Personal Development Portfolio - Academic Skills, Reflective Statement, Action Plan

This report provides details about designing the personal portfolio which helps in reflecting on acquiring various skills for being and effective students in the business management in the higher education. It includes academic skills, reflective statement, and action plan.

Personal development
portfolio

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
ACADEMIC SKILLS ....................................................................................................................4
Portfolio evidence ...........................................................................................................................4
Portfolio evidence ...........................................................................................................................5
Portfolio evidence ...........................................................................................................................5
Portfolio evidence............................................................................................................................5
REFLECTIVE STATEMENT .......................................................................................................6
Reflection on being an effective student of Business Management in higher education............6
Reflection on how acquisition of skills through completion of this module would assist me to
achieve personal and future success............................................................................................6
Explanation of two models of academic and personal development and how this has improved
my learning. ....................................................................................................................................7
Model 1 - Gibbs reflective model ...............................................................................................8
Model 2 kolb model ....................................................................................................................9
ACTION PLAN ..............................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills are mainly defined as the abilities which helps in achieving success in
future career these skills mainly helps in making better future career in the business
management. Various skills are important for achieving future success as it helps in achieving
greater heights in pursuing the business management career. Being the effective students in the
business management mainly helps in describing about being organized and planning for
scheduling the being organised for achieving the desired results. In this project report it provides
details about designing the personal portfolio which helps in reflecting on acquiring various
skills for being and effective students in the business management in the higher education. Also
reflecting with using the four evidence for explaining the examples for giving specific references
for developing the lacking areas in the personal development.
ACADEMIC SKILLS
As we all know that academic skills plays a vital role in the students' life as it motivate
them to become more effective learners. In today's environment, the leaders provide guidance to
learners by which they can easily take participation in varied term of courses with confidence.
This will be helpful for them to achieve academic goals in the future. There are various sort of
skills which needs to be taken into consideration such as team working, collaboration skills,
communication, problem solving and decision-making etc. not only this there are some
important skills too, such as transferable skills which are significant for the success in the career
development field.
The academic skills that are really important in the higher education business
management studies and much required for educational purpose are as follows-
Portfolio evidence
Problem solving skills- It has been said that to be successful, one must have problem
solving skill. If an individual are effective in managing the frequent course of issues then they
have the best ability to maintaining the working and business functioning. Problem solving in the
company involves finding out conflicts between people and determining the major issues. The
leaders ascertain the suitable methods in order to handle issues with effective solutions. When
things are not in control, individual use effective solutions which helps them to achieve success.
With the help of problem solving skills the individual can easily solve issues which make them
unique from other staff members.

Portfolio evidence
Research skills- to be successful, one must have research skills as it is very helpful in
personal and professional life. Business management studies requires research skills as one must
know about how to search important topic which can support people to achieve success. While
having research skills, an individual can improve their time management skills, taking notes and
attention to detail.
Portfolio evidence
Communication and collaboration skills- in today's world, communication is a key to
success, basically it is termed as the act of sharing information and data which is important. This
can be in verbal, non verbal, oral and reading form (Gutiérrez-Puertas and et.al., 2020). With the
help of communication skills, an individual can enhance their performance and it will enable
them to coordinate with the staff members. By having communication skills, one can easily
resolve conflicts and build good relationship with each other. The individual in the business
management studies with having good communication and collaboration skills will directly
coordinate with people and can easily attain the management oriented targets in an effective
manner.
Portfolio evidence
Time management- in our daily lives, every people need to manage their time to achieve
success. When an individual wants to gain academic goals, they must have time management
skills. The reason behind that is that managing time will help to maximize study time and helps
to achieve success in higher education. In business management studies, time management is
really important as it involves proper planning, setting goals and targets, completing task on time
and prioritizing tasks which helps them to meet academic goals (Tawanwongsri and Phenwan,
2019).. The idea of working smarter and not always work harder is totally linked with time
management because when an individual manage time properly they are able to maximize their
productivity. It helps them to build time management abilities in their personal and professional
life.

