Enhancing Professional Skills Through Reflective Learning

Executive summary:

Reflection through learning is important and useful process which assist person to analyse their existing and new professional skills. Through reflecting on what professional skills have been gained throughout module, people can evaluate the usefulness of these skills in their future professional life. Moreover, summative reflection process of learning also assists individuals to analyse how they can use the knowledge and skills into professional context in order to make continuous success. This report will discuss the importance of PPDI learning module in order to develop professional skills. Moreover, this report will use relevant reflective model with discussing how this model assist to learned important professional skill throughout the PPDI module. In this report, it will be discussed that, how the new knowledge gained throughout the module will make positive changes in own professional development.

Task 1: Reflective report:

Task 1a: Reflection on one-week event:

Introduction:

Reflection can be defined as the process of executing, determining, evaluating and analysing own activities and work, in order to identify personal skill, strength and weakness. This reflective report will analyse the experience and knowledge gathered during PPDI module, with using relevant reflective models such as Gibbs Cycle, Kolb’s Learning cycle and Erickson theory. In this reflective piece of work, the events and incidents will be described that are experienced during the one week of PPDI module. In addition to this this report will critically analyse what is learned through the incidents and events during the module.

Reflection on one week:

During the entire PPDI module, the first week is mots significant for me, as I had gone through some events, that pose mixed impact on the personal and professions skill. The first important event of this entire week is that I had experienced on the very first day, the introductory session. Through using Gibbs Reflective Cycle, I can reflect on overall experience of the first day. On discussing the first stage of this cycle, the description, I would like to highlight the introductory event on the first day of PPDI module and its effect on my personal and professional skills. In this introductory class, I had been introduced to all my team mates, lecturers, trainers, team leader and team manager. This event was full of negative and positive experience, as I had faced embarrassing situation in introducing myself in front of team members team leaders. As I am little introvert, it affects my self-confidence and interactive skill during the introductory session and some of the my team mates were disagreed to include me in their team due to my poor presentable nature. According to Potter (2015), reflection of the event that has been experienced during the module, would assist individuals to identify the what affect this experience poises on their skills and knowledge. On discussing the second stage of Gibb’s Cycle, the feeling, I can say that the event made me realise that I need to focus more on my interactive skill, self confidence level ad confronting behaviour. Moreover, I also felt that, is I have to work in team, I should be presentable and smart in nature, which is important for stand on the objectives of the team. According to Alshmemri et al. (2017), realisation or feeling is important during reflection, which assist individual to understand what they need to carry out for developing their strength. On the next stage of Gibb’s Cycle, I can evaluate the positive and negative aspects of my experience. Through this event I understood, how much it is important to be presentable and smart in professional field. The positive side of this event was, it assisted me to make strong realisation on the fact that, I have to work more on my interactive skill and confronting behaviour. The negative side of this event was, unsupportive and embarrassing behaviour of some of the teammates, which not only lower my self-confidence on the very first day but also put me on the trouble in how to work with them in one team. In analysis stage, I can analyse that although the overall introductory event contained both negative and positive experience, it assisted me to learn things that are important for improving my personal and professional skill. Through this experience I was able to fund out my poor self-confidence level, lack of interactive skill and weak presentable nature, which are equally important for being part of a strong team. In the last stage, I can conclude that, the overall event during the first day of PPDI module was great for developing my inner strengths, skills and knowledge. It taught me how to interact with team members, managers and team leaders during the introductory class. Moreover, the overall experience of the event assisted me to understand importance of improving own self confidence and smartness in order to be presentable in front of people.

