Personal and Professional Development - Self-Managed Learning - Assignment Example

Personal and professional development Contents Contents 2 Task A Reflective Learning Journal 3 Reflective learning Journal record 6 Task 2: A personal development plan 8 References 13 Task 1: A Reflective Learning Journal Self-managed learning (SML) is a critical learning approach used in the management development processes. It is an unstructured way of learning which focuses on the process rather than on the contents of the learning. The process is a holistic approach to constructive learning. Self-managed learning (SML) can be used to achieve key results in the professional and personal fronts and is especially useful for the students as this process enables to control the processes and speed of learning (Borko, 2004, pp.3-15). The approach of self managed learning is based on some principles which are known as the agreement between the set adviser and the learners. The advisers have the responsibility of facilitating the learning process of the learners by helping them realize their own responsibility towards leaning by themselves. The trainers are also responsible for supporting the self managed learning process by providing access to the different education related material to the learners. The learners, on the other hand, are responsible for identifying their own skills and competencies and map the proper skills with the evolving opportunities in the personal and professional arenas. The process involves the assessment and evaluation of their learning by the individual students. Both personal and professional developments are important in deciding the success of an individual. It is also critical to align the needs and competencies of the individual with the individual goals and the objectives of the organization. The professional development can be done through both formal and informal processes of learning which are aimed at improving the understanding of the learning processes. There is a high level of interdependence of professional and personal development factors and they often overlap each other. The personal and professional development needs to be an ongoing, sustainable and in depth process of engagement implemented within the organization. The factors of information sharing, group learning as well as individual learning are critical in the process of personal and professional development. The professional and personal learning aspects involve various practices. These practices include collaborative learning, integrated approaches and independent learning, peer assisted learning, teacher as student, teacher researcher etc (Letch, 2012, pp.78-81). The important concepts of personal and professional learning include providing a varying range of learning practices, processes and materials to support the process. The incorporation of different activities to ensure the achievement of both professional and personal goals is important. An effective personal and professional development program requires resources, supportive structures and sufficient time. The process of self managed learning is extremely beneficial for a student and I intend to use the technique extensively to devise a successful personal and prod=fissional development plan through different learning activities and processes. There are different ways in which lifelong learning for personal and professional development can be facilitated. The students can use their experiences as a critical mode of improving their learning in different aspects of life. The maintenance of records to keep note of different experiences and the learning outcome from them proves to be a beneficial way for the development of an individual personally as well as professionally. Focusing on the different experiences in both personal and professional lives and reflecting on the learning from these experiences are effective ways to support lifelong personal and professional development. To ensure the lifelong development, it is critical for the students to assess the needs and the competency levels of the students, note down and maintain the records on the experiences and the learning, reflect on the activities and processes to emphasize on the relationship between the learning processes and its impact on the learning of the students and use effective self evaluations and feedback system for their learning processes (Brown-Easton, 2004, p.118-120). The major benefits of self managed learning through the adoption of a reflective approach are increased self-awareness and self-reliance, building beneficial relationships, understanding the process of learning, giving honest feedback about the skills of the individual, dealing with ambiguity in the learning process, meeting different challenges in practical life and enjoyment of the learning program and different learning processes (Blum, Yocom, Trent and McLauglin, 2005, pp.18-21). As a student, I have benefitted through self learning by gaining an increased awareness of the proper ways to deal with different challenges and hurdles arising in the learning processes as well as in other aspects of life. I have been able to evaluate the aspects of learning from different viewpoints. Also, I have experienced a change in attitude, increased confidence as well as skills. The self learning management process benefits the individual as well as the organization. The proper management of learning helps the individual to grasp the different aspects and apply it to the educational environment within the university or the work environment within the company. This helps in boosting the performance of the university or the company. There are strong links between the learning of the individual and the performances of both the individual and the organization. The self managed learning process ensures greater motivation, better performance levels, improved personal and professional relationships, ability to take added responsibilities, introduction of innovative ideas as well as a better understanding of the educational process. Reflective habits of the students are necessary to be developed during their educational period. The process of reflective learning management helps the students to develop a thinking process which is critical as well as reflective of different factors in the environment as well as of the various skills and learning of their own. Reflective learning management is important in developing the reflective thinking and capabilities of the students. A reflective learning journal (RLJ) is a pedagogical technique used by the students to keep a personal account of their attitudes, feelings, behavior and learning through the whole educational process. The reflective learning journal can be a significant tool for the students to evaluate and reflect on the contents and processes of their education. The reflective journal entries can work as a mirror to represent the thought processes of the individuals (Bennett, Anderson and Evans, 1997, pp.45-51). The benefits of the reflective learning journal include the facts that it helps the students to contextualize their concepts, integrate their learning, use a self-feedback mechanism and develop the reflective abilities of the students. The reflective journal management process can be used as a tool for formative assessment to develop the critical thinking and the understanding levels of the students. Reflective learning Journal record The reflective learning journal record for 5days of my personal experience in attending the classes and noting down the learning and experiences from the classes is given below. Day 1: The first day recorded in my journal is used to note my experiences and learning from the class lecture on the topic of critical learning methods. In the process of learning about critical reading I started reading a number of books and articles. I identified that while reading books, I tend to skip pages and read the contents passively, especially when I find the contents of the textbooks boring and long. I also identified the fact that it is important to actively read the books to understand the concepts and grasp the information more effectively. I also found that reading complex and long sentences becomes tedious for me and I prefer to read those books which follow simple vocabulary and use shorter sentences. This structure helps me to assimilate the information more quickly. Day 2: On the second day, the topic of the class was on marketing strategies. The professor showed us relevant videos and presentations while teaching us about the different marketing strategies. He gave examples of the marketing strategies adapted by different companies and also explained the change in marketing strategies through the changes in the global scenario of business. I noticed that I can learn more by watching the educational videos than by simply reading text books. I found the presentations extremely interesting but have much difficulty to understand the graphical representation of the data. I think that if I get more time to analyze the graphs it would be easier for me to understand the implications of the data. Day 3: On the third day, we were taught about communication and presentation skills. The professors employed the use of different activities to measure and enhance our communication skills. Much emphasis on grammar and vocabulary was given. I understood that I need to work on the vocabulary part more. According to me, grammar is my strong foray. I found the topics for discussion easy as they were based on current affairs and well within my knowledge. I was particularly comfortable with management topics and topics based on world politics. Day 4: On the last but one day, we were taught about the personality development and image building processes. The session involved group activities and games. I enjoyed the session but found out that I did not particularly have a clear idea of my strengths and weaknesses. The trainer asked me to do a personal assessment and I was able to present a vague analysis of my own self. Though I enjoyed the group activities, yet I could not open up and communicate very well with my peers in the group as random groups were formed in the class. Day 5: On the last day, the trainer taught us the proper way to give corporate presentations. The session included teachings in the perspectives varying from business dressing to mannerisms and choice of words. The session was particularly aimed at personality development and grooming. I realized that I have to improve a lot on the way I should communicate in the corporate world. My manner of communication seems to be more informal and thus unsuitable in business communications. According to me, my mannerisms and etiquettes are up to the standard and the trainer also gave similar feedback for my corporate communication skills. Task 2: A personal development plan I plan to develop my corporate communication skills so that in future it helps me when I get into the real job world. Following the fourth day of our session, I made a careful analysis of my strengths and opportunities and mapped them to the opportunities available in my university as well as in the corporate world. This will help me to develop my personal and professional learning processes and would help me in the future for entering into the corporate world. I think a proper assessment of me would be especially beneficial when I start looking for a job in future. I made a particular plan to improve on my interpersonal communication skills and my presentation skills. I started reading more journals and articles to improve my vocabulary. I plan to read more text books and story books to improve my reading skills as well as enrich my vocabulary. I also plan to watch more videos on corporate communication and personality development for two main reasons. Firstly, because I think it is very important for me to improve my corporate communication skills to help me in my career development and secondly because I have found videos to be an effective tool for learning effectively and at a faster pace. I plan to write down my future endeavours related to self improvement as well as learning management. I think maintaining a record of my personal development plans can be highly facilitated by the use of a reflection learning journal as it would help me to maintain my experiences with the different learning activities as well as help me to keep a track of the improvement of my performances in the different phases of personal and professional development. I think a documentation of the learning processes and the learning outcomes as well as my personal attitude, behaviour and understanding of the different development activities is essential for improvement in the personal and professional development front. My aim of improving on the business communication skills would be useful in future especially when the campus recruitment process in my university starts. A professional approach of the students is much expected and supported by the educational institutions. Therefore, I would try to implement the corporate aspects in my professional development plan. This would also help the university because it would be able to produce a knowledgeable and professional candidate to the corporate world. The university aims at improving the communication sand management skills of its students so that the students can add to the reputation of the university as an educational institution in the outside world as well. I am keen to reflect on my learning and adopt flexibility in my behaviour and attitudes to improve ion my skills and competencies. For this purpose, I aim to use a lot of self management techniques which would call for both individual and collaboration efforts. I have discussed my professional development plans with the experienced professors who have provided their valuable inputs for improving the plan. I have