REFLECTIVE STATEMENT
Reflection on being an effective student of Business Management in higher education.
Being an effective student is really important. During the completion of the module I
have learned so many new things which helped me achieve my goals. With the help of effective
academic skills, I am able to learn new things which provides me direction towards set targets.
My acquisition of skills through completion of this module has enabled me to be an effective
student of business management in higher education. By using time management skills I
scheduled all my actions which helped me to achieve my targets and requirements. Not only this
with the completion of this module I have achieved personal and future success which helped me
gain self-confidence. As we all know that reflection practice plays a vital role in the professional
lives of people because by using reflective practice in regular basis the students can easily reflect
on their experience, feelings and thoughts. With the help of self motivation skills, I am able to
maximize my performance during the learning that further helps me to enhance my abilities and
knowledge. The support of peers has made me capable to overcome with the issues I faced
during the module and helped to enhance team performance while having group discussion. With
the support of collaboration skills, I am able to achieve my learning criteria which can help me
deal with several issues. Skills like active listening skills, self motivation and planning has
allowed me to achieve my roles and responsibilities properly.
Reflection on how acquisition of skills through completion of this module would assist me to
achieve personal and future success.
With the completion of this module, I think I find that I have learn best from my personal
experience. Acquisition of skills would assist me to achieve my personal and future success in
following ways:
self motivation and self-confidence- With the help of self-confidence and self motivation
I am able to support my career. Motivation will support me in managing the desired behaviour
and help me create a positive environment while working in a team with varieties of personality.
By using motivation strategies, I am able to create positive culture and build relationship.
Team work- as we all know that team work plays a vital role in developing the
performance of organization. With the help of teamwork, I am able to maintain good relationship

with colleagues and other managerial stakeholders. Teamwork is the skills which can be
developed by doing work in team and group discussion. In order to attain group task team
members must perform in a group with an effective manner. Nowadays, organization hire those
people who are able to work in a team and have collaboration skills. They prefer individual with
such skills because people with team work can easily manage an effective work culture and
support the management of the organization to attain targets.
Accountability- accountability is also very important in achieving success in life. Team
members who are working in the same group must have this skills because it would assist them
to maintain organizational orientated targets effectively. By having accountability, I am able to
eliminates the effort and time I spend on distracting activities which is not beneficial for further
career goals. By having accountability, I will be able to increase my confidence level and
communicate better.
Adaptability- The team-mates who work effectively as per their roles and responsibilities
and manage team work with the motivate to attain the common task can easily adapt things
(Tawanwongsri and Phenwan, 2019). It is essential to adapt the positive work environment so
that it will provide them a comfort zone which is requited in the teamwork skills too. In the
context of organization, when managers assign any sort of roles and responsibilities among
people, then they need to accept it and be ready to perform work given by managers. They
should not complain about the dynamical variations otherwise it can hinder the performance of
team members.
From the above analysis, it has been noted that with the acquisition of such skills I am
able to have clear understanding of my strongest skills sets in the future success. With the
acquisition of these skills I can easily choose career fields and make improvement that best
utilize my strengths. Not only this, it would help me became flexible while learning new things
in future and keeps me open to new opportunities related to academic context.
Explanation of two models of academic and personal development and how
this has improved my learning.
Model 1 - Gibbs reflective model
Regarding the assessed of written group assessment, my group members and I decided to
divide the work into sections so that we only need to investigate one item at a time and does not