I had experienced some other significant event on the second and third day of the first week of PPDI module, which posed important impact on the overall learning and personal skill development process. In order to describe and analyse these events, I can use Kolb’s Learning cycle, through which I can evaluate the experience by describing four different stages such as experience, reflect, conceptualise and action plan. On discussing the first stage, the experience, I would like to highlight the events that I had faced during the second and third day were full of negative and positive sides. On these days, I and my team mates attended the lectures on project management process by the guest lecturers. Then we have been introduced with group training on the second day on understanding how to conduct, management and complete any project. As I was introvert and shy, I had faced issues in interacting with the lecturers about the topics that I did not understand properly during the training. I also experience unsupportiveness and irritative behaviour from my team mates while I ask them about assisting me to understand the topics. On the next day, I and my teammates were given a task which was based on working on management project. This was the worst experience that I ever had during my PPDI module, in which I had faced issues in setting objectives for projects, conducting time frame for the task and understand the overall systematic process in order to complete the project. My team mates avoided me as I was unable to make any fruitful ideas on how to conduct the project in effective manner in less time. This was the negative experience that I had faced during the events. According to Kovanović et al. (2018), negative experience sometimes is also important for self-reflection in order to improve own strength and find out the areas of weakness. Positive experience that I have experience during these events are, I had learned about team working, project management, team management and objective setting for any task. Although I had faced unsupportive behaviour from team mates, my team leader and team manager assisted me to understand how to set the project objectives and entire systematic stages that are associated with project management process. On the second stage of Kolb Learning Cycle, I would like to reflect on impact on these events and experience on my overall personal and professional skills. Moreover, in this stage I would like to reflect on performance and activities which I had dine ducting these events on the second and third day and how these activities pose potential impact on my overall learning process. The unsupportive nature of my team mates made me realise that I have to strengthen my professional knowledge, interactive skill and communication skill in order to be competent to the team goal. I regularly read online article, magazines, class notes on the project management process, which assisted me to provide fresh as well as useful ideas into team, which impressed my team mates. Moreover, I worked on improving the fluency of my interactive and communication process, which assisted me to make my team mates understand about m point of view. I also worked on improving my decision making and quick problem-solving skill, in order to deal with any issue that I can face during eth module, such as conflict with team mates, poor understanding with team leaders and managers and obscure knowledge about lecture that are delivers during the training. On the third stage of Kolb lending process, I am able to conceptualise what I had learned and experience throughout the events during the PDI module. These events assisted me to understand the importance of communication skill and decision-making ability in order to adapt into new team. I have also learned about project management process, setting of project objectives and conduct techniques for dealing with project needs. During the event of first week, I also understood, the importance of presence of mind and analysing skill for evaluating team needs, task objectives and psychology of the entire team. On the last stage of Kolb learning Cycle, I had made the action plan in terms of improving my personal and professional skills. During this action plan, I had worked on improving my verbal and written communication skill through reading different books, articles and journals. I also deal with critical projects and tasks, in order to improve my analysing and judgemental skill. For making me presentable I had worked on improving my self-confidence through attending self-assessment process during the module.

There are some other significant events that I have experienced during the first week of PPD module. I can reflect on these events through using Erickson’s Theory. By using this theory, I can describe the experience of the events through describing eight stages. The first stage of this theory is Trust vs mistrust, in which I had experienced the mixed experience during the events. During middle and last of the week, I was shifted to different team which has its own team leaders and team manager. At this stage I was unable to make strong connection with any tea members as each team had its own opinion and psychology. I was unable to understand who is trustworthy in the team and how I can adapt myself with each team. In the next stage, the shame vs autonomy stage, I feel hesitated and shy in terms of discussing any team related issues with team mates during the week I had gone through the stage identity vs role confusion. As I was transferred to different team by my team managers, I was confused about my actual job roles and designation. During the first week I had also gone through the stage initiative vs guilt, in which I felt sorry for being unable to make proper interaction with team mates, lecturers and trainers, in order to solve the any issues regarding the task. In terms od dealing with these facts I focus on improving my own communication skill, analysing skill and problem-solving skill, which assisted me to overcome the issues.

Conclusion:

From the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that reflection process is associated with identifying own activities, experience and performance that pose important impact on the personal skill and learning process. With using the reflective theories, it can be stated that, experience that is gather during any event or incident, can be bot positive and negative. Positive experience motivates individual to improve skills and the negative experience assist individual to find out their areas of improvement and work on them to overcome the weakness.

Task 1b: Reflective final summative report

Introduction:

Summative reflective report is associated with evaluating the knowledge and experience that is gained throughout the module. This report will discuss the importance of PPDI learning module in order to develop professional skills. Moreover, this report will use relevant reflective model with discussing how this model assist to learned important professional skill throughout the PPDI module. In this report, it will be discussed that, how the new knowledge gained throughout the module will make positive changes in own professional development.

Summative reflection:

According to Alshmemri et al. (2017), learning through reflection is important for professional development individuals, as it assist the individual to understand their own strengths, weakness and skills. I have learned and gathered important skills through reflection on the events that I had experienced during the PPDI module. By reflecting on the ten week’s events throughout the PPDI module I have learned about my existing professional skills and areas of improvements. The reflection process assists me to understand the importance of both the verbal and written communication skill in order to adapt into different teams in the workplace. As stated by Barker et al. (2016), reflection on the previous experience or events, individual not only able to find out what type of professional skills they need for their workplace, but also assist them to understand what are the poor practices that they carry out throughout the learning process which can be associated with their failure in professional field. By conducting the summative reflection on the ten weeks events, I am able to understand that how important the presentable behaviour and confronting nature of individual in order to make first impression during joining any team. Moreover, I also learned that how make simple and short sentences during making any documents, application or report in professional field so that anybody can easily understand actual purpose of the document. On the contrary Bassot (2016) argued that summative reflection sometimes make individual confused about what skills they actually need for their professional field, as they analyse different types of events and experience that are faced during the entire module. Although the learning process through reflection is great for developing my professional skills, but it sometimes put me in trouble inn order to determine what types of skill is crucial for each particular task. For example, during working on project management in workshop, I sometimes get confused whether I would use my analytical sills to solve the work-related issues or I need to use quick decision-making skill, to take prompt decision. However, the overall learning process through reflection on module’s events are order to be highly useful in developing my communication skill, interactive skills, decision-making skills and analysing skills.

