Professional Development Strategies

This assignment requires students to examine various research papers on professional development in education. It focuses on understanding effective strategies for teacher growth and their influence on student learning. Key areas include the impact of different professional development models, mentoring programs, blended learning approaches, and the role of leadership in fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

PERSONAL
AND
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Approaches to self managed learning...................................................................................1
1.2 Ways in which life long learning can be encouraged in personal and professional context.2
1.3 Benefits of self managed learning.........................................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Current skills and competencies against personal standards and organisation objectives....3
2.2 Own needs of development and activities required to meet them........................................5
2.3 Development opportunities in order to meet current and future needs.................................6
2.4 Personal and professional development plan based on identified needs...............................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Process and activities required to implement development plan..........................................7
3.2 Undertaking and documenting developing activities as planned..........................................8
3.3 Own learning against original aim and objectives set in developmental plan .....................9
3.4 Updating of developmental plan based on feedback and evaluation....................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
4.1 Select solution to work based problems..............................................................................10
4.2 Learning styles that helps in resolving issues.....................................................................10
4.3 Different time management strategies for individual and organisation..............................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
In today's competitive world it is necessary for the people to enhance their skills. This
helps to stabilise their place at the workplace as well as grow as an individual. Personal and
professional development add value to the workers in terms of their potential of growth. Personal
development not only works individuals at organisations but also in the society. There are many
ways to learn that includes learning from other person's experience, society, self evaluation etc.
These development helps employees in increasing their strengths which ultimately helps
individuals to grab opportunities available in the surrounding (Moon, 2013). This ultimately will
lead to path of success. This report focuses on the needs to develop personally as well as
professionally. It also showcases several learning methods and their effectiveness in solving
work based problems. It also highlights that these plans needs to be updated from time to time on
the basis of feedbacks and evaluation from the senior managers.
TASK 1
1.1 Approaches to self managed learning
One of the best ways to learn is learning by self management. It plays a vital role in
personal and professional development. People raise their skills by learning to several methods
like seminar, books, conferences, meetings etc. Some of these approaches to self managed
learning is as follows:
 Seminars or conferences: These helps individuals to enhance their skills by listening to
master of the particular areas for which these events have been organised. Here people
assemble so as to share their experience and gather knowledge by listening to different
personalities.
 Internet: One of most used approaches to self managed learning. It is even cheaper than
conferences and seminars and can help people in their personal and professional
development (Kumari, 2011). It just not limit us to listen to few personalities but by using
this a person can learn from numerous persons around the world. Other than this people
can access large amount of documents using internet which carries informations about
required skills.

 Social media: One of the greatest platform to share views and interact with people
around the globe. By these interactions people can adopt any procedures of personality
development from the personalities who have already tested these.
Apart from this there is a different learning style that is suggested by Neil Fleming. It is
known as VAK/VARK. This model is defined by two sensory modalities:
 Visual learning - It includes the depiction of information in maps, spider diagrams,
charts, graphs, flow charts, labelled diagrams, and all the symbolic arrows, circles,
hierarchies and other devices, that people use to represent what could have been
presented in words.
 Auditory learning – It entails to talking out loud as well as talking to oneself. Often
people with this preference want to sort things out by speaking first, rather than sorting
out their ideas and then speaking.
 Read/Write learning – It is used for information displayed as words. Not surprisingly,
many teachers and students have a strong preference for this mode. Being able to write
well and read widely are attributes sought by employers of graduates.
 Kinesthetic Learning – It is concerned to the use of experience and practice. It includes
demonstrations, simulations, videos and movies of “real” things, as well as case studies,
practice and applications.
This method suggested that visual learners have a preference for seeing in the form of
graphs, charts, diagrams, symbols etc. On the other hand auditory learners learns through
lectures, discussion, tapes etc. and tactile learners prefer to learn through experience like
moving, touching etc.
1.2 Ways in which life long learning can be encouraged in personal and professional context
Life long learning is a concept that focuses on setting and long and short term goals.
Several ways of life long learning can be encouraged in personal and professional development
(Avalos, 2011). Life long learning is not a day long process it is adapted in the due course of
lifetime. Some of the ways are as follows:
 Self motivation: It is one of the most important ways of adapting any kind of learning. In
order to develop any skills self motivation plays an important role. It helps to encounter
depression, negativity and moral failure during the learning process.

