Enhancing Academic and Employability Skills: A Reflective Learning Report using Gibbs Model

This report covers the six stages of Gibbs Model for reflective learning and provides an action plan for enhancing academic and employability skills. It emphasizes the importance of time management and writing skills for professional success.

Practical Portfolio

Table of Contents
Task 1- Employability skills (Covered in PPT)...............................................................................3
Task 2- Report Writing....................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Reflective learning.......................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
REFERNCES:..................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals:.....................................................................................................................8

Task 1- Employability skills (Covered in PPT)
Task 2- Report Writing
Introduction
Academic skills are those skills which are used to perform academic activities
appropriately and help students to enhance their learning power (Rose and et. al., 2020). These
skills will help a student to gain effective confidence to communicate with their colleagues,
teachers and other school members. Whereas employability skills are those skill which help an
individual to learn the habit and attitude to become a effective employees which is demanded by
most of the companies. Gibbs model is used to analyse the experience of learning and it consist
of six stages. The following report covers the explanation of Gibbs model and the ways to
enhance chosen three academic and employability skills for better career.
Main body
Reflective learning
Reflective learning is one of the most used learning styles by most of the individuals
where they reflect upon their own skills and weakness as well as opportunities to learn better
skills from their personal learning experience. Gibbs model is one of the most popular model for
reflective learning where a individual mention the situation which he/she faced and express it
into six different stages which help to analyse the learning and the ways which can help to solve
the same situation in better ways.
The six stages of Gibbs model which is used for my personal experience is mentioned below-
Stage 1- Description
This is the stage which describes the situation as it occurs in actual (Rozikov, 2021). It
answer the question like what happen, when and where did it happen, who was present, why
were you there and few other questions which describe the situation faced by a individual.
I am studying in final year of my graduation where I am focusing on my skills and
especially those skills which help me to gain my dream job. Few days back I have applied for a
internship within a well reputed company. I went to the office for interview and I saw that there
are almost 15 more candidates sitting with me to wait for their turn for the interview process.
One by one the assistant call us and conduct first round of interview, I have been called after 6th

person and when I entered the cabin I saw 3 employees were sitting for the interview. They are
looking so aggressive which make me little unconfident as compared to normal situation. They
ask me general questions like introduce yourself and why you choose this internship job role. I
have answered them but I am unable to make a eye contact with them. Secondly, few I have
missed to mention that I have already done two internships before this job. They have given only
2-3 minutes to represent our self and I am unable to express myself within those 2-3 minutes
appropriately. Second round of interview have conducted where they gave all of us a blank paper
and ask us to write upon different topics which is given by them to check our academic writing
skills. We all submit the paper back after 10 minutes and they ask us to leave and we will receive
the mail after few days about the result of each round conducted and the final selection of
employees which is chosen by management team.
Stage 2- Feelings
This is the stage which mentioned the feelings which is felt by individual during the
situation (Oh and et. al., 2021). Here, the individual is required to answer the questions like what
were they feeling during the situation, what were they feeling after the situation.
According to my situation, I was feeling nervous and unconfident during the situation and
especially during first round of the interview. The other candidates are also feeling the same
because when I communicate with them then they said that they are nervous about the interview
process. After this interview gets finish I felt that I can do much better if I control my
nervousness. I felt bad about my performance during this interview which was much lower than
other two interviews which I have given before. I was feeling that the company may reject me
for low confidence but then also I was much exited to know about the result as soon as possible.
Stage 3- Evaluation
This is the stage where individual mention that what went well and what did not went
well during the situation. Hence, it evaluates the positive and negative points about the situation.
According to my situation, I think various kinds of things went well as well as went
wrong during the interview phase. The good thing about the situation is my patience; I have
shown a good patience even after such high nervousness. The thing which went wrong during the
situation is that I am unable to complete my task on time. Like during first round of interview
they ask me few questions and gave limited time to answer but I am unable to answer all the
questions effectively within that time. I have also not mentioned about my academic

achievements and the experience of last working organisations. When the result arrives then I
notice that I have written whole content in a single paragraph in second round which is
irrelevant. Hence, these things did not go well with me during the situation.
Stage 4- Analysis
This is the stage where an individual make a sense of what happen and how (Chung,
2019). Here, the questions will be asked like why did things go well and why things did not go
well. What sense can I make from the particular situation and what kind of knowledge can help
me to understand the situation?
According to my situation, the few things went well due to my effective academic career.
Actually I supposed to use libraries and like to collect evidenced information. I have good
research skills where I supposed to collect both primary data as well as secondary data. I am
lacking behind to learn time management skill due to which I have missed to mention my
achievements and past experience of working. This is one of the most essential skills which can
help me to complete all task on time. Whereas the result shows that I have also lacking behind to
learn academic writing skill because during the second round of interview I was unable to write
paragraph wise which seems unattractive for readers to read it. The practical knowledge as well
as observing skill will help me to analyse each situation appropriately. I need to be open mind in
this situation and know the ways to manage stress and anxiety to face three interviews at a same
time. One of the other reason due to which the interview does not go well is my over confidence
about passing two interviews previously and this can also be cleared very easily. Due to this over
confidence I have not prepared myself well for the interview and did not communicate well with
my teacher to take her suggestion the ways and techniques to answer the interviewer to impress
them and gain their attention toward our achievements and past working experience.
Stage 5- Conclusion
This is the stage where individual can make conclusion about what happen. This is the
stage where the individual summarize whole situation in short way. Few of the questions were
asked here like what did a individual learned from the situation, what else could be done, what
skills is required to develop in future to handle the same situation in better way.
According to my situation, I have learned that time management skill is one of the most
important skills for professional life and learning writing skills can also help me in find my
dream job. I have also learned that the skills which I am lacking behind can be gained after

