In this self-reflection essay, the key task is to assess my progress and performance during the Academic and Professional Training Module. I will point out the academic and professional skills I gained during the lectures while analysing my strengths and weaknesses. To support my achievements, I will attach the module assignments that I completed, an audit of my skills, a GAPQ and type of learner am questionnaires and feedback forms from university tutors.
Introduction
Learning this module has given me a chance of improving and honing my work related skills as well as linking them academic theory. The skills are very critical in a working environment as employers are seeking for such skills in fresh graduates seeking for jobs. The module enabled me to improve on most skills, and at the same time made me realize my weak point areas which I need to work on so as to develop and hone up my professional skills all-round.
The module enabled me to develop competent communication, report writing, presentation and team-work skills as my strengths. On the other hand, the module enabled me to discover that I am not good at time management and at the same time I have limited leadership skills. I have the chance to work and improve my time management skills and hone my leadership skills. I realised my biggest threat was having an authoritative language while leading a team which evoked rebellion from the team members, which I consider a priority weakness that I need to work on urgently.
Skills competence
Through the module, I got encouragement from the lectures and class seminars which enabled me to develop and improve my personal work-relationship skills by engaging in a number of class activities. The skills that I majorly developed and greatly improved include; report writing and presentation skills, professional communication skills, and teamwork skills.
Report writing and presentation skills
The module greatly helped me to improve on my report writing skills as evidenced by various reports I compiled for this module and other modules. The recommendations I got from the audit report from my tutors as well as during the lectures enabled me to identify the various stages of report writing while doing thorough research on the subject of the report. My ability to read journal articles was greatly developed while critiquing the studies and writing a summary of the study, which sharpened my ability to read on my own and prepare reports.
I learnt about the different types of data for report writing, data handling, and how to gather information to support the data from literature and organisations. The literature data and information is essential for articulating background information about the report as well as report’s discussion section. I learnt that good and relevant literature supports the report’s findings, recommendations and impacts.
The questionnaires on the type of learner I am as well as group presentations showed that I have a great ability to prepare and make presentations in very clear and effective ways so that the message is clearly understood by my audience. First, I need to collect and organize my presentation materials. I learnt that a very well organised presentation is appealing and lively to the audience. Subsequently, I learnt to write down the main ideas of the presentation, while avoiding overcrowding. After, preparing the presentation, I learnt the best way to present it was by use of keywords and mind maps accompanied by visual aids.
Professional communication skills
This is a very critical skill that most employers seek in prospective employees that I learnt in this module. Effective communication in organisations facilitates execution and completion of important tasks. I improved my communication skills as it was shown from the responses in the questionnaires administered to test my employability skills. Most people indicated that my both verbal and written communication skills are clear. I effectively deliver information without the need to seek further clarification. Communication is two way, as it also involves the ability to understand and execute a task. The psychomotor test I undertook showed that I have the capability to understand instructions precisely and execute them to complete the assigned task.
Teamwork skills
The ability of one to work in a team is a very important professional skill that employers seek for in prospective employees. Through the group work we undertook, I developed teamwork skills. We assigned ourselves different roles in the group. I improved my communication skills through group work. I learnt to listen to other people’s ideas while making my contributions. The exchange of ideas in the group enabled me to learn to effectively utilize a team to come up with solutions to problems, which are hard to tackle alone or will take a very long time to come up with solutions.
Weaknesses
Leadership skills
While undertaking the group work, at one point I was assigned the role of leading a discussion. It is at this point I realized I am a poor leader, and my time management skills are also poor as I could not coordinate the discussion effectively and complete the task within the allocated time. There arose a lot of disagreements among the group members, upon which I became authoritative which climaxed with rebellion. The missing of deadlines and lack of delivering on the agendas of the meetings angered my group members who resulted in arguments whenever we met which worsened the situation (Kumar, Deshmukh " Adhish, 2014).
Action plan
To act and improve on my weaknesses, I plan to read articles on the causes of poor leadership skills and time management. I will conduct a literature search on peer-reviewed articles on leadership skills and proper time management, read and summarize the research findings. This will enable me to discover how to improve my time management and leadership skills.
References
Kumar, S., Deshmukh, V., " Adhish, V. S. (2014). Building and leading teams. Indian journal of community medicine: official publication of Indian Association of Preventive " Social Medicine, 39(4), 208-13.
