Academic Skills and PDP Report: Personal Development Goals and Plan

This report delves into the multifaceted realm of personal and professional development, exploring its core concepts and practical applications. It begins by defining personal and professional development, emphasizing the importance of continuous skill enhancement and adaptation to change. The report then examines the value of short, medium, and long-term goals, providing personal examples to illustrate their significance in career progression and self-improvement. A significant portion is dedicated to describing and discussing the value of a Personal Development Plan (PDP), outlining its role in documenting career goals and strategies. The report includes a detailed example of a PDP, incorporating identified goals and outlining actionable steps for skill development, such as improving reading skills, communication, time management, leadership skills, and numeracy. The conclusion reinforces the importance of proactive planning and goal setting for achieving career success. This assignment is available on Desklib, a platform providing past papers and solved assignments.

ACADEMIC SKILLS AND PDP

Contents
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................3
Concept of personal and professional development...........................................................................3
Value of short term goals...................................................................................................................3
Value of medium term goals..............................................................................................................3
Value of long term goals....................................................................................................................3
Description and discussion of the value of a Personal Development Plan.........................................4
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Professional growth is all about gaining new skills and experience. That means your
development is either related to your current role or the role you want to do next. Personal
development fits alongside professional growth so if you want to progress in your career,
you'll need to develop personally first. This report highlights issues such as Concept of
personal and professional development, Value of short, medium and long term goals. Apart
from that it also involves Description and discussion of the value of a Personal Development
Plan.
Concept of personal and professional development
Concept behind the aspect of personal and professional development by evolving
abilities possessed by different individuals they can learn new things which can help them to
manage their work and that will help them to keep up with change. With the help of such
things individual will be able to make progress in their career. They need to make sure that
they never leave the side of training or learning more things because more knowledge they
gain more beneficial it will be for them. The whole motive and purpose of this concept is to
keep on improving self skills in order to get better (Pérez Cavana and Lowe, 2018).
Value of short term goals
Short term goals are the starting journey for the individual and path for them which if
achieved in the right manner can make the way for medium or long term goal. By the
progress they have made in time they can make sure that how far they have come along from
the point they started. It is believed by many individuals that in order to achieve goals for
long term it is important to break them in short term. For instance, goals such as improving
reading skills and working on oral and written form of communication will be part of short
term goals (Sasson and Miedijensky, 2020).
Value of medium term goals
Mid term goal offers best between both the goals which will be long enough to make
progress that will be significant and will also cover a short state so that individual does not
change with time by the time they have achieved that goal. Another benefit for mid term goal
is that duration for this goal can be set over their lifetime. Although there are not many
people who prefers to do that (Wailey and Sambade).

Value of long term goals
These goals are concerned with improving on self-basis. Most of the people achieve
this form of goal by working with dedication on it and it is there striving for the goal that
helps them to reach their position. If these form of goals are achieved, then they will help the
individual to make progress in their careers and shape it through which they can improve
their status or standard of living. For instance, goals such as leadership skills, time
management skills or getting a professional degree (Mulherin, Walter and Cox, 2018).
Description and discussion of the value of a Personal Development Plan
Professional development plan is also known to be development plans for employees
or individuals which is used to document goals for their career and set their strategy out so
that they can meet them. In order to form and develop a plan for this sort one must have to go
through their weakness and analyse areas of improvement so that it can be done in the right
and efficient manner. Only then it will be able to give results that are effective. In order to
draft it in the right manner it must have the required qualities such as professional role or
current responsibilities, level of knowledge and areas where to improve it. All of these things
must be draft in an order which defines the path to achieve progress and make development
in their career (Hashim and Chin, 2018).
Skills to be
developed
Development Plan Duration
Reading skills It is considered to be important and
very basic in order to make a
impression or present something in
front of someone. Even describing
something involves reading out its
qualities and their aim which can
benefit or make difference for people.
I was not very good at this skill as
sometimes I stammered a little bit
because my vocabulary and literature
was not that good. So whenever I
used to read something complex I
In order to improve reading
skills individual can achieve
this goal in around 3-4
months.

stammered or mispronounce the word
which is not good as it reflects
unprofessional behaviour in company
meetings. I realized that I had to put
all my efforts and work for it in order
to make a change. In order to develop
my skills, I started reading novels,
apart from that I started attending
classes regularly so that I can
participate in debate programs and
practice on it so that I can make my
skills better. In future I want to
achieve the position of HR and in
order to do that I must improve my
reading skills because I won’t be able
to get a better position if I don’t pass
in this little ground.
Communication
Skills
This skill involves two areas and both
of them are important and they are
oral and written form of
communication. I believe that my oral
skills of communication are good
because when I am out there
communicating with someone or
explaining them something I am clear
about it and even people on the other
side easily understand me. Difficult
part for me is written form of
communication as my reading skills
are poor I make a lot of spelling
mistakes and grammatical error when
I am drafting something to someone.
Many of the times people and
teachers point out my mistake which
In order to improve this set
of skills one must need
around 6 months of time as
it is a complex skill (Türker
and Bıkmaz, 2017).

