Individual Reflection on Personal and Professional Development

This individual reflection discusses the skills gained through attending a program on personal and professional development, utilizing Gibbs reflective cycle for reflection, and an action plan for achieving transferable skills through teamwork experience. The skills gained include communication, critical thinking, digital literacy, teamwork, time and self-management, and problem-solving abilities. An action plan is provided for enhancing leadership, problem-solving, and critical analysis skills.

Individual Reflection
Personal and
Professional
Development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Skills learnt by attending this programme.......................................................................................1
Gibbs reflective cycle......................................................................................................................3
Action plan to achieve transferable skills through teamwork experience.......................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Personal and professional development can be related to the combination of various
approaches, techniques, methods, ideologies and models that are helpful to manage and enhance
the personal and professional growth activities of an individual through continuous learning.
Personal professional development is very important for improving the academic skills to
achieve success in studies as well as to enhance the career/professional growth for achieving the
results effectively. This individual reflection will discuss the skills that I have developed by
attending the programme and how it will be helpful to achieve academic and career growth. It
will utilise Gibbs reflective cycle for reflecting over the learnings and skills that I obtain from the
programme.
Skills learnt by attending this programme
The professional development and personal development are all pervasive that requires
continuous learning and experimentation (Alt, 2018). I understood that personal and professional
development can be explained as the activity of managing the learning and growth process
professional and academic career with the help of various approaches, frameworks, ideologies
and methods. I was uninformed of many skills and abilities but various activities during the
session taught me the following skills. The skills that I gained by attending this programme are
as follows:
 Communication skills: It refers to the ability of an individual to interact with others with
definite and precise actions or words that drive meaning (Cosenza and Buchanan eds.,
2018). Communication is a transferable skill and with the help of this program I was able
to interact with the people more effectively to improve my influence on them. Initially I
was not good at talking with the people around me but I followed other people who were
good at talking to others. I understood that listening is very essential for communicating
properly with others and there must be open mindedness, adequate attention and proper
body language for improving the communication activities.
 Critical thinking: I learnt that critical thinking is the ability of an individual to think of
new ideas, methods, procedures etc. that can be helpful in identifying solutions to the
problems or developing new things. The critical thinking ability was developed by me
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when we were assigned with different tasks such as conflict resolution and analytical
skills for assimilating new information and ideas.
 Digital literacy: In the rapidly developing world and greater levels of technology
advancement the use of digital technology has created the requirement for digital literacy
and technology skills. I was trying to take my hands on to the use of technology because
it is very important to handle technology so that success can be achieved. We are also
required to develop the information communication technology skills for enhancing the
use of ICT during the programme. With the help of digital literacy and ICT skills I was
able to use various social media platforms, video conferencing, website, online calling,
etc. which was helpful to enhance the study skills and employability.
 Teamwork and networking: It can be elaborated as the ability to work in groups and
with other people for obtaining common objectives or goals (Ding and Bruce, 2017).
During the program teamwork activities became very necessary and everyone needed to
interact with each other for developing better results and achieving the objectives before
deadlines. I am not very good at team work and networking but the activities with my
team members went well. With the help of supportive team members I was able to work
with others and improve the coordinative actions for getting a higher level of
performance and achieve the objectives on time.
 Time and self-management: I developed time management skills during the programme,
which refers to the ability to complete the task effectively without wasting time. During
the module I was able to schedule my tasks so that waste full activities can be eliminated
and the goals can be obtained effectively. To utilize the time in a more effective manner I
scheduled my personal activities and started self-management for reducing the wastage of
time by regulating the time for using smartphones, going out to doors, studying, gaming
etc.
 Problem solving abilities: Problem solving can be explained as the ability of an
individual to identify the reasons for a problem and create effective solutions to overcome
them (DiPaola and Wagner, 2018). With the help of conflict resolution activities I
developed the ability of problem solving during the programme. With the help of
problem solving ability I determined the problems and created a mind map for
eliminating those problems effectively. During the program I had to face many problems
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regarding the completion of assignments, conflict among the team members, query
resolution, etc.
With the help of the program that I have attended in the university, I developed these skills
and abilities that can be helpful to improve the future career or profession, personal growth,
employability and academic success.
Gibbs reflective cycle
It is a model or a framework that is helpful to reflect on the learnings and experience of an
individual to identify and understand what skills and abilities have been developed by an
individual through a module, program, course work, etc. Gibbs reflective cycle for describing my
learning and development activities during the program is given below.
 Description: During the starting of the programme I was completely a newbie. In this
time interaction was necessary so I learnt ways for communicating effectively with the
other fellow mates regarding various aspects (Lillis and Bravenboer, 2020). During the
activities of seminars, group discussions, lectures, extempore etc. in the program I was
able to understand and develop better abilities for communicating with others. During
these activities we needed to understand the concepts and share our experience through
verbal communication as well as written report presentations that were helpful to harness
our ability of communication.
