Development Needs Analysis - Essay Example

Development Needs Analysis: Critical evaluation of my skills as a strategic learner My skills as a strategic learner Learning and development of a child start at the time of birth and end only at the time of death. Learning and development are continuous processes that are interrelated each other. In other words, learning helps people to develop properly. Learning is a complex and multifaceted process. Since no two individual are alike either physically or mentally, the learning styles of different people are different. The learning from the past will be helpful at present and the learning at present will help us in future. The traditional learning theories, strategies and principles are changing day by day because of the rapid developments in science and technology. The present world is rightly labelled as a digital world by many people. It is impossible for the present generation to stay in a world that is free from the influence of technology. As a result of that, the present learning strategies are mostly controlled by different types of technologies. For example, the introduction of computers, internet, mobile phones, social networks etc has opened up many channels of learning in front of modern generation. It is necessary for the present generation to devise suitable strategies to utilize such opportunities. Students who are taking a strategic approach to their studies “Intend to obtain high grades, Organise their time and distribute their effort to greatest effect, Ensure that the conditions and materials for studying are appropriate, Use previous exam papers to predict questions, and Are alert to cues about marking schemes”(Lublin, p.4). In this paper, I explain my skills and abilities as a strategic learner. Organising time and distributing effort to greatest effect The development of time management skills is extremely important for all people in this world irrespective of whether they are students, working professionals or engaged in any other activities. Time will not wait for anybody. Nobody can replicate a yesterday in their life. In other words, today is most important than yesterday, especially for a student like myself. In other words, what I do today would definitely impact my life tomorrow. Therefore, it is necessary for me to concentrate more on what I do today and what I will do tomorrow. Proper time management would help me in this regard. Many students have the habit of postponing today’s activities for tomorrow. They are forgetting the fact that they will not get any extra hours tomorrow. In know the importance and value of time management very well and hence I schedule my learning activities at least a month in advance. I have the habit of making a schedule for next month’s activities. Since I am a student, majority of the time in my schedule will be allocated for learning activities. I forecast the learning activities such as assignments, term papers, and project works for the coming month and allocate time for all such activities in my schedule. I know that some unexpected things may take place in the next month and I may face troubles in executing my works in accordance with my pre-planned schedule. Therefore, I have allocated some time in my schedule for such things also. Along with learning activities, my next month schedule will have provision for other activities such as playing, socializing, watching movies, visiting shopping malls, purchasing and other routine activities like sleeping, washing, bathing etc. In this way, I am able to utilize the time in an efficient manner. In case, I failed to complete a particular task as scheduled, I work overtime in the night to complete all pending tasks, even though I may not get enough sleep during night. Ensuring the conditions and materials for studying are appropriate One of the major problems facing by students in their studies is the inappropriate study materials and lack of awareness about the learning activities. For example, many students do not know how to prepare a term paper or assignment in a particular format. Formats such as APA, MLA and Harvard are unaware to them. As a result of that they may face problems while preparing academic papers. I have the habit of consulting with the teacher before starting an assignment or term paper. I never start any assignments if I confused by something. I seek help from my instructor to get proper awareness about the topic. Knowledge is bursting from every corner, virtually in every second. The introduction of computers and internet has helped the student community to access knowledge easily. It is possible for a student staying in America to know about the economic climate or financial climate in China or India with the help of internet. The distance between countries has been reduced considerably because of the introduction of internet. At the same time, internet creates some problems also, especially to student community. Student may struggle to select appropriate content from internet, based on their syllabus. Thousands of journal and website articles are available in internet about all topics. Moreover, internet consists of many credible and non-credible, academic and non-academic materials. It is necessary for a student to identify the suitable materials from this enormous amount of materials in the internet. I have a special skill in doing so. I will utilize only reputed databases such as EBSCOHost while searching for academic materials. Using previous exam papers to predict questions I know very well that same question can be answered in different ways. At the same time, the core of the answer will remain the same. Same way, a question can be asked in different ways. Therefore, it is necessary for students to refer old question papers properly to get more awareness about the nature of questions. Old question papers will help a student to identify