is fine now but soon I need to make a
difference. The reason behind that is
in order to become a HR I need to
pass out many of the tests which
involves both the form of
communication as well as HR of the
company has to interact with a lot of
people and in order to attain that goal
I need to pass out in both of them
because any mistake will affect my
chance of making any progress in my
career. In order to improve I have
taken assistance of external institutes
and attend those classes regularly as
this will help me to stand a chance to
make progress. Apart from that I will
spend extra hours so that I can work
with dedication and get more practice
on it as it will help me to make sure
that if there is any opportunity I can
give my best in it.
Time management
skills
This skill is given importance because
no one likes to miss or pass the
deadline of their work or task. In
order to be good at this skill
individual will have to analyse the
time that task will take to complete
and break it into parts so that work
can be done as per the planning done.
I understood the importance of
managing time in my initial stage of
studies as there were lot of tasks that
were assigned to me. In order to
complete that in time I followed and
In order to get better at this
one must need to understand
the importance of it which
can be done around 2-3
months.

work with these measures which I
described above and that helped me
to manage my task and with the help
of that I was able to complete it in
time. I believe that I am good at this
skill and this skill can help me make
progress in my career as I know how
and which task to set as priority so
that they can be completed in time in
right manner. Even if anyone wants
to improve their time and
management skills then it can be done
in a few amount of time as it is a part
of medium term goal.
Leadership Skills This skill is a part of long term goal
as in order to achieve this skill and
get perfect in it, it requires experience
and for that individual has to work
with patience. I believe that I can get
better at this skill in less amount of
time because in college projects that
were assigned to us I used to lead the
team in the right direction so that
work can be done efficiently and
effectively. This is the reason why I
have a bit of confidence for this skill
that I will be able to make progress in
that in less amount of time. I need to
improve my lack of professionalism
in this skill as in order to lead people
it is important for me to follow all the
guidelines and instructions setup by
management so that I can lead them
This skill cannot be attained
easily as it takes lot of time
and patience. To a minimum
it will take one year for the
individual to get better at
this skill.

in the right area and I appear to be
work with professionalism. I learned
that it is necessary for me to appear
professional as then only the
members in the team will listen to my
steps and procedures which needs to
be taken seriously in order to achieve
the target set.
Numeracy skills This skill is concerned with being
proficient in mathematics and area
where individual has to deal with
numbers. In order to achieve this skill
lot of hard work and dedication is
required so that work can be done in
the right manner. These skills are
very important and critical because
even a single mistake can create a
huge difference. I am weak at these
skills from the beginning as I was
never interested in numbers and their
logic behind it but it is an important
aspect if I want to make progress in
my career. Position such as HR has to
set payroll for employees and if I am
not good at it then I will lose my
chance to become something that I
wanted. That is why I have been
focusing on solving calculations that
are a bit complex than usual and
trying to understand it so that I can
take the help of formulas. I am
attending regular classes of
mathematics so that I do not leave
any chance to get better. Apart from
This skill can also be
developed in a span of 3-4
months if worked with the
right measures and
dedication (McGill, Heikkila
and Lazarowicz, 2020).

that I am considering other options
such as taking classes for abacus as it
has been told by many people to me
that it helps to increase the speed of
calculation which I require the most.
CONCLUSION
From the above studies it has been concluded that it is important for an individual to develop
their personality and professional behaviour in order to make progress in their career. It is
because it requires different skills to achieve better position and all of them depends on their
planning to improve and attitude towards it. Apart from that it has been covered in this report
about the types of goals and their value to an individual which if taken lightly can affect their
chance of making progress in their career.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Hashim, N.S.B.H.N. and Chin, L.F.H., 2018. Inculcating Students Civic Awareness through
Friere’s Critical Pedagogy Practice as a Current Alternative Method of Teaching and
Learning (PdP). INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN
BUSINESS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, 8(9), pp.909-916.
McGill, C.M., Heikkila, M. and Lazarowicz, T., 2020. Professional development,
performance expectations and academic advisors’ perceptions of relational skills: a sequential
explanatory mixed methods study. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource
Development, 32(4), pp.50-69.
Mulherin, K., Walter, S. and Cox, C.D., 2018. National preceptor development program
(PDP): influential evidence and theory. The first of a 3-part series. Currents in Pharmacy
Teaching and Learning, 10(3), pp.255-266.
Pérez Cavana, M.L. and Lowe, S., 2018. More than a tool: integrating the ‘teacher voice’into
an ePortfolio using the Three-layered PDP model. The International Journal for Recording,
Achievement, Planning and Portfolios (RAPPORT), 3(1), pp.24-40.
Sasson, I. and Miedijensky, S., 2020. Transfer skills in teacher training programs: the
question of assessment. Professional Development in Education, pp.1-38.
Türker, M. and Bıkmaz, F.H., 2017. Secondary school English teachers’ scaffolding skills. In
42nd ATEE Annual Conference 2017 Conference proceedings (p. 402).
Wailey, T. and Sambade, S., Text. and. image. to. access. employability.