towards studying and gaining knowledge. To gain the attribute of a learned and successful person is my main aim and this aim motivates me to work harder and study the discipline well. To observe successful people around in the environments boosts my morale in becoming an idealistic personality like them and groom my personality accordingly. I have a preplanned mind set in which the quench for gaining beneficial knowledge is at the peak (Learning, 2009). I have studied had through all my academic courses to gain beneficial knowledge. The new beginning course sheds light on various skills and attributes required by individuals for studying in the right mode. The academic abilities of the individual improve via taking this course, abilities such as reading and writing. This course helps students to know more about the importance of networking and accordingly improve the networking abilities as this would allow them for better employability options in the future career life of the individual. Through networking, it becomes easier to start with the job life soon, as networking helps one to get the job as soon as the individual is over with academic life. The steps I would follow to accomplish my goals are firstly gathering all the resources required for the course, attending all lectures and making notes accordingly, studying reference material, coordinating with lecturers and colleagues for discussing the topics and then lastly giving in the best performance in exams to achieve the desired results (Todd, 2009). I also plan to conduct a lot of secondary research as the secondary research helps in clarification of many points. The course also helped me to improve self learning abilities. Self study is an important mode of studying that should be part of every individual’s personality (Young, 2003). By self studying, one digs into various resources to retrieve the desired information. During the process of self study, many types of other valuable information are gained as well and hence the process of self study proves to be productive for the individuals (Plan, 2007). There are a number of resources that are used for self studying such as newspaper archives, databases, libraries and other such resources. With the help of this course, I was able to improve my reading skills. There are certain reading strategies that I learnt during the course and this allowed me to grasp the reading material in the first instance. Taking down notes besides headings and summarizing important points for each paragraph were important techniques to be implemented while reading any material. The strategy of writing notes helps the reader to reflect upon what has been read and hence the subject is retained in the reader’s mind. The new beginning course also allowed me to groom my personality as well as polish my educational skills so that I can further pursue the BA degree program in Child education. I am highly passionate about studying the child education program. I have immense love for kids and therefore I am interested in pursuing my further studies in this discipline. This discipline reflects upon the psychology of children and how the different types of children need to be dealt with according to their nature. Tolerance and patience is a major element required for dealing with children. Child education also reflects upon how to manage children in a classroom. The attention to be given and many other elements that make this course highly interesting to study (Environment, 2006). Child education is a discipline which requires the individual to have patience and understand the activities of the children. Each child may portray a different psychology; hence dealing with children can be a very challenging task. I like to take up challenges and this field of education is highly interesting as well as challenging, therefore my interest in pursuing higher education in this field is immensely high (Van Der Veen, 2010). Children may be of an unpredictable nature and the way they perceive things may be different. I have developed my learning abilities through observational learning as well. Observational learning is a very important and effective learning process. It helped me to learn many skills by just observing other individuals and how they perform their task. Through observation, one develops the art of perceiving various things and one gets to know about how tasks can be done in a variety of ways. My communication and interaction skills are very strong and this skill has allowed me to have successful communication with various people in my personal and professional life. I have a good command on the process of successful communication strategies as I have done a thorough research on this subject in my high school career. This skill has proved to be productive for me in many areas of academic career. While giving presentations in class, while interviewing people such as in surveys or research work, the art of communication skills has helped me get my work done successfully. I am able to communicate well with my teachers as well as the managers and this has given me confidence in dealing with all types of people. My knowledge in the field of learning and development and child education has been substantially good as previously I have volunteered in the day care centers. I have handled children of different age groups and hence I am confident that I can manage children and to a very large extent understand their psychology. Communicating with adults and communicating with children are two different types of communication and I am working hard in having command in dealing with children successfully. To be fun loving is part of my nature and this attribute makes it easier for me to have a good bonding with children. My reading and writing skills are strong; hence I was able to comprehend the instructions well during the degree program. The area where I struggled was in the time management field. This is one of the major weaknesses that I am unable to complete all tasks by their stipulated deadline. At times, during the degree program I have faced penalties due to late submissions. Scheduling all activities and giving them a deadline is a useful strategy to ensure that all tasks are completed on time. I also need to work upon speeding up while doing any work. Working in a slow mode affects the task to be completed on time. With the advent of time, there is a major need for every individual to have hands on knowledge about the latest digital technology. Knowledge about technology is important as it is applied to almost every discipline. Without information technology, the organizations may not be able to run in a competitive mode. Therefore, apart from the skills and strengths mentioned in the discussion, this is a future skill that I may require to work upon intensively to become a competitive individual in my professional life. Conclusion As a student of knowledge and continuous learning, I need to polish my strengths and work upon my weaknesses so that I can become a successful individual in my future professional and personal life. Managing time effectively is an area that needs to be worked upon by me as I need to improve my time management skills. I need to also work upon the area of multi tasking as doing multiple tasks is a requirement for every successful professional. At times due to multi-tasking I lose my concentration, handling work under pressure is also another area that needs to be focused so that I can have the ability to work under pressure. I have gained command on my presentation skills during my academic career as I had to give presentations on and off for various courses. To present oneself in front of the audience, and deliver the speech is indeed difficult and challenging, but with constant practice I was able to gain command on this skill. Now while talking with any type of audience, it is easy for me to convince them with my arguments. For my plans in pursuing a degree in child education, the art of presenting things would prove to be useful for me. Skills need to be polished in the area of dealing with children and with the improvement in this area I may be able to go a long way ahead in the field of education. Reference List Environment, A.L., 2006. Changing an Adult Learning Environment as Viewed from a Social Learning Perspective Changing an Adult Learning Environment as Viewed from a Social Learning Perspective. Learning, 10(1), p.1. Learning, L., 2009. Learning Through Life. Learning, 44(1), p.1-51. Plan, Y.L. et al., 2007. Unearthing the scholarship of teaching and learning in self and practice. Learning, 1(2), p.32-43. Todd, R.J., 2009. The changing information environment and student learning. Scan, p.28-30.  Van Der Veen, R., 2010. Demography, social structure and learning through life. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 29(4), p.415-425.  Young, P., 2003. Scholarship in teaching and learning J. Fanghanel et al., eds.Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 40(3), p.303-309. Read More