 Self motivation: It is way of organising life in an order. No skills can be developed if
proper management of own lifestyle is not done. Self management requires certain
principle, codes and self respects.
 Self modification: It is important for the persons to make modification in themselves on
regular basis. These modifications can be on the basis of requirements of life and can be
based on the evaluation and feedbacks received by others. Making role models helps in
this process.
 Self monitoring: A person must know about his strength or weakness. It can be found
out by monitoring themselves on the regular basis. In professional world it helps in
scrutinizing person's ability and skills. This involves analysis of talent, skill, value,
interest and skills.
1.3 Benefits of self managed learning
Self managed learning plays a key role in development of personal as well as professional
skills. Self managed learning is a easier and reliable process, it may take time but is very
effective (Elliott, 2011). It enhances people core strength and helps to tackle weakness. It not
only benefits individuals but organisations also. Its benefit could be understood by following
points:
Benefits to organisation:
 Self managed learning enhance employee skills will ultimately effects the growth of an
organisation.
 It helps to increase workers effectiveness and efficiency which helps to increase
productivity of the firm.
 In order to achieve goals and objectives by using limited resources in a given time frame
it is important for the organisations to have set of skilled labourers which can be achieved
by self managed learning (Hadar and Brody, 2013).
 Organisations does not have to invest a lot on the skill development programmes as
person learns by themselves.
Benefits to individuals:
 It helps individuals to compete with other colleagues and co workers.
 It helps individual to grow as an employee which helps them to perform their assigned
responsibility in a better way.

 It also helps employees to tackle work based problems in an organisation.
 During learning process people can gather a large set of knowledge about concept that is
present in every day operations.
TASK 2
2.1 Current skills and competencies against personal standards and organisation objectives.
There are certain standards that are prevalent in an organisation, evaluating own skills
and competencies against the professional benchmarks is necessary. It is important for an
individual to develop skills as per the given standards. There are certain standard deciding
criteria and these are illustrated by following points:
 Conceptual skill: These are important skills for an individual. It helps to identify
organisational opportunities, understanding upcoming threats and boosting up
improvement process. It helps to grab informations that is necessary from population
parameter (Stern and Brackett, 2012). Conceptual skill assist individual in making instant
presentation and presenting them, designing business models and other endless actions at
the required times.
 Effectiveness skills: It is a method of setting up priority list and show performances. To
maintain project standards it is important for the worker to increase the effectiveness of
their skills. It helps to bargain, evaluate and implement procedures that helps to achieve
quality standards in a firm.
 Interpersonal skills: One of the important skill set in the persons life that not only helps
people in their professional life but also assist growth in personal life. These skills can be
learned by learning from training, seminars or gathering knowledge from the books or
online documents (Maskit, 2011). Interpersonal skills boosts standards of their
functionality which gives them competitive edge over their co-workers.
 Communicative skills: It is one of the most important skill that needs to be present in
every employee. It helps them to grow as a leader in the working era that demands team
working. Using communicative skills a person can manipulate others which is required at
certain times.
These are some professional standards that must be present in every employee. Evaluation table
against the professional standards is shown by this table.

Sl.
No.
Skills and Competencies Score Score from
others
Variances
1 Skills to solve problems 7 8 -1
2 Team building and managing 6 7 -1
3 Good listener and advisor 5 7 -2
4 Research associated with new concept and methods 8 6 2
5 Providing motivation 6 5 1
6 Effectiveness and efficiency of mine 7 6 1
7 Quality standards 7 9 -2
8 Effective as a team member 9 9 0
9 Style of leadership 7 5 2
Positive value shows my strengths and Negative values represent my weaknesses. My
CV according to the above evaluation table.
Name:
Address:
Telephone number:
Email:
Carrier Objective: To grow as an individual while using my skills for the organisation's success
as well as learning from the experience I would gain.
Academic Qualification:
 Graduate Masters in Human resource
Experience: Working in Volkswagen from past one year
Personal skills:

 Overcoming issues
 Leadership skills
 Honesty
 Time management Team spirit
Declaration:
I solemnly declare that all mentioned information are correct up to best of my knowledge.
2.2 Own needs of development and activities required to meet them.
Analysis of my own capabilities against the professional standards helps us to know our
core competencies. It helped me in determining my needs that has to be fulfilled in order to
develop my own abilities (Zepeda, 2012). Some of these are as follows:
 Increasing research skills especially when subjected to any condition.
 Improving managerial capabilities.
 Approach utilisation.
 Acceptance of responsibility.
There are various other activities that help in this process:
 Guidance by managers: In order to develop and improve decision making process
managerial guidance is necessary and it can be provided by the senior managers.
 Conferences and seminars: These activities improves the skill and knowledge of
individual by listening to experts of any particular field.
 Simulation training: To enhance persons own ability a virtual environment is created
around him. This helps to develop skills. Organisations provide these training programs.
2.3 Development opportunities in order to meet current and future needs
There are various developmental opportunities that come to a person then need to grasp
all these in order to meet current and future needs (Reeves, 2012). Several actions are taken in
order to achieve short and long term needs. Some of these activities are as follows:
 Engaging more number of people in decision making process. This helps in increasing
the confidence level of the employees.
 Attending mindset changing programs or sessions. This will bring positivity in them.

 Libraries can be beneficial in improving research skill. They have a wide range of books
that has authenticated content.
 Designing and implementing goals using SMART criteria. It helps them to achieve them
on time.
 Participating in the conferences and seminars can help in this process.
Current needs – At the current stage, I am not capable to do tasks effectively. In this
manner, I have to do improve my efficiencies so as to meet future goals. Firstly, I need to
improve my communication skills so as to interact with people and express my ideas and
thoughts in front of others. In addition, I also have to my boost up my other areas also, like –
strategic planning, personal development, leading people, problem solving skills so as to perform
effectively at workplace. Due to my quick adaptability I can get knowledge in subject matters.
Future needs – My current skills helps me to accomplish my future goals and objectives.
My goal is to become senior HR manager at workplace. For this I need to upgrade my current
skills and knowledge. This will help me to improve the level of thinking which is related with
personal and professional life.
2.4 Personal and professional development plan based on identified needs
There are several identified needs and PPD plan based on these is illustrated below:
SL.
no.
LEARNING
OBJECTIVE
/GOAL
CURRENT
PROFICIENCY
TARGET
PROFICIENCY
DEVELOPM
ENT
OPPORTUNI
TIES
CRITERIA
FOR
JUDGING
SUCCESS
TIME
SCALE
EVIDENC
E
1 Effectiven
ess and
efficiency
Methods used
for this
purpose is not
effective now.
Adopting new
ways and tools
will provide
required
results. I need
to use
Guidance
provided by
seniors.
Using
Performan
ce report
3 months
minimum.
Judgeme
nt by
administr
ator.

2 Leadershi
p style
Right now
used
leadership
style is
authoritative
or parental.
Required to
adopt
democratic
style of
leadership.
Could learn
from other
experienced
managers.
Simulation
training can
help in this
process.
Judgement
report by
senior
managers.
1 week Top
managem
ent's
report.
3 Motivatio
nal skills
Negativity
inside me
needs to be
removed so as
to grow as an
individuals.
Theories of
motivation can
be beneficial
in this context
and should be
used.
Conferences
, workshops
and
motivational
speeches on
professional
development
.
Co-
workers
judgement
can be
used
1 month colleague
s and co-
ordinate's
judgeme
nt.
4. Communi
cational
style
Modulating
voice tones
has to be
removed
Having
excellent
speech giving
quality
Guidance
from the
senior
managers
Co
workers
judgement
2 months Coordina
tes
judgeme
nt report.
5. Problem
solving
skills
Lack
knowledge to
resolve work-
based
problems and
Having
effective
problem
solving skills
so as to
Need to
attend
seminars,
conferences
and group
Judgement
of senior
managers
or higher
authorities
1 months. Taking
feedback
s and
reviews
from

identify
proper
solution for
the same.
establish
healthy
working
environment.
meetings in
order to
improve my
this skill.
. managers
.
6. Time
managem
ent skills
Failed to do
task before
their time
schedule.
Complete
tasks before
their time
period so as to
review them
and make
necessary
improvements
Helps in
doing all
tasks and
activities in
an effective
manner.
With the
guidance
of top
manageme
nt and my
colleagues
.
15 days. Getting
review
form
higher
authoritie
s.
There are several needs that has to be mentioned in the above developmental plan and has
to be addressed in the most suitable ways so that they do not miss any opportunity available to
them.
TASK 3
3.1 Process and activities required to implement development plan
There are various activities and process that assists in developmental plan
implementation. For upgrading current skills and abilities these plans are important (Calderhead,
Denicolo and Day, 2012). Implementing these activities in a proper way is important in order to
attain success. Some of these processes are as follows:
 Setting up time scale: In order to achieve success from a plan it is important to set time
limit for its completion. Without time limit plans cannot be effective.
 Strategies of learning: There are numerous approaches and styles which can be adopted
for learning (Nicholls, 2014). These strategies differs from person to person as per the
requirement and suitability of the condition.
 Assessment of knowledge, skills and abilities: For task achievement, individual needs to
access all three skills, abilities and knowledge in a efficient manner. Proper utilisation of
these three as per requirement helps in doing work properly.