practising them practically like in context of writing skill I supposed to write about a topic on
daily basis where I need to focus on the structure and quality of content and get it checked by my
teachers for analysing mistakes so that I will make modifications. I have also learned that time
gathering information by using libraries will help me to gain evidenced knowledge. From this
situation I get to know that I need to develop 2 main employability skills for my better
professional career and these skills are time management skill and writing skill. I have also
learned from this situation that this situation can become more effective and can be handled if I
was able to gain high confidence at the time of interview. If I communicate with my teacher and
parents before interview than they will gave me suggestions and share their experience about the
ways to face interview but I have not done the same hence, due to which I was unable to give
good interview. Secondly, my overconfidence also make loose this job because I have over
confidence before arrive this interview that I have already cleared two previous interviews for
the internship and I will definitely clear this interview also. Hence, I have never thought that
three people will sit together and take my interview in such aggressive way. I was not prepared
well for such kind of tough interviews because two interviews which was help before is
conducted by a single individual with very polite manner. Hence, this is my biggest mistake in
this situation that I thought that the interview style of this company will also be same as two
different interviews which help previously.
Stage 6- Action plan
This is the situation which helps to analyse the actions which is required to perform to act
differently in the same situation if it occur in future (Raoufi, 2020). Here, few questions were
answered like what could be done to develop required skills and how to become ensure that an
individual will act differently if same situation will arise.
According to my situation I would make sure that I will act differently if I face same
situation again in future like I would like to enhance my confidence and reduce nervousness. In
case I will give another interview at another location than I will make sure that I communicate
effectively with interviewer and mention all my achievements and job experience first than other
information to impress them and to let them know about my existing skills and talents. Secondly,
I make sure that I will work upon my writing skills and understood the effective way of writing.
Here, I need to practice a lot and analyse different and effective writing skills and styles as soon
as possible. For enhancing my time management skill due to which I am unable to mention my

achievements and previous job experience, I would like to prepare a simulation area of same
interview environment and have a stop watch or timer and try to cover all answer in limited time.
This will help me to prepare myself for the interview and help me to learn time management
skill. Secondly, it is also essential for me to develop a priority list which contain all those
achievements and experience first which can impress the interviewer so that I will remember that
what should I supposed to tell first and what should be needed to tell later. For developing
writing skill I must use libraries of my university and observe some articles and journals to
analyse how different authors use different ways and attractive ways of writing their contents. I
have learned that writing long paragraphs is not good for any content even whether it is an essay.
I need to use short paragraphs and headings as well as subheadings to make my written content
more efficient and attractive for readers. If I learn all these skills then it is sure that I will act
differently if I face same issue in future.
Conclusion
From the above information it is concluded that it is essential for a student to learn their
academic skills well to start their professional life effectively. Skills like time management skill,
writing skill and many others can help an individual to clear various kinds of job interviews. It is
also concluded that Gibbs model is one of the commonly used reflective model to analyse the
experience and identify what mistakes had done during the past situation so that next time such
kind of mistakes will not repeat if the individual will face same situation.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Chung, M., 2019. A Gibbs sampling algorithm that estimates the Q-matrix for the DINA
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Cuevas-Vargas, H., Parga-Montoya, N. and Fernández-Escobedo, R., 2019. Effects of
entrepreneurial orientation on business performance: The mediating role of customer
satisfaction—A formative–Reflective model analysis. SAGE Open, 9(2),
p.2158244019859088.
Feng, X. and Houska, B., 2018. Real-time algorithm for self-reflective model predictive
control. Journal of Process Control, 65, pp.68-77.
Morrissey, T.W. and Vinopal, K.M., 2018. Neighborhood poverty and children's academic skills
and behavior in early elementary school. Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(1),
pp.182-197.
Oh, T. and et. al., 2021. Invariant Gibbs dynamics for the dynamical sine-Gordon
model. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A: Mathematics, 151(5),
pp.1450-1466.
Raoufi, A., 2020. Translation-invariant Gibbs states of the Ising model: general setting. The
Annals of Probability, 48(2), pp.760-777.
Rasheed, D.S. and et. al., 2020. The effect of Teacher–Child race/ethnicity matching and
classroom diversity on children's socioemotional and academic skills. Child
Development, 91(3), pp.e597-e618.
Rose, H. and et. al., 2020. What drives success in English medium taught courses? The interplay
between language proficiency, academic skills, and motivation. Studies in Higher
Education, 45(11), pp.2149-2161.
Rozikov, U.A., 2021. Gibbs measures of Potts model on Cayley trees: A survey and
applications. Reviews in Mathematical Physics, 33(10), p.2130007.
Wlodarsky, R., 2020, March. The benefits of reflection on improving teaching through change:
A reflective model for professional development. In 44th Annual Conference
Proceedings (p. 62).