Reflection of Learner: Business Course, Semester 1 Assignment

This assignment presents a student's reflective analysis of their learning experiences within a business course. The student utilizes the Gibbs cycle to describe, analyze, and evaluate their experiences in teamwork, highlighting communication challenges, lack of motivation, and emotional responses. The reflection delves into the application of self-regulated learning strategies, drawing upon Zimmerman's framework to address skill gaps and improve performance. The student connects course content on emotional intelligence, teamwork, and ethical considerations to their personal experiences, identifying areas for development. The analysis incorporates concepts such as Tuckman and Jensen's stages of group development and ethical egoism. The conclusion emphasizes the value of the course in developing business skills, and sets action goals for continuous self-reflection and improvement using university resources.

Running head: REFLECTION OF LEARNER
REFLECTION OF LEARNER
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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REFLECTION OF LEARNER
In the present competitive world of business, it has become extremely important for a
business professional to develop important skills of managing business and other associated
skills so that he can bring success to the organization and can ensure career development. I got
the opportunity to study business in one of the esteemed university of the nation which had
immensely helped me to develop not only my external attributes but also helped me to develop
internally as a human being. It also helped me to develop ethical practices and proper business
management skills (Kornfeld, Sznol and Lee 2015). Throughout my course, I was enlightened by
our professor about the important skills needed by every business profession to ensure success in
the cut throat business and apply tactics to business problem anticipations. These courses have
helped me in gaining insights about how issues are identified in business and the strategies to
solve them tactfully. Reflection is a mode of writing experiences where with the help of a
framework, one can reflect each of the experiences that he had during his academic, professional
or personal lives. Reflection also helps an individual to develop initiatives to handle such
situations intelligently when they occur again in future (Legesse 2014). In this assignment, I
would be mainly reflecting on my experiences that I have gathered in my academic life as well
as the knowledge which I have gained from the different course syllabus and lecture classes so
that I can understand the scopes of development I have to develop a brighter future.
For these, I would be mainly conducting a refection work following the Gibb’s cycle
which helps in unfolding of events and their solution in a systematic manner. The first step is
mainly the description of the events that had taken place. I was assigned for teamwork for the
academic assignments in our university. While handling the work as a team, I realized that I am
quite poor in communication. I was unable to provide feedback and also receive feedback. This
affected my member’s thinking as they believed I am being non-participative in the work.

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Moreover, I also suffered from the lack of motivation and therefore I was not able to give any
innovative ideas which resulted in negative feelings of the team members against me. I was also
unable to develop proper relationships with my team members due to inappropriate social skills.
Moreover, I also reacted violently when a member confronted me stating that I could not do the
work properly when in reality I was really unable to conduct it in a systematic manner. Not only
that, in the next task, I did not think about the team’s entire success and only took part in my own
work without helping the team to succeed. I only looked over my part which affected the team as
a whole.
The next stage is the feelings stage where an individual needs to describe the feelings he
developed form the experiences. From the entire experiences, I realized that I was gradually
losing my self confidence. The negative vibes that I was receiving about my working styles as
well as the unsuccessful work output had made me develop a feeling that I was not suitable to
conduct business and management. Moreover, I had nothing to look forward to, which was
affecting my self esteem and hence I was gradually losing hope in my subject.
The next step is the evaluation stage. During such low phase, I took the help of Zimmerman’s
articles to develop an idea about self learning procedure and tried to implement the skills taught
in my lecture class. I learnt that students should personally initiate and then direct their own
efforts so that they can acquire knowledge and skills in place of relying on teachers, parents or
other agents of instruction. According to him, self regulated academic learning has the most
beneficial effect on the individuals as they help the students to fight out their own problems and
develop abilities which help them to overcome the barriers. This is done by gaining knowledge
responsibly and applying them in reality. Spoon fed knowledge do not have long lasting impact
as students become dependent. Three important initiatives are proposed by the researchers for the

