Reflective Journal: Exploring Employability Skills and Gibbs Cycle

This reflective journal explores the development of employability skills through the lens of the Gibbs reflective cycle. The introduction highlights the significance of transferable skills in attracting employers and emphasizes the use of the reflective cycle for personal and professional growth. The journal details the student's experience with a group project, describing initial nervousness, challenges in communication and teamwork, and the importance of human relations. The 'Feelings' section reflects on the student's emotions, including initial apprehension and the eventual development of time management and communication skills. The 'Evaluation' section identifies both effective and ineffective aspects of the experience, recognizing the value of existing skills and the need for improvement. The 'Analysis' section connects the experiences to the literature, emphasizing the link between study and employability skills, such as communication and ICT skills. The conclusion summarizes key learnings, focusing on the need for improved skills like decision-making and problem-solving. An action plan is included, outlining specific skills to be improved (communication, ICT skills, problem-solving), timelines, and activities for improvement. The journal references relevant academic sources supporting the reflections.

Reflective Journal

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
GIBBS REFLECTIVE CYCLE......................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Employability skills are the transferable skills which have the development of expertise,
knowledge base and different mindset to attract more and more employers. Employability skills
is been umbrella term for highly desirable and transferable skills. These skills have the
significant importance intensify competitive, flexible and initiative of varsity of task in different
environment. In this report, there will be discussion on development of the employability skill
while completing the above task. The report will be accomplished with proper implementing of
Gibbs reflection cycle. The reflection cycle will cover all the important employability skill which
are necessary for professional and personal development.
GIBBS REFLECTIVE CYCLE
Reflecting is experience in the way of evaluating the own reaction and capabilities. This
approach is helps in improving the major level of experience for future approaches. reflection is
the skill benefiting the educated developing while working in general ability to get employed and
be adaptable and successful.
Description
As completion of the above project is identified as the group activity which tends to be
very difficult at the starting. As being describing all the current event tats have happens in the
group tens to make me the nervous feeling more identifying all my skill in the perfect manner.
over all I am very existed over sharing all the skill I have developed in the above take the proper
any for developing better employability. As the teacher have asked us to do above task with all
my new team members. At the first the topics are difficult and need a little bit support over
communications with each other. I already had a general idea of what employer where looking
for but I was neglecting the human relation aspect, however it turns out to be the most important
one. so as a initiator and strong communication skills I tried to developed the healthy relationship
between the ta member to have the proper team building activates can be insisted in perfect
manner.
Feelings
As term to be discussion over feeling, I was nervous as we all have the different feeling and
perception which is been identified as barrier in team building aspect. I have the feeling that’s
we will been bale to complete the task as all the member were not interred to do activities with
proper insert and understanding. I have tried a little my developing the time management and
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distributing the important topis among the team members in perfect manner. I too have insisted
as regular practice on my time management and oral communications skills. Oral
communication is important as w all have the language as barrier which tuned out to be difficult
for team member to communicates with each other. We have a team member who have excellent
computer and technological skill which for the clear idea for developing the project in significant
and guided manner. Great ideas, I was even advising other students with the same strategies but I
didn’t apply it for myself, which is completely useless.
Evaluation
Concerned with this experience I identified that there were several things that were not very
effective and required me that I should have had some more effective skills and knowledge.
However there were some elements and feelings that I had enough skills to complete the task.
These skills and competencies are effective and can be very useful when in relation with
employment of the individual. Along with this I also realised that I also possess some effective
study skills and collectively these contributed in ensuring that I also have some good feelings
regarding completion of the task and experiences that I have had during completion of the task.
Realising that I do have some skills that I always thought I lack was one of the important element
that contributed in positive feelings associated with completion of the above task (Rosenhan and
Galloway, 2019). Realising that I can do some part of the task and I do have skills for doing that
contributed in motivation and encouragement to do task more effectively and efficiently.
However, there were some of the instances in which I felt that I failed and I could not perform as
per individual expectation and this was something really bad about the experience. However,
overall experience was good and the bad and negative experience that I have had during
