Personal and Professional Development

This essay discusses the importance of personal and professional development for higher education learners. It explores the skills required and provides insights on how to improve them. The essay also includes a reflective report using the Gibbs reflection model.

Personal and
Professional
Development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Reflective report...........................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Higher education skills could be defined as the abilities of individuals that can help them
to complete it systematically (Brewerton, 2019). There are various HE skills that are required by
the learners. These are communication, networking, empathy, team working, confidence, conflict
resolution, enthusiasm etc. Present essay is based upon the reflection of the skills that are
required to be developed by the HE learner.
MAIN BODY
Reflective report
Higher education could be defined as the university course which is attempted by
students for the purpose of meeting all the career goals and objectives. There are various types of
skills that are required by all the higher education learners so that they can achieve all their goals
and objectives. I am also a HE student and in order to meet all my desired goals and objectives I
am required to build all my skills and capabilities. In order to reflect the development of my
skills Gibbs reflection model could be used which can help to share the views or personal
experience with others. There are six different elements of this model that are discussed below:
Description: In order to complete the higher education all the individuals are required to
have specific skills that can help them to perform different types of tasks that are allocated
during the completion of education. Some of the specific skills that are required by all the HE
students are team working, presentation, communication, IT, decision making, problem solving
etc. Team working is the ability to work with individuals in group and communication could be
described as the way of interacting with others (Bromfield, 2017). IT skills are related to
working on MS word, PowerPoint, excel etc. to complete project. Decision making and problem
solving skills are related to formulation of better decisions and dealing with all the negative
situations systematically. As a HE learner all these capabilities are required to be developed by
me so that I can work in team, communicate effectively, formulate better decisions, deal with all
my problems, make presentations properly etc. If an individual pursuing higher education will
not be able to develop all these qualities then it will leave negative impact upon the capability of
meeting academic goals. I am having skills like communication, leadership, enthusiasm and
conflict resolution. There are various skills such as IT, presentation, decision making and team
working that are required to be developed by me that are lacking. For this purpose, I will be able
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to pay attention towards my personal and professional development that will facilitate me to
develop all capabilities to meet academic goals.
Feelings: While analysing the skills required by higher education learner I was very
attentive because I wanted to know about different capabilities that are required by individuals
who are willing to complete the selected course appropriately. The research about skills led me
towards assessment of all the required capabilities by all the individuals which can facilitate me
to complete my HE. While analysing the skills I determined that I am lacking some of them and
due to this I felt very low. With the continuation of the qualities I tried to improve my skills that
helped me to meet all the desired goals and objectives (DOGAN, 2018).
Evaluation: At this stage, I evaluated my experience of researching about the skills that
are required by all the individuals pursuing higher education. During the completion of research
all the things went well. I analysed all the required skills, tried to determine that I am having all
of them or not and assessed the reasons due to which I am lacking the qualities. The main
evaluation which was made by me was related to skills of HE learner. These are academic
writing, presentation, team working, communication, IT, problem solving, decision making,
enthusiasm etc. With the help of research of all of them I analysed that I am lacking capabilities
such as IT, presentation, decision making and team working. The main thing that haven't went
well was time which was taken by me to research because of weak decision making skills. Due
to this I was not able to formulate decision easily that took time to analyse the capabilities
(Velliaris, 2017).
Analysis: At this stage, I analysed the appropriate execution of all the planned activities
that were decided by me in advance for completing the research of skills required for HR
learners. The whole research work went well because I was able to gather information of the
qualities for learners. The good thing about the experience of researching the skills was that it
helped me to understand the qualities that are required by the individuals who are willing to
pursue higher education. The bad thing about the experience was the time which was very high
because of my weak skills. In this situation all the tutors helped me whenever I needed their
support and their knowledge helped me to deal with all the negative situations that may occur
while researching the skills (Golightley, 2018).
Conclusion: During the completion of the research work of skills I learned that it is very
important for an individual to be good in communication and team working and other
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capabilities as it can help them to achieve academic goals and objectives. Apart from this, while
analysing the skills I developed different qualities of mine that are team working, problem
solving, decision making etc.
Action plan: I have planned that if in future I will be performing same activity then I will
make sure that I interact with more and more people so that they can guide me through out the
completion of the task. It can help me to perform the future tasks in systematic manner and deal
with negative situation differently (Kabilan, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that personal and professional
development is required to be focused by all the higher education learners as it can help them to
improve their skills. Some of the main qualities that are required by them are problem solving,
decision making, communication, team working etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Brewerton, T. D., Alexander, J. and Schaefer, J., 2019. Trauma-informed care and practice for
eating disorders: personal and professional perspectives of lived experiences. Eating
and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity. 24(2). pp.329-338.
Bromfield, N. F. and Capous-Desyllas, M., 2017. Photovoice as a pedagogical tool: Exploring
personal and professional values with female Muslim social work students in an
intercultural classroom setting. Journal of Teaching in Social Work. 37(5). pp.493-512.
DOGAN, Z. Y. and ALTUN, S., 2018. The Effects of the Research Lesson Study (RLS) Model
on Teachers' Professional Development. International Online Journal of Educational
Sciences. 10(3).
Golightley, M. and Holloway, M., 2018. The Personal and Professional: Towards a Holistic
Knowledge Base.
Kabilan, M. K., 2016. Using Facebook as an e-portfolio in enhancing pre-service teachers’
professional development. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology. 32(1).
Velliaris, D. M. and Pierce, J. M., 2017. Personal and professional perceptions: Pre-university
pathway programs, pedagogy, and praxis. In Accelerated Opportunity Education
Models and Practices (pp. 74-99). IGI Global.
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