Academic and Employability Skills: Reflection on Experience

This report discusses the importance of academic and employability skills and reflects on the experience of attending a module on these skills. It includes the Gibbs model of reflection and an action plan for future improvement.

Academic And
Employability Skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Reflection ..............................................................................................................................3
Gibbs model of reflection ......................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Academic and employability skills are skills which is required in order to make a person
efficient. These skills helps a person for their career development and also provide various
opportunity in life (Alam, Islam and Kabirul, 2017). These skills includes time management,
motivation, leadership, negotiation, team working skills and many more. These skills allow a
person to improve their knowledge and also helps them in their personal development. Academic
skills helps a person in completing their education effectively and also improve their learning.
Employability skills helps in completing job related work effectively. This project report
includes discussion of reflection of experience of attending module of academic and
employability skills.
MAIN BODY
Reflection
Reflection refers to process of reflecting views about situation or experience in order to
improve learning. Focus on reflection is to helps a person to learn from a specific experience and
also helps to make connection between learning and practical situation of a person (Bennett and
Ananthram, 2021). In reflective writing, a person needs to write what they are thinking and what
they have been experience form their practical experience. There are various benefits of
reflection as it helps to improve writing skills of a person. It also improve critical thinking of a
person which helps them to review their experience and reflect upon it.
Gibbs model of reflection
Gibbs model of reflection is one of model famous model of reflection which is introduced
by Graham Gibbs in the year 1988. This model provide structure in order to learn from
experience. It also provide a framework which helps to examine experience and also allow user
to learn from their experience in order plan thing whether it went well or did not go well. This
model of reflection include six stages including description about experience, feeling related to
experience, evaluation about situation whether it is good or bad. It also includes analysis which
helps to make of situation, conclusion about what is learning of situation and also action plan to
understand how to deal with this situation in future. Each stages of this model provide complete
description of situation, provide guidance to question is by asking to a person. It also provide
different details of reflection as a person can reflect about their experience more briefly by using

this Gibbs model of reflection. This model is provide good ways to a person to reflect on their
experience as well as situation.
Different stages of Gibbs model of refection cab be used by me in order to reflect my
experience on Academic And Employability Skills module are as follows:
Description: My classes are conducting through online learning model due to Covid-19
situation. This model of learning is effective ways of learning in which teacher teaches us about
different topic related to academic course. My teacher has started a module namely Academic
And Employability Skills in classes. In this class, all students of class are present in class which
is conducted through online mode (Bridgstock, 2019). In this situation, teacher assign different
assignment to different students in order to improve their knowledge related to this module.
Teacher assign me a group assignment based on Academic and employability skills. For this
module, me and my friends attend all classes which helps us to understand and learn about
academic and learning skills. We also divide out work in order complete assignment on time and
for which ask about out interest of work. As some of our friend has knowledge about one part of
topic while other has knowledge about different part of assignment and in the end, we needs to
merge our part of assignment to submit it in complete report format. Outcome of situation is that
we complete our report on time and teachers appreciate our work as we contain right information
in our report. We also get small feedback related to references as we did not complete
referencing in right manner. In order to address this, me and my friend made correction in out
assignment in order to meet expectation of teacher.
Feelings: Before starting this module, I was excited as I get to learn new things. I have
knowledge about employability and academic skills before starting this module but attend classes
of this module has improved my knowledge as I get to learn about importance of academic and
employability skills and also about strategies to develop this skills (Caballero, Álvarez-González
and López-Miguens, 2020). This module include various important skills like time management
skills, negotiation skill, team working skills, motivation skills, leadership skill, management skill
and many more. We have completed our assignment successfully and teacher appreciated us for
out hard work. But we get feedback which create stress for us and we we got demotivated. But
out teacher appreciated us for our work in class in online mode. My friends was also
disappointed when we get feedback but they are happy when teacher appropriate us. But now me
and my friends are happy as we get result for our hark work and dedication.

Evaluation: There are various things which went well and some things which does no
went well. One of thing which is good about our experience is that each members of our group
has put their efforts for complete our work in good quality (Ene, 2017). For completion of this
project on time, two members of out group has cancelled their plans and put priority to our
project and did not waste their time. This create motivation among all of us and we work hard to
complete our project in good quality. There are some others things which did not go well as we
are facing problems related to references. As we did not do referencing in good manner due to
which we get feedback for out work.
Analysis: Analysis on Gibbs model is used to analyse situation in order to make sense.
Our work is went well as we take all classes related to this module which improve our
knowledge. In order to complete work on time, I take initiate and divided work as per interest
and preference of a person. In have experience of this type of work as I have previously
completed many group assignment where I was enjoying to work of my interest.
Me and my team has completed out work on time and get appreciation in class which
make us more and more satisfied but we still get feedback on our work due to which we get
problems. We needs to do entire referencing again. For this, we needs to manage our time and
also cancel our plan. We also get stressed when we are facing problems to complete our
assignment on time. In this situation we get problems due to our planning.
I also search some literation related to team work and group work which helps me to
understand situation. This includes Belbin's team roles as well as Group think. These two model
helps me to understand how to coordinate in team. In this situation, I get benefit of my
knowledge as well as my friends. I also get benefits of our dedication towards completion of this
assignment in good manner.
Conclusion: I have learned various new things in this module as I learned how to divide
work in a team and also about how to work in as team and coordinate with different team
members. I also learn various things which are mentioned below:
 Time management: Time management is one of important skills which is important for
a person in complete a work on time (Firth, 2020). It helps a person to saves their time on
spare activity and allow the to invest on productive work which is important in their life.
I learn time management skills in this module as while completing this assignment, we
have made schedule but due to some mistakes, some work as not complete as per our