completion of the task lead me to encouragement that I should start working on improving the
skills and work and developing these in order to ensure avoidance of the bad experience that I
have had during completion of the task. This will also improve my employability appeal and I
will be able to perform better in academics.
Analysis
After completion of the task and experience some good as well as bad experience I realised that
the bad experiences that I have had is because I did avoid working on skills development earlier.
This was the reason that I have had bad experiences, this means that developing the skills earlier
would have helped in avoiding these experiences as well as will improved my study and
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employability skills. One of the reasons for this is lack of attention and avoiding the requirement
of developing employability skills while studying. This task completion helped me in realising
that several study and employability skills are same and working on the skills can allow both the
benefit one as study skills and other as employability skills (So and et.al., 2018). These skills are
communication and written communication skills, research skills, and use of information and
communication technology etc. These are some of the skills that are required for both
employability as well as study skills. Having these skills enable individual to achieve both
academic as well as employability objectives efficiently and effectively. I also compared my
experiences and feelings to the literature and what there are about these skills, literature involved
and discussed several qualities of the skills and also discussed benefits of having these skills and
how they can contribute in effective achievement of employability skills successfully.
Conclusion
I have observed a lot of skills which have to be improved in me so that there is going to
be a better functioning. For the future goals, objectives and career achievement there has to be a
use of good strategies and methods so that there is going to be a better performance. The
competition in the market is increasing and for that purpose I will also have to improve on a lot o
factors which need to be improved upon (Choo, Abdullah and Nawi, 2018). The task could have
been done better if any of the group members know this problem solving skill well so that there
is going to be a better understanding and a lot of team meetings had to be conducted so that the
group would have a better direction to work within. For communication as well meetings would
have worked which would have a good distribution of work and the task would have had a
different result which was going to be satisfactory for all of us. I have learned that there has to be
good decision making and coming to a common conclusion is very essential so that there is
going to be better understanding for the group. There are great ideas and creativity which can
rise from group discussions which are going to be very good for the future as well (Mathew,
Mathew and Peechattu, 2017).
Action plan
Skill Timeline Activities Measure
Communication 4 weeks I will read and attend a lot of
lectures on this topic so that I
can improve my written as well
I can take the help of friends
and family to improve this
skill and they can measure me
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as verbal communication. I
need to have the right
pronunciation for the words I
would be using so that I can
make the career goals have
better direction and be able to
get a better impression on
people as well.
as well so that there is going
to be a better chances for me
to be able to achieve my
career goals. There are self
assessment tests which I can
undergo online which are very
helpful to make myself aware
of the changes which I have
got and which I need to
improve upon.
ICT skills 3 weeks I would use computers and
technology as much as possible
in my everyday routine so that I
can get used to it. It is very
important that I get this skill so
that there is going to be a better
understand and the work will
get easier for the future as well.
There are online assessment
tests and also I will be able to
analyse myself effectively for
this skill to be used by
collecting more data and
information on topics which
are appropriate (Sajidin,
2018).
Problem
solving
6 weeks There are a lot of maths
solutions which I would be
attending in the future so that I
can get used to this skill. More
situations will be taken by me
to be solved.
Lecturers will be able to help
me with this skill since this
requires a professional help
and would make me be able to
improve faster.
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CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adeani, I.S and et.al., S.2019 USING GIBBS REFLECTIVE CYCLE IN MAKING
REFLECTIONS OF LITERARY ANALYSIS.
Choo, Y.B., Abdullah, T. and Nawi, A.M., 2018. Learning to Teach: Patterns of Reflective
Practice in Written Journal. LSP International Journal. 5(2).
Markkanen, P., and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research, 62(1), pp.46-62.
Mathew, P., Mathew, P. and Peechattu, P.J., 2017. Reflective practices: A means to teacher
development. Asia Pacific Journal of Contemporary Education and Communication
Technology. 3(1). pp.126-131.
Rosenhan, C. and Galloway, N., 2019. Creativity, self-reflection and subversion: poetry writing
for Global Englishes awareness raising. System. 84. pp.1-13.
Sajidin, F.F.N., 2018. Fostering StudentsMotivation in Learning English Through Reflective
Journal (Doctoral dissertation, UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung).
So, S.H.W and et.al., 2018. The Self-Reflective Writing Scale (SRWS): a new measure to assess
self-reflection following self-experiential cognitive behaviour therapy
training. Reflective Practice. 19(4). pp.505-521.
Wain, A., 2017. Learning through reflection. British Journal of Midwifery, 25(10), pp.662-666.
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