different ways through which a particular question can be asked. Moreover, it will help the student to anticipate possible questions in the coming examinations. It is a fact that same exam questions of the previous year may not be repeated in the next year’s examination. At the same time, exam questions of four or five years old may be asked in the next year’s examination in a different manner. Therefore, it is necessary for a student to cover as much as exam questions from the previous year. I have a collection of questions asked in the last ten year period. I refer all these questions periodically to get more awareness about the topics I am studying and also forecast the questions that can be asked in the next year’s examination. Are alert to cues about marking schemes Many students have the habit of keeping a blind eye on marking schemes while preparing academic papers. Some students give more importance to introduction and less importance to body while preparing an academic paper. Some others write little in the introduction and conclusion and give more importance to the body of the paper. Both these strategies are wrong. I know the marking scheme provides an idea about how the instructor is assessing the paper. The marking scheme clearing indicates the maximum marks allocated for introduction, body, conclusion and the presentation of the paper. Therefore, there is no point in writing too much in the introduction or conclusion while the marks allocated for the body is more than that for other chapters. I have the habit of dividing the paper into different sections based on the marking scheme. For example, if the maximum allocated mark for introduction is 20/100, I will allocate 20% of the paper to introduction part. Same way, I will calculate the marks allocated for each chapter before finalizing how much the weightage I should be given for each chapter. Evaluation One of the core aspects of strategic learning is the evaluation process. In other words, it is necessary to evaluate the results of learning at a particular time in order to determine whether the learning strategies are effective or not. Evaluation plays an important part in my learning strategies. Strategic learning means using evaluation to people learn quickly from their work so they can learn from and adapt their strategies. It means integrating evaluation and evaluative thinking into strategic decision making and bringing timely data to the table for reflection and use. It means making evaluation a part of the intervention—embedding it so that it influences the process (Centre for evaluation innovation, 2014) If the desired outcome is not obtained, it is necessary for a student to make changes in his learning strategies. I have the habit of evaluating my efforts against the marks obtained in the examination. If I feel that my efforts have not been reflected in the marks obtained, I have no problems in making changes in my learning strategies. I know very well that improper learning strategies may minimize the marks even if the student puts in a lot of efforts. Therefore, in order to get best results or marks out of minimum efforts, it is necessary to follow proper learning strategies. To conclude, strategic learning helps a student to streamline his learning process in the right direction. It helps students to achieve maximum results out of minimum efforts. Learning Journal Week 1 to Week 10 My Goals: Being a hard working youth, who have lot of ambitions for future, I do believe that I can develop my personal and professional skills. I know very well that little pain at present will result in immense gain in future. I am ready to suffer that little pain now so that I can feel comfort in future. The personality of a person depends on inherited traits as well as acquired traits. I do have some inherited traits. Some of these traits are encouraging while others are discouraging. I should eliminate the discouraging traits as much as possible while giving more importance to the development of encouraging traits. Environment plays an important role in shaping the personality and character of a person. I have many things to learn from the environment. My success and failure as a professional in future rest on how well I will be able to segregate the good and evil from the environment. I am really lucky to have fantastic parents and I do believe that a credible institution like CULC would definitely help in shaping my personality in the right direction. I will try my level best to develop my professional skills as much as possible so that the organization that I am going to work may get full benefit from my services. I would like to improve my personal skills as well as professional skills during the coming ten weeks. I have selected Finance for my Master degree since I am very much interested in accounting profession. I know very well that accounting and finance have a lot of job potentials in the present organizational world. No companies can function successfully without an accounting or finance department, irrespective of whether the company is big or small. Since I have opted Finance for my Master degree program, it is necessary for me to develop my skills in this area. I would like to become a financial analyst in future. I do believe that the professional and academic skills learned from CULC would help me in my future endeavors. My Personal Development Plan concentrates on focusing skills and experience perceived from CULC. My personal development plan for the coming ten weeks is explained below. Week What do I want/need to learn? What will I do to achieve this? What resources or support will I need? First and second weeks Personal management skills. The first think I would like to do as part of my personal development plan is to improve my personal management skills such as time management, planning and organizing. The importance of time management