planning. Due to which, group members needs to cancel their plan and complete
assignment on time.
 Referencing: Referencing is another skills which I have learned form this module and
assignment. Referencing refers to a system through which a person giving credit to other
person for using their content in their work (Garcia-Esteban and Jahnke, 2020). It is one
of important skills in field of academic writing as to avoid plagiarism and also provide
support to evidence of ideas and argument of a person. By completing this assignment, I
learn various new things related to reference. I have prior knowledge of reference but
with this module, I get to know about practical implication of reference and learn about
different style of references like academic assignment, online references and many more.
 Academic writing: Academic writing is one of important skills for a person in for
academic life of a person as it helps them to get good grades and also improve their
communication skills (Matherly and Tillman, 2019). I have learned academic writing
skills in this module which helps me to get various opportunity in life. In this module, I
need to write about topic given by teachers and this helps to learn about writing styles
and allow me to complete project successfully.
 Online learning experience: Online learning experience is one of another thing which I
have learned in this module. Due to this covid-19 situation, I have taken class through
online mode which is completely new experience as before that physical model of
learning is in trend (Gopi and Perumal, 2019). Online mode of learning is new thing
which as person did not required to come in physical contact and can take classes from
any place. For this module, I have taken classes through online mode of learning.
I also have leaned various new things in this module which allow me to work in a group.
These module includes belbin's model and group thinking model which helps in completion of
work in group or team without any conflict. I also learn that various challenges occurred in life
of a person and we needs to take decision in order to overcome of challenges. In this situation, I
can also made schedule of various activity to be conducted in order to complete this assignment
on time which can helps us to assignment on time without any delay.
Action Plan: If I get this situation again then I will manage schedule in this ways which
helps us to complete work on time without putting any burden and also does not create needs to
cancel my other plans. This is one of best strategies to complete work on time without any

burden (Jorre de St Jorre and Oliver, 2018). Next time time when I get opportunity to complete
any work in group, we will plan our expectation before starting this assignment also also ensure
everyone get work of their interest and socialisation, There are various kills required for me in
future like referencing, time management skills. I also make sure that I will act differently as I
will not demotivate with failure and also motivate entire team.
CONCLUSION
From above mentioned project report, it can be concluded that academic skills and
employability skills are important for development of a person. It helps make them efficient and
also allow to complete a work effectively without any problems. There are different types of
skills required by a person including time management, negotiation, conflict resolution,
leadership, motivation, communication, problems solving, decision making, logical skills and
many more. All these skills are important in their own ways and helps individual in both
academic and professional life. This provide various good opportunity in life of a person and also
to get success, it is important to develop these skills. There are various institution which are
encouraging academic skills which motivate students to develop these skills and improve their
learning in their academic life.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alam, M. M., Islam, P. and Kabirul, M., 2017. Engagement of Student Mind in Problem Solving
for better Employability.
Bennett, D. and Ananthram, S., 2021. Development, validation and deployment of the
EmployABILITY scale. Studies in Higher Education, pp.1-15.
Bridgstock, R., 2019. Employability and career development learning through social media:
Exploring the potential of LinkedIn. In Challenging future practice possibilities (pp.
143-152). Brill Sense.
Caballero, G., Álvarez-González, P. and López-Miguens, M. J., 2020. How to promote the
employability capital of university students? Developing and validating scales. Studies
in Higher Education, 45(12), pp.2634-2652.
Ene, F. N., 2017. The English Language as a tool for enhancing employability in the 21st
Century: Focus on the reading skill. Journal of Qualitative Education, 12(1), pp.130-
137.
Firth, M., 2020. Employability and Skills Handbook for Tourism, Hospitality and Events
Students. Routledge.
Garcia-Esteban, S. and Jahnke, S., 2020. Skills in european higher education mobility
programmes: Outlining a conceptual framework. Higher Education, Skills and Work-
Based Learning.
Gopi, G. and Perumal, R., 2019. Factors that influence employability skills of management
students for economic development and sustainability. ZENITH International Journal of
Business Economics & Management Research, 9(8), pp.23-32.
Jorre de St Jorre, T. and Oliver, B., 2018. Want students to engage? Contextualise graduate
learning outcomes and assess for employability. Higher Education Research &
Development, 37(1), pp.44-57.
Matherly, C. and Tillman, M., 2019. Linking learning abroad and employability. In
Internationalization and employability in higher education (pp. 11-24). Routledge.