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best self-regulated knowledge gathering. The first one is the self regulated learning strategies
which are mainly actions and processes that help in acquiring skill that incorporate purpose,
agency and instrumentality perceptions by learners. These mainly include organizing and
arranging the information gathered from the classes and then transforming them, self
consequating them and then seeking information. This is then followed by rehearsing and using
memory aids. Zimmerman has then defined self efficacy as the aspect that refers to the
perception about an individual as capability which help him in organizing and thereby
implementing actions which are necessary to attain designated skills for tasks (Zimmerman,
2002). Commitment to academic goals like that of social esteem, better grades, post graduation
employment opportunities, all vary in nature and accordingly should be attended in time.
Therefore, following perspective of Zimmerman, I got a systematic approach of following my
lecture notes and venture my memory again to connect my incapability with the skills taught in
class so that I can overcome my issues.
The next stage is the analysis stage. In this stage, I tried to follow Zimmerman’s strategies of self
regulated learning. Here I tried to reflect the knowledge of the nine weeks of my learning in the
university and tried to evaluate them so that I can apply the skills in my real life. We had a class
on the importance of emotional intelligence where I gathered knowledge and developed an idea
about how different components of emotional intelligence like self awareness, self regulation,
motivation, empathy as well as social skills can help me in handling various situations. I realized
that I am poor in social skills as I could not develop bonds with them. I was poor in the skill of
empathy as I shouted on one of the team members without considering the situation. I also
lacked motivation and could not control my emotions. I gathered all these information after
linking my knowledge gathered form lecture classes with my prevailing skills and aspects.

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Moreover I also leant from our lecture notes about how to maintain teamwork by proper
communication. Through my self-regulated learning, I gradually understood the mistakes which
I was making when I tried to work in a team. Tuckman and Jensen in the year 1977 have taught
us the five important steps of group development like forming, storming, norming, performing,
adjourning and next steps (Gul et al. 2016). I believe that if I follow these steps form my learning
procedures I would be able to conduct proper team work in my future organizations which would
help me in developing productivity of the team. It would also help me in aligning with the goals
and objectives of the organization. My self-regulated research also helped me to come across
different ethical considerations which are very important to maintain proper business and work. I
realized I was actually bound with ethical egoism as I was only thinking of my own success and
benefit rather than considering the successful outcomes of the whole groups. For all these, I
decided to conduct the Johari window so that I can learn the different characteristics I have and
those which are lacking in me or are not known by others. All these information would be used
by me so that I can develop as a perfect business professional in life (Germack 2014).
The next stage is called the conclusion phase. From the entire evaluation and analysis phase; I
realized that the courses which were provided to us had helped in development of us as business
professionals. The knowledge provided by the course is very specific as they help to develop
each and every business skills in detailed manner which make us understand how we can modify
ourselves to suit the situations. The courses have given us an idea about how to proceed with a
systematic procedure by following different theories given to us by researchers over the years so
that we can implement them in our own practice. It also gives us ways of empowerment with our
developed skills along with proper ethical reasoning so that we can conduct business honestly
and ethically for the greater good of the nation (Hodges et al. 2015).

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The next stage is the stage of setting action goals. I, as new participant in the business world
would try to regularly go over my class lectures notes along with their evidence based journal
papers from the university library. These are some of the best ways to conduct self regulated
academic studying as suggested by Zimmerman and would constantly keep on reflecting on my
present experiences so that I can get insight about me. This insight would help me to link with
my course knowledge and thereby develop my skills for reaching the zenith of success.

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References:
Germak, A.J., 2014. Essential business skills for social work managers: tools for optimizing
programs and organizations. Routledge.
Gul, F. and Mehmood, N., 2016. A Study to Assess Relevance between Content of Business
Courses and Development of Entrepreneurial Skills in Technology Education Institutes. Journal
of Social Sciences & Humanities (1994-7046), 24(2).
Hodges, N., Watchravesringkan, K., Yurchisin, J., Hegland, J., Karpova, E., Marcketti, S. and
Yan, R.N.T., 2015. Assessing curriculum designed to foster students’ entrepreneurial knowledge
and small business skills from a global perspective. Family and Consumer Sciences Research
Journal, 43(4), pp.313-327.
Kornfeld, J., Sznol, J. and Lee, D., 2015. Characterizing the business skills of the public health
workforce: practical implications from the Public Health Workforce Interests and Needs Survey
(PH WINS). Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 21, pp.S159-S167.
Legesse, D., 2014. Basic business skills (BBS) training of trainers training report.
Zimmerman, B.J. 2002 “Achieving Academic Excellence: A Self-Regulatory Perspective” in
Ferrari, M. (ed) The Pursuit of Excellence Through Education. Lawrence, Erlbaum Associates,
Mahwah NJ. Pp.85-110.

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