 Feelings: During the group work assignment in the module I started to work with others
and developed coordination and collaboration among each other for achieving the
objectives effectively and efficiently. Because of this, I started to work with the people
and also developed effective leadership abilities through problem solving, decision
making, coordination, etc. I learnt about various concepts of improving leadership
activities such as proper dialect, charming, expression, use of words, efforts etc.
 Evaluation: During the programme everything happened according to the plans and
skills and abilities that I obtained through this were also fantastic. I faced challenges with
the digital literacy and ICT skills because I do not have much knowledge about the use of
ICT and digital technology. During the programme I developed my abilities and
understanding about information communication technology with the help of continuous
learning and development.
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 Analysis: I think that our initial decision for working in teams was a great decision that
helped to improve natural collaboration and effective team building through better
leadership activities. Each and every member of the team supported each other and
created positive assumptions for achieving the common objectives or goals (Link, 2020).
I realised that a person must possess certain abilities such as problem solving,
communication, critical thinking, time management, etc. for becoming an effective
person in a team.
 Conclusion: During the programme I understood various concepts of professional and
personal growth that can be gained by achieving certain skills and abilities. I came to
know that the skills such as communication, team working, time management, problem
solving, critical thinking, and digital skills are helpful to improve the overall professional
and employability skills along with the personal development (Matthews and Pilkington,
2018).
I have identified some of the challenging skills like leadership, problem solving and critical
analysis that I must focus on developing. It is important to understand that these transferable
skills would help in improving my abilities to handle multiple aspects of personal and
professional skills. I have many skills at which I am very good like communication, time
management, decision making, ICT/digital literacy, etc. In order to develop those skills at which
I am not good, an action plan is given.
Action plan to achieve transferable skills through teamwork experience
Objectives Resources Action plans Measuring criteria Time
required
Leadership Efforts of team
members and
their support for
enhancing the
performance of
the group for
Through active
participation in the
team meetings,
group discussions,
decision making,
etc. for enhancing
Comparing my past
records with the
present performance
within the team.
One month
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achieving
common
objectives and
goals.
the coordination
among the group
members (Succi and
Canovi, 2020).
Problem
solving
Volunteering for
the activities of
team performance
enhancement,
participating in
the conflict
resolution
activities, etc.
Focusing on
resolving the
conflicts, actively
engaging with the
trade associates,
feedbacks, grievance
redressal etc.
The ability to
resolve the conflicts
among the team
members and other
people to evaluate
my ability.
Two months
Critical
analysis
Participating in
the critical
analysis activities,
mathematical
activities and the
knowledge centre
activities for
developing the
critical analysis
skills.
Understanding the
concepts of
analytical solutions
and optimising the
use of critical
writing activities for
given assignments.
Identifying the
performance levels
by analysing the
situation (Toews and
Zagona, 2022).
Two months
Enhancing these skills could improve the chances of achieving greater academic and
professional success in future. With the help of these skills I will overcome my shortcomings to
handle problematic situations, manage teams and become a good leader. The improvements in
these skills would provide greater opportunities to enhance academic, professional and personal
growth.
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CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the report that personal and professional development is very
important for an individual to improve their academic, personal and career growth. Moreover,
the report has described certain skills such as communication skills, critical thinking, digital
literacy etc. that have been attained by an individual through a program. Furthermore, Gibbs
reflective cycle is utilised for reflecting on the experiences and the skills that were developed by
attending this programme. Finally, an action plan has been developed for achieving more of the
transferable skills through teamwork activities like leadership, problem solving etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alt, D., 2018. Science teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning, ICT efficacy, ICT
professional development and ICT practices enacted in their classrooms. Teaching and
teacher Education, 73. pp.141-150.
Cosenza, M. and Buchanan, M. eds., 2018. Visions from professional development school
partners: Connecting professional development and clinical practice. IAP.
Ding, A. and Bruce, I., 2017. The English for academic purposes practitioner. Cham,
Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
DiPaola, M. and Wagner, C. A., 2018. Improving instruction through supervision, evaluation,
and professional development. IAP.
Lillis, F. and Bravenboer, D. W., 2020. The best practice in work-integrated pedagogy for degree
apprenticeships in a post-viral future. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based
Learning.
Link, C., 2020. A Quantitative Assessment of the Effectiveness of a Global Online Professional
Development Course to Enhance 21st Century Skills in STEM Instructional
Design (Doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri-Saint Louis).
Matthews, L. and Pilkington, R., 2018. Developing Teaching Standards: A professional
development perspective. In Handbook of quality assurance for university teaching (pp.
397-408). Routledge.
Succi, C. and Canovi, M., 2020. Soft skills to enhance graduate employability: comparing
students and employers’ perceptions. Studies in Higher Education, 45(9). pp.1834-1847.
Toews, S. G. and Zagona, A., 2022. Collaborative Professional Development to Support
Inclusive Instruction. Inclusive Practices. p.27324745211039745.
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