 Resources: Resources like internet, journals,guide, research materials, books etc. can be
used for completion of learning process.
 Evaluation and feedback: To identify quality of training as well as learning process it is
important to do continuous evaluation. It is required for constructing training process as
per requirement. It helps to find out gap between performance and organisational
standards. Feedbacks on the other hand helps to sort out various work related problems in
effective way.
3.2 Undertaking and documenting developing activities as planned
To evaluate activities it is important to undertake and document activities. To remove and
improve variances numerous activities are undertaken which are as follows:
 Change management: In any learning process it is important to document every changes.
Usually managers or other administrators records or administers these changes. If not
managed properly then it will be hard to give feedback.
 Learning strategies: Proper implementation of these activities assists company in
registering high level growth rate. Learning strategy must be based on the requirement of
the individuals.
 Research: This activity is done to accumulate data related to various day to day activities
of workers. This is done by the managers so as to understand the future requirements of
the firm, skills and qualities of employees as well as changes that are required in the
training.
 Monitoring and evaluation: To find variances activities needs to be evaluated. Evaluation
can only be done when proper documentation is done (Hudson, 2013). Monitoring
activities helps to address prevalent issues in a desired manner.
Below mentioned different activities which are required involved in personal and
professional development plan: -
 Aligning training plan with business strategies
 Highlighting certain skill gaps so as improve flexibility level of human resources.
 Prioritizes action needs so as to address fastly and effectively.
 The work which have undertaken should be measured on periodically basis.

3.3 Own learning against original aim and objectives set in developmental plan
It is essential to give time to personal and professional development so as to progress on
the path of our goals, ambition and aspirations. Reflecting towards personal and professional
developmental plan can give idea how to improve our plans, what sort of things needs to be
added to plans can be determined by this (Glogowska and et. al., 2011). There are various ways
that can be used to evaluate our own learning mechanism. These are as follows:
 Formal meeting: Individuals must present their growth report in front of their seniors like
managers. For re-development of plan this is necessary as these formal meetings helps to
identify issues that cannot be identified just by self evaluation.
 Using experience of others: Experienced personnels and seniors can assist an individual
in updating his/her plan. Using other's experience helps in formulating and reshaping
plans, adding points which could result in failure.
 Self motivation: Any plan made for the developmental process will fail without self
motivation. These come from inside and encourages people to go for a change. Zeal to
achieve something helps in the success of learning process.
3.4 Updating of developmental plan based on feedback and evaluation
Developmental plans needs to be updated on regular basis. This is based on the
evaluation and feedback by senior members. Feedbacks helps in plan reconstruction which
assists individuals in tackling various situations (Lumpe and et. al., 2012). These updation must
be on regular basis so that it could fill the desired objective. Some of the activities that needs to
be done in order to develop a plan are as follows:
 Changing training methodologies: It is important to change training methodologies as
per the requirement. Without changing training methodologies from time to time it is
almost impossible to meet the desired outcome from the plan.
 Different approaches: Individuals needs to adopt different styles or approaches that can
be used to make learning process effective. Following different styles helps in making
plans multi dimensional i.e. its applicability increases.
 Motivational requirement: For a worker to develop his/her professional personality
motivation is highly important. By keeping motivational level high helps in achieving
task in a proper manner. Motivational requirements can be fulfilled by reading stories,
listening to speeches of eminent personalities.

