Skills Development: Reflective Report on Academic & Employability

This report reflects on the development of academic and employability skills through a module, utilizing Gibb's Reflective Cycle. It covers various aspects like time management, academic writing, communication, and teamwork. The student analyzes their feelings, evaluates their progress, and concludes with a personal development plan focusing on communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. The report highlights the importance of these skills for future employability and effective performance in a business environment, emphasizing improved grammar, vocabulary, referencing, and overall skill development. Desklib provides resources for students to find similar assignments and study tools.

Academic and
employability skills

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Employability skills.....................................................................................................................1
Personal development plan on each skill:....................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills are those that boosts the ability of an individual to read, write, retain as
well as recall the information which facilitates in passings exams. These types of skills help in
encouraging the students in becoming more efficient learners. Employability skills are those
skills that are transferred and needed by a personnel to make them employable. The competition
between the companies are also extending with a fast development of society. The employer not
only concentrates on the degree of the graduates but also pays more attention on their
employability skills. In the competitive world, employers within the company want those
graduates or personnel who are having a wide variety of skills to bring working environment
within an organisation. The employers need employees who are multi-skilled that facilitates the
company by playing different roles. In order to make myself become more competitive in future,
it should be find out what employment skills are needed within an individual to work effectively
in a business. In this portfolio, a reflective report is going to be conducted on how the learning in
existing module has helped me in developing a wide variety of employability skills. It is to be
done with the help of a reflective model and according to that a personal SWOT analysis and
personal action plan will also be going to be considered to improve myself.
MAIN BODY
Employability skills
The skills that are required not only to gain the employment but also helps in making
progress within a business for meeting organisational objectives and contributing to strategic
directions of an organisation in a successful manner.
Within this module, I have learnt employability skills and for this I will apply Gibb's
Reflective Cycle for writing a reflection on my academic and employability skills. There are five
main stages within the respective model including description, feelings, evaluation, analysis and
conclusion. Gibb's Reflective Model on learning academic and employability skills within the
existing module is described as under:
 Description: In present module, the lecturer has taught me different concepts and aspects
on academic and employability skills. In task 1, he taught me several strategies to time
management. There I studied the process of developing and using my development plan,
ways to maximise my time from a view of student. I also studied the process of becoming
1role

time efficient that will help me in my future. For explaining time management approach,
my lecturer has used Eisenhower and along with it he also clarified about the process of
researching and collecting information that are used in essays, projects, etc. There were
some other important aspects that are identified and one of them is note-taking during the
lectures and from reading. The lecturer taught me about the approaches of note-taking,
analysis of sources, the process of discovering good academic sources and getting
information or knowledge from websites. Furthermore, I had also learnt other different
strategies to academic writing and in that I gained better understanding of language and
grammar that helped in developing my writing skills. For example, I had learnt the
process of using vocabulary and developing the structure of the sentence and body
paragraphs. With the help of this, I had developed my skills by understanding many
languages to develop my academic writing. There is an another important concept that I
had learnt during this module was paraphrasing and I developed this approach by
exercising and practising on the illustrations. Addition to it, I had also learnt the role of
referencing within academic writing. At the end of the term, I had also learnt the process
of making and delivering PowerPoint presentations and the methods to develop
communication skills. In this I had been taught the ways to make effective presentations
and the role of body language while speaking the presentation to public. I had also learnt
the process of designing the CV and for that I had discovered a single-page CV in which
there was a good brief introduction and leaves a good impression. The lecturer also taught
me about the fundamentals of researching skills in which I had learnt the meaning of
academic research, the process of writing research, differences between primary as well
as secondary sources. During the process, I exercised the method of selecting a
controllable topic on research along with the stages for developing a better topic. Within
this, there are use of different exercises for learning the process of establishing the
research topic whether it is narrow or broad. During the module, I had also learnt team-
working skills that had helped me in working collaboratively with my group members.
The lecturer has also taught me the concepts related to team-working skills and the
process of working within a team. He also enhanced my reflective writing by introducing
the concepts and the steps to write a reflective report.
2role

 Feelings: My feelings towards learning academic as well as employability skills got
divided. In academic writing, I discovered the aspects of learning as important and
stressful as I was nervous that whether I would be able to learn these skills or not. While
developing academic skills , I felt that a personnel requires an advanced understanding of
grammar, vocabulary as well as style for developing a well-defined academic tasks.
Along with knowing the practices and standards of academic writing, each learner has to
follow the formats of writing. Because of applying various approaches to academic
writing, I had done a depth analysis of different techniques of academic writing. In this
module, I also felt that my time- management skills have been developed as I had
designed a timetable of daily-routine activities. This had helped me in managing my
activities within a specified period of time. While developing employability skills within
me such as presentation skills, communication skills, team-working skills and many
more, I felt that these skills would help me in being an effective human resource within a
business. I also realized that failure to cite the works of other authors is considered as a
process of plagiarism. When I was learning about the team-working skills, I felt that
whether I would be able to work in a team or not. Because I didn't know the process of
working within a team or collaboratively and hence I was little nervous while developing
this type of skill within me. Other employability skills like communication skill has also
been learnt by me during this module and at that time I felt that effective communication
with anyone within the workplace would facilitate me in expressing my views clearly to
other members. When I learnt about the presentation skills during this module, I felt that
this kind of skill would help me in making more presentations within the workplace to
make understood others in respect to a particular concept or aspect.
 Evaluation: From learning of academic as well as unemployment skills during this
module, I had been evaluated that I had gained a lot of information and knowledge about
vocabulary, grammar and sentence structures. Before learning academic skills, I struggled
a lot to develop a research topic and making a summary of it. However, because of this
module, now I can easily develop the topics related to research. I also evaluated that my
presentation and communication skills also got developed and now I am able to make
better presentations to make understand others regarding certain topics and concepts.
Because of developed communication skills, I am able to conduct effective
3role