create any confusion between team-mates. I was excited and overwhelmed that it would have
been wise to distribute the task among teams as it can build a strong relationship between us, and
we all can exchange new ideas and thoughts with each other. However, if I don't reflect on my
own experience in higher education it is very hard for me to learn anything quickly. This is
where model like Gibbs reflective cycle is useful (Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, 2022). It is helpful for
me to make sense of situations at work, at classroom so that I can easily understand what I did
well, what are my strengths and what are weaknesses that needs to be improved immediately.
Not only this, by using Gibbs reflective model I am able to know about what I could do better in
the future. With the help of Gibbs model of reflection, I am able to describe about my feelings
during, after and before classroom sessions (Adeani, Febriani and Syafryadin, 2020). During the
module I felt that teamwork and collaboration is really important as it has helped me to achieve
my goals and task given in the higher education. My teacher told me and my team-mates to
present a presentation in a group on the topic of business management. But the situation is every
personality in the team has different perspective. So, it is essential for us to make collaboration
and teamwork during the module presentation. I felt that everyone was very positive towards
task but each and every person in the team has different experience, way of communication,
shared values, different culture and learning styles too. Keeping this in mind all the team
members have developed team-working and collaboration techniques to share knowledge and
skills. Everything was going well and in right direction during the module learning, but I was
feeling quite nervous as this was the first time I was about to present presentation in front of
others (Markkanen and et.al., 2020). But somehow with the help of teamwork or you can say
working with collaboration in a team with my peers has helped me develop some skills like
communication skills, problem solving skills and critical thinking skills. I have good
communication skills my peers says that but during the module I am able to enhance my
communication skills more. With the help of good communication skills and action plan I am
able to maintain strong relationship with others so that I can easily understand information more
accurately and quickly which is provided by them (Gutiérrez-Puertas and et.al., 2020). by having
action plan I am able to manage abilities in a more frequent manner within one year I need to
develop my skills which I am lacking behind in order to maximize my effectiveness of critical
thinking and decision-making process.

Model 2 kolb model
Another model which I prefer to use is kolb's reflective model.
With the help of kolb reflective model I am able to express my feeling about what just
happened during the module learning and able to share my experience. Each step of this model is
associated with various types of learning style which can make sure that it is used for hands on
learning. By having these four stages one can link between feelings, experience and thoughts all
together. Concrete Experience - Encounter new experiences and situations, or reinterpret existing
experiences.
 Abstract conceptualization - Abstract conceptualization leads to new ideas, thought or
modifications of present abstract concepts (people have learned from their experience). Reflexive observation - Reflexive observation of a particularly important new experience
is a contradiction between experience and understanding.
 Active experimental - Active experimental learners apply their thoughts to the world
around them to see what occurs.
ACTION PLAN
What I want to
learn?
What I have to
do?
What support
and resources
will I need?
How will I
measure success?
Target date for
review?

I want to
increase my
critical thinking
skills
As I am not
having good
critical thinking
skills I need some
improvement
through which I
will deal with
biases. While
doing work in
team I need good
critical thinking
skills
I am going to
attend online
classes and
seminars for
enhancement of
my personal
abilities. I will
also watch videos
and read blogs.
My team mates
provides me
effective
responses and
feedback that has
supported me in
my professional
life and academic
life as well.
Within 2 weeks I
am aware about
how I will be
capable to think
critically.
Decision making
skills
It is very
important to
develop decision-
making skills as
in future career
this skills is
required to
become effective
leader. By
improving
decision making
process I am able
to grasp more
opportunities.
I will take support
from my tutor and
attend online
classes and
seminar to create
an effective
decision.
I analyse such
abilities by asking
for response from
my team
members. They
elaborate me
whether I am
creating efficient
decisions or not.
Within 3 weeks
Leadership skills Basically it is an
ability that will
provide success
to people because
Blogs and
website
reading books
online training
I will track my
progress by
making
comparison I will
Within 6 months I
am going to
improve this
skills by spending

it motivates to
achieve goals and
inspires others.
resources will be
helpful
make sure to note
down and
compare abilities
of myself to
yesterday's self
and what more
things more
needed to
improve.
two hours daily
on regular basis
learning.
With the help of action plan, I am able to perform well in my role and follow my
responsibilities by having few steps. In relation to the higher education business management
studies, I will be using effective methods and techniques and take suitable benefits of diverse
section of activities to acquire in certain course of action.
For improving leadership and decision making skills
 Open communication methods
open communication plays a vital role during classroom sessions as it can help people to
know about each other feelings and perspectives. By having open communication in team I am
able to respond on other perspectives and appreciate them (Bourn, 2018). Not only this it can
provide me idea about what more improvement is needed to achieve goals and helped me
improve decision making process.
Further for developing the leadership skills, I will take various actions as for developing
and acquiring these skills which helps me in pursuing the better career in business management.
As when I was assigned for controlling the whole classroom as being the monitor this helped me
in learning the management skills as for coordinating with the individual and guiding as for
behaving in the class and maintaining the discipline.
 Attending workshops and seminars
I know that communication is very important so in order to improve it I am attending
workshops which helps me to achieve opportunities for networking. With the help of workshops
I am able to gain success as it inspired me to work better every day. Attending workshops not
only inspire people, but they can have fun while learning new things and develop their other