TASK 4
4.1 Select solution to work based problems
There are various problems that arises at workplace in an organisation. All these issues
needs to be resolved. One such work based problem and its solution is as follows:
Cooperative working: In today's business community working as a team has become important.
Collaborative working style has become the need of the hours in today's competitive world. In
my company there is lack of team spirit and flow of informations at various levels is also poor. It
needs to be understood that Lack of coordination results in loses (Pallisera and et. al., 2013). To
proper utilisation of resources and achieving sustainable growth it is important to work as a part
of team. It not only helps to achieve task easily but also helps individual in their learning
procedures. There are several solutions to solve this problem they are as:
 Developing communication channels: It is role of top leadership or management to
develop effective channels for making communication easier. Creating environment
where interaction at various levels is easy. Communication channels needs to be flexible
so as to adjust according to the culture and requirement.
 Reduction of confusion about organisational structure: Top management needs to ensure
that there is no confusion in the minds of people regarding organisational structure. This
is important as any confusion regarding persons role play in an organisation can lead to
decrease in his/her performance. Re induction training can help in clarifying individual's
doubt.
 Team building exercises: These exercises are done so as to inculcate feeling of oneness
among employees. Team building exercises helps individuals in sharing each others
experiences. It helps to evolve leader among them. This can be in the form of games, quiz
or some event that is different from organisations day to day activities. These exercises
needs to be done on regular basis.
4.2 Learning styles that helps in resolving issues
In a company various learning styles are used in order to resolve or tackle various
identified problems. Every employee has different methods in which they learn. Selection of
learning styles is is on the basis of employees requirement (Horsford, Grosland and Gunn,
2011). Sometime senior officials like managers can help in this selection process. Changes are

hard to adapt but its the role of manager to convince employees for adopt these changes. Solitary,
logical and verbal are three type of styles using which new styles are developed.
Established channels are used to communicate through different levels of an organisation
like managers uses direct instructions and controlling style of communication. It is important for
having control on the sub ordinates (Huber, 2011). Managers uses supportive style for
interactions at strategic levels. This is highly beneficial when they needs to motivate employees
to adapt any changes. Managers also makes use of styles like analyser and promoter for
understanding employees perception.
Apart from this there are other four learning styles:
 Activist: These are those people who learn by doing and learn from experience.
 Theorist: These people seeks to understand the theory behind the action. They enjoy
following models and learning up facts.
 Pragmatist: These people want to know how to put their learning in the practical world.
 Reflector: These are the people that learns by watching people and thinking about waht's
happening.
Communication styles
 Passive communication - The goal with this type of communication is to avoid conflict.
Rather than risk causing some sort of upset, the Passive Communicator will avoid
expressing his or her own opinions and will accept those of others instead.
 Aggressive communication - Aggressive communication has a lot to do with trying to
protect one's own ideas and opinions. It is concerned with having his or her ideas
accepted that they often do so at the expense of others.
 Passive aggressive communication - It tend to avoid obvious conflict, but there is still a
need to manipulate the situation. The individual appears to go along with decisions but
does so in order to get revenge later.
 Assertive communication - It includes really sharing opinions, as well as advocating for
one's own rights.
4.3 Different time management strategies for individual and organisation.
Time management is important in any context whether it is personal life or professional
life. Managing time helps to boost rate of target achievement that too effectively in a given time
frame. There are various time management strategies available, some of them are as follows:

 Setting objectives: It is important to set long and short goals. Setting objectives helps in
focusing on only particular task and helps in achieving it on time.
 Scheduling: One of the important part methods of time management is scheduling tasks.
Any strategies used has to managed in an order.
 Organise: In order to make effective utilisation of resources it is important for the
organisation's officials to organise their available resources that will be used as an when
required.
 Time bound: All tasks and objectives must be time bound. Time bounding helps to have
competitive edge over others (Hardré, 2012).
 Focused: Workers needs to be focused on their efforts in order to complete task on time.
 Proactive: This approach or method suggests that managers take care of all activities in a
pro active manner so as to gain knowledge about performance of employees.
To do list
TASK Priority (Important, Very Important)
To make schedule for the program Very Important
To arrange resources for the training sessions Very important
Arranging the persons that will deliver the
lecture
Important
Regular Monitoring and evaluation Very Important
Feedbacks from seniors Important
CONCLUSION
From the above based report it can be seen that personal and professional development
plays an important role in growth of an individual. It helps them to grab opportunities available
in the surrounding. Self managed learning is one of the best ways to enhance or add skills in the
personal profile. Feedbacks from managers can help workers in their learning process.

Magazines, conferences are some of the tool that can used to make plans that are acoording to
our requirement. Time management strategies and leadership styles helps in resolving problems
related to workplace.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Moon, J.A., 2013. Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice.
Routledge.
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Avalos, B., 2011. Teacher professional development in teaching and teacher education over ten
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