communication with other members within the workplace. Now I can easily explain the
situations and concepts to others while communicating with them. This skill would help
me in my future in the process of transferring the information within a business from top
level management to bottom level management and vice-versa. From learning about the
academic skills, it has been evaluated that now I am able to cite the references in a proper
way and along with it I also observed that my daily-routine activities are now managed in
an appropriate manner and within a specific period of time. It has been evaluated that I
now I am also developed with team-working skills as I had done more practice and
exercised a lot in working within a team. Because of that I had developed team-working
skills within me. In this module, while learning about the academic skills, I had made an
evaluation that I have developed note-making skills within me and along with this I had
also developed research skills as for developing note-making skills I required to make
researches on the topic on which I had to take the notes. So, in this way, I have been
developed with note-making as well as researching skills.
 Analysis: At the end of the module, I analysed that I have developed academic as well as
employability skills within me. Academic skills such as writing skills, note-taking skills,
etc. would help me in doing effective communication within the workplace. I also
analysed that employability skills such as time-management skills, presentation skills,
team-working skills would also helped me in my future in making business presentations
regarding the business. Time-management skills would helped me in managing the
activities of a business within a particular period of time. It would also help me in
preventing from wasting my time and energy. I also analysed that team-working skills
within employment would help me in working collaboratively with other team members.
This would help me in enhancing the speed of the progress of work and would also help
me in creating a better idea of the company.
 Conclusion: It is the last stage of Gibb's Reflective Cycle and in this stage it is concluded
that I have developed academic and employability skills such as time-management,
presentation, communication, team-working, note-taking. These all types of skills would
help me in performing my employability functions in an effective manner. Skills like
time-management would not only help me at my academic level but also help me in my
future workplace setting. From developing time-management skills, it is concluded that I
4role

can develop and apply my development plan in initiating my daily-routine activities. Now
I have become time-efficient and result-oriented and able to take the decisions in an
appropriate manner. At the end of this module, it has been concluded that I have
developed adequate academic skills with improved grammar and vocabulary, referencing
and paraphrasing, etc. I have also developed employability skills within me which would
help me in my future workplace in performing different roles of business in an effective
way.
Personal development plan on each skill:
This development plan helps in recognising the objectives, strengths and weaknesses of
an individual. It also facilitates in identifying which area needs to be improved and developed for
achieving the organisational objectives. There is a personal development plan which is described
as under:
Skill Development opportunity Time frame
1st priority Communication skills Through taking participation in the
activities organized by academy. By
making a lot of friend and taking
execution in making acquaintances.
Not feeling nervous when talking to
strangers.
Within 1 week
2nd priority Team-working skills By working on group assignments
and targeting the deadline of group
assignments.
Within 3 weeks
3rd priority Problem-solving skills By applying for the volunteer
opportunities and helping in solving
the problems of people. Becoming a
volunteer. Meet the assignment
requirements of the teachers.
Within 4 weeks
Analysis:
From personal-development plan, it is analysed that I have to improve my
communication skills, problem-solving skills and team-working skills. I have discussed different
5role

development opportunities to develop and improve my these skills. Along with the development
opportunities, I have also described the duration of time in which I have to develop my skills. By
developing and improving such skills, I would be able to do effective communication with
anyone. By helping others in solving their problems, I would be able to develop and improve my
problem-solving skills. Team-working skills would be developed and improved by taking
participation in group assignments. In this way, I would be able to develop my employability
skills which will help me in my future workplace.
CONCLUSION
From above explanation of the report, it is concluded that this module has helped in
learning academic as well as employability skills. Through learning academic skills such as
writing skills, researching skills, etc. I am able to make research and write on the given topics as
development of these types of skills has helped me in improving grammar and vocabulary.
Development of employability skills such as time-management, team-working, communication,
problem-solving skills not only helped me at present time but also facilitated me in my future
period also. Within this report, time-management skills helped me in managing my daily-routine
activities within a specified period. With the help of Team-working skills, I am able to work
collaboratively within a group. This module has helped me a lot in my overall development by
developing and improving my academic and employability skills.
6role