started to execute my development process plan and have set a benchmark for every area that I want to focus and improve on. I have identified the importance of an effective evaluation mechanism based on self assessment as well as feedback from my peers in the class. It is essential to take some feedback from the peers, myself as well as the trainers to ensure that the track of my development process is moving in the correct direction. The level of feedback would vary according to the degree of criticality of the different actions included in the plan. For example, I would focus more on the corporate communication skills and reading abilities because they are my weak forays. The guidance and advices from my professors and peers in the university would play a critical role in supporting my professional as well as personal development plan. A proper process of feedback and assessment is significant in maintaining my ongoing interest in maintaining a reflective journal for every learning process and also for the successful implementation of the self managed learning process. I will follow every step of the development plan by an effective feedback mechanism that would support me in the critical assessment of my achievements in materializing the plans. I face a critical problem of being unable to comprehend long and difficult sentences and read topics which are lengthy and difficult. Therefore, it is essential for me to improve my reading abilities by studying more academic books as well as other books on diversified topics. The academic studies in my university require me to extensively study text books that are included in my educational curriculum. I also plan to be more regular in attending the lectures of the professors in my university as they help to improve my learning processes. I have already started watching different documentaries and accessing other educational videos from the internet to understand and study the various subjects included in my academic syllabus as per the university. I have also started accessing the different educational materials available in the online libraries as well as the physical within the university as well as outside the university. The effective use of these reference study books and journals would be much beneficial in improving my learning and development process. I am required to undertake plans on the application of learning in order to ensure the path of personal and professional development. The learning process generally includes the attainment of knowledge through the academic curriculum. This requires the individual to carry out studies according to the curriculum that required study of academic books (Tomlinson, 2004, p.62). The lectures of the professors are attended in order to gain a deeper explanation and insight on the academic course that is read in the books. I have followed the instructions of professors and lecturers and undertook private studies in order to participate in the process of outside-in process to attain personal development. In order to attain personal as well as professional development, it is recommended to undertake alternate approaches like the inside out approach. In this approach, I am required to undertake active participation to explore deeper knowledge on the subject matters of teach (Sangster, 2000, p.74). I would also engage into team discussions on the matters in which I have gathered knowledge. This alternate approach would enable me to develop skills of personal as well as professional development. I would be able to share my knowledge with the other members in the discussion forum that would develop my professional skills of expressing my ideas as well as accepting ideas of other on the matters of learning. The overall process would lead to my development as a person as well as a professional through enrichment of learning and adoption of professional skills. The time management strategies could be evaluated in the context of my personal as well as professional development over a period of time. The effective time strategies in the process of personal and professional development include setting of priorities, organization of tasks, scheduling of tasks, and delegation of work, reduce time-wasters and effective implementation. These have helped me to develop personally as well as professionally through the course of learning and development (Throop and Castellucci, 2010, p.84). I have understood that there is specific time for doing certain tasks and I need to abide by the timelines in order to attain effective results through implementation. By application of the time management strategies, I have been able to learn the necessary subjects on the required span of time. I have been able to reduce the time wasters and the sources of distraction so that I am able to concentrate in reaching my goals of personal development. The effective time management strategies have not only helped me to enrich my level of learning but also become effective in the area of my professional. I have applied my skills to effectively manage time by delegating the works in the best interest of the organization (Chapman and Rupured, 2014, p.5). My professional skills of time management and interpersonal communication have allowed me to identify the right persons and eliminate the time wasters in the organization. By effective time management, the organizational goals could be achieved and is a reflection of my professional efficiency to manage task through the application of learning and continuous development. References Bennett, B., Anderson S.E. & Evans, M. 1997. An analysis of how teachers acquire and extend their instructional repertoire. American Educational Research Association. Vol. 16 (1), p.45-51. Blum, H., Yocom, D., Trent, A, & McLauglin, M. 2005. Professional Development: When Teachers Plan and Deliver on their own. Educational Researcher Quarterly. Vol. 24(2), p.18-21. Borko, H. 2004. Professional Development and Teacher Learning: Mapping the Terrain. Educational Researcher. Vol. 33(8), p. 3-15. Brown-Easton, L. 2004. Powerful Designs for Professional Learning. London: Oxford Publishers. Chapman, S. W. and Rupured, M. 2014. 10 strategies for better time management. [Pdf]. Available at: https://www.fcs.uga.edu/ext/pubs/time_management.pdf. [Accessed on 17 January, 2014]. Constable, A. 1995. Self-Managed Learning. The Financial Times Handbook of Management. London: Pitman Publishing. Letch, N. 2012. Using reflective journals to engage students in learning business process management concepts. Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal. Vol.4 (4), p.78-81. Sangster, C. 2000. Planning and organizing personal and professional development. New York: Gower. Throop, R. K. and Castellucci, M. 2010. Reaching Your Potential: Personal and Professional Development. New York: Cengage Learning. Tomlinson, H. 2004. Educational Leadership: Personal Growth for Professional Development. New Delhi: SAGE Read More