important skills. Focusing on attending seminars has helped me to gain expert knowledge,
improve my confidence level and improve networking with other which help to develop personal
knowledge too.
 Giving and receiving Feedback
Not only this asking feedback is also really important to improve communication and
teamwork within the team. When I ask feedback and opinion of other I can easily create mutual
trust between my peers (Tawanwongsri and Phenwan, 2019). With the support of feedback
method, I am able to improve my confidence level as I can know about my areas of improvement
and take actions to improve it on time.
For improving Critical thinking skills
 Using examples of real life problems
by promoting methods like real life examples problems, I am able to assist myself more
about learning process, and I am able to become more aware of model learning skills needed. If
anyone wants to develop their critical thinking skills then they must focus on using real life
problems examples and link it with present scenario to Better understand and finding out
solutions (Khoiriyah and Husamah, 2018).
 Attending online classes for thinking practice
By learning varieties of courses and programs in the online class has helped me improve
my critical thinking skills and also improve my problem solving skills. The major advantages
which I get through online classes is that I am able to interact more with other and I can easily
concentrate on greater things.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that various academic and professional skills
helps in pursuing the education in effective manner. The academic skills help in pursuing future
career in effective way. As by acquiring these skills for pursuing the business management
career will support in grasping better career opportunities.. While pursuing these skills with
taking various actions will help in being more organized and effectively helps in pursuing the
career in business management studies in higher education. With the help of these above
mentioned skills such as communication skills, decision-making skills and time management the
individual can efficiently ensure higher term of results and also motivate people towards

achievement of tasks in a suitable course of manner. Further, with giving the portfolio evidence
will help in providing the better gaining of knowledge and skills for pursuing business
management in the higher education.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adeani, I. S., Febriani, R. B. and Syafryadin, S., 2020. USING GIBBS’REFLECTIVE CYCLE
IN MAKING REFLECTIONS OF LITERARY ANALYSIS. Indonesian EFL
Journal. 6(2). pp.139-148.
Al-Samarraie, H. and Hurmuzan, S., 2018. A review of brainstorming techniques in higher
education. Thinking Skills and Creativity. 27. pp.78-91.
Bourn, D., 2018. Understanding global skills for 21st century professions (pp. 201-219). Cham:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Gutiérrez-Puertas, L. and et.al., 2020. Educational interventions for nursing students to develop
communication skills with patients: a systematic review. International journal of
environmental research and public health. 17(7). p.2241.
Kerr, D. and et.al., 2020. The effectiveness of training interventions on nurses' communication
skills: A systematic review. Nurse education today. 89. p.104405.
Khoiriyah, A. J. and Husamah, H., 2018. Problem-based learning: Creative thinking skills,
problem-solving skills, and learning outcome of seventh grade students. JPBI (Jurnal
Pendidikan Biologi Indonesia). 4(2). pp.151-160.
Leyva Carreras, A.B., and et.a., 2018. Influence of the strategic planning and the management
skills as factors internal of business competitiveness of SME’s. Contaduría y
administración. 63(3). pp.0-0.
Markkanen, P. and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research. 62(1). pp.46-62.
Mazurchenko, A. and Maršíková, K., 2019. Digitally-powered human resource management:
skills and roles in the digital era. Acta Informatica Pragensia. 8(2). pp.72-87.
Sharma, G.V. and Shivakumar, J., 2019. Project Assignment as an Effective Method to Enhance
the Communication Skills of Business Management Students. IUP Journal of English
Studies. 14(3).
Tawanwongsri, W. and Phenwan, T., 2019. Reflective and feedback performances on Thai
medical students’ patient history-taking skills. BMC medical education. 19(1). pp.1-8.
Online

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle.2022.[Online] Avaiable
Through:<https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-
reflective-cycle>