In order to discuss the reflection process, I like to use Borton’s Model of Reflection. I have chosen this model, as it represents the processes or methods which assisted me to evaluate the usefulness of the reflection on overall learning and development process. This model consists of three different stages, which I can use in order to describe the reflection of my learning experience as well a professional development. As stated by Botelho et al. (2016), reflection on the development and learning process I important to analyse what the individual actually learned or gained throughout the module. The very first stage of this model is ‘What’, which assist me to reflect on the happenings during the events throughout PPDI module. BY reflecting what happened in these events, I can say that, I have gained mixed experience of positive and negative aspects, which assist me to understand my areas of improvements and strengths. During PPDI events. I had faced unsupportiveness of my team mates due to poor interactive and communication skill. Moreover, I had also experienced difficulties in order to adapt me in different teams in each week. As stated by Dressler et al. (2018), people can develop their professional skills and knowledge by reflecting on the negative experience that they gained during their learning and development process. On the other hand, positive experience of these events, assistance of my team leaders, team managers and lecturers, which encouraged me to improve my verbal and written communication skill. Decision making ability and analysing skills. In the second stage of this model, So What, I can analyse the events of PPDI module that I had experienced in order to reflect on what I have learned from each experience and whether these experiences are effectives in improving my professional skills. There are three important aspects that I have learned during these events throughout the PPDI module such as perfect time management technique, critical thinking ability and strong interactive skill. During these events I had realised the importance of managing proper time in order to be punctual in each task. I had also learned that; how much time would be taken for each project and what types of techniques can be used to deliver the project within deadline. In this context, Edwards (2016.) Stated that, time management process is important for people in their professional field in terms of making them compatible with the organisational objectives. Moreover, in these events I also had improved my interactive skills, by strengthening both the verbal and written communication ability. My failure to make proper interaction with team members and the team leaders, made me understand that, if I want to adapt me into the team, I need to strengthen my interactive skill which is important for making people understand my opinion. On the contrary Fergusson et al. (2019) argued that, sometimes, only interactive skill is not sufficient for individual to develop strong interaction with colleagues and other officials, rather the person needs proper critical thinking skill, which assist him or her to analyse what actually need to be presented in front of the professional to impress them. In these events I also felt the importance of improving critical thinking skills, which not only improves my quick decisions making skill but also assist me to make prompt problem solving ability. In the last stage of the model, Now What, I like describe the actions that I have dine following these events in order to develop these above-mentioned three skills. I have made regular interaction with team members, team leaders and the team managers in order to solve any project related issues. In this aspect Husebø et al. (2015) stated that, regular interaction is important for making individual more informed and up-to-date regarding any task related information. This process assisted me to improve my interactive skills and communication skills. I also worked on written communication skill by writing projects, documents and reports, in which my team leaders assisted me how to use simple words in order to make the content understandable to all. For critical thinking skills, I had dealt with challenging projects which needs innovative thoughts and ideas. For improving the time management skills, I had work on distributing the different stages of tasks with setting proper time limit, which assist me t complete the task within deadline.

The above-mentioned skills that I have discussed with using Borton’s reflective model, are highly useful in order to apply in any professional field. These skills are also applicable in particular reflective model, for analysing the professional knowledge and learning process Interactive skill, is one of the most important professional skills that I have developed during the PPDI module. This skill is applicable in any reflective models in terms of representing the importance of transparent and well-organised communication in the professions and personal filed to make systematic flow of authentic information. On the contrary Fergusson et al. (2019) argued that, interaction is not only associated with maintaining transparent communication in professional field, but also it is associated with using proper reasons and objectives to represent strong viewpoint in front of professionals. I can use this integrative skill in my professional field, in order to maintain systematic information delivery process. The other two skills that I have developed during the PPDI modules, time management skill and critical thinking skill, can also be applicable in any reflective model for discussing the how much the proper decision making and useful analysist of overall experience is important for promoting professional development of individuals.

Conclusion:

From the above-mentioned discussion, it can be concluded that, reflection through learning is important and useful process which assist person to analyse their existing ad new professional skills. Through reflecting on what professional skills have been gained throughout module, people can evaluate the usefulness of these skills in their future professional life. Moreover, summative reflection process of learning also assists individuals to analyse how they can use the knowledge and skills into professional context in order to make continuous success.

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