is already explained in this paper. It is necessary for me to improve my time management skills further to excel in my student life at present and also in the professional life in future. It is my duty to set up a study schedule and strictly observe it. Such a habit will help me now only in my studies but also in my profession in future. I know that the current organizational world is running at a rapid pace. Quick and effective decision making is extremely important in the present business world. Developing Planning and organizing skills would help me in this regard. As part of developing my personal management skills, I need to develop an academic year planner, followed by a term planner, then a monthly timetable, correspondingly weekly schedule, and ultimately a daily planner. Every day, I evaluate the completion of the tasks against the planned tasks. In this way, I will get proper ideas about how much work is completed and how much is pending. If pending works are more, I will work overtime, instead of postponing it again and again for coming weeks and months. I know the accumulation of jobs increases the stress and increased stress would definitely affect the progress of my studies. Year planner, monthly planner, weekly planner and daily planner Third and fourth weeks Communication skills The second thing I would like to improve is my verbal and nonverbal communication skills. It is often said that more than 60% of the messages are communicated through nonverbal means in a communication process. In other words, nonverbal communication skills such as body language, gestures, facial expression, eye contacts, handshakes etc can communicate more things than what verbally said. Since majority of the prominent modern organizations are operating cross culturally at present, it is necessary for me to learn more about the nonverbal communication styles of people of foreign countries. Moreover, it will be beneficial for me to if I learn foreign languages such as Hindi and Mandarin since majority of the global business is currently targeting emerging countries such as India and China. CULC library consists of many books regarding the communication styles of people in overseas countries. I will use those books to learn more about the communication styles and languages of people in overseas countries especially in India and China. Moreover, I will use social networks, for the development of my communication skills. I have many Indian and Chinese friends in my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I will increase these numbers maximum in order to get more awareness about the communication styles in these countries. Books, magazines, journals, social networks etc Fifth and sixth weeks Information and communications technology skills. Another important skill I should develop as part of my PDP is the Information and communications technology skills. Since software such as Power point, SPSS, and MS excel are utilized extensively in the modern business world, it is necessary for me to get more awareness and knowledge about these software. Power Point helps me in presenting my ideas visually both in my institution and future workplaces. SPSS and MS Excel are accounting software that can help accounting professionals or financial experts to analyse the accounting data in an efficient manner. These software help people to represent data graphically as well as in table formats. I have planned to join a computer institute to learn more about business software. Moreover, basic hardware skills are also necessary for a professional. Therefore, I will learn some hardware topics also in the coming weeks in order to improve my skills in the IT and computer technology areas. Software such as SPSS, MS Excel, Power point etc. Seventh and eighth week Research and investigative skills Another important skill I should develop as part of my PDP is the Research and investigative skills. In finance or accounting profession, people are dealing with millions of data mostly in digital data. It is necessary for a financial expert or analyst to convert these digital data into meaningful results or conclusions. Ultimately, it is the duty of the financial analyst to analyse the present market situation as well as forecast the future market trends. He will be able to do so only if he develops research and analysis skills. Research and analysis skills can be developed only through practice. I will conduct an extensive research in these two weeks and will collect financial data of prominent companies. I will go through the review of these financial data by experts in order to know more about the financial data analysing techniques. Financial data from prominent companies and its critical analysis by expert financial analysts. Ninth and tenth week Patience, temperament, leadership skills and quick decision making Patience and temperament are necessary skills required for effective decision making. Decisions based on emotions may not help the organization very much. At the same time, it is necessary to make quick decisions in order to stay competitive in the market I would collect information about various successful leaders who led their company towards prosperity in the past. Moreover, I will investigate about the management styles of present successful leaders. In this two weeks period. I will definitely get ample information about how to become a successful leader from these data. Internet research References Centre for evaluation innovation. 2014. Strategic learning, [Online] Available at: http://www.evaluationinnovation.org/focus-areas/strategic-learning [Accessed 22 December 2014] Lublin, L. N.d. Deep, surface and strategic approaches to learning.[Online] Available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/ldc/development/pga/introtandl/resources/2a_deep_surfacestrategic_approaches_to_learning.pdf [Accessed 22 December 2014] Read More