Reflective Report: Higher Education Learning and Skill Development

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report reflects on higher education learning.

Higher Education Skills and Competencies
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Distinction between learning in the school environment and higher education..............................4
Engagement with critical reading and thinking...............................................................................5
The ability to locate, collects, and record appropriate information using a range of academic
resources..........................................................................................................................................5
Self- reflection.................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference list...................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Learning has always been a great but complex experience. The procedure involved in learning
may be tough or easy for different students based on their skills and experience. This report
includes a reflective statement on various aspects of learning. It throws light on the difference in
the learning pattern in school and higher education. It also briefly discusses the importance of
critical reading and thinking and suggests ways to improve the same. The report also includes a
self-reflection on how good was my experience while adopting the changes and what could have
been improved by me while adapting to the changes during my higher education.
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Distinction between learning in the school environment and higher education
According to me, there is a huge difference between the learning pattern in the school
environment and the higher education. In school, the way of teaching was very different from
that in college. In school, the subjects were limited and the teachers used to allocate task to us, so
it was easier for us to follow instructions, and be done with our assignments. However, in higher
education, the entire system is different, though the teachers still allocate the task, they do not
tell us how to accomplish it (Entwistle and Ramsden, 2015). The choice of material to be
followed, the books to refer for the completion of the task totally depends on our choice.
Another major difference between the system of learning in school and higher education is time
management. In school, managing time was much easier than in the colleges (Pruet et al., 2016).
During school, I only needed to follow the instruction of the teachers and refer to my textbooks
but in college I need to follow various other notes and lectures apart from my textbook, which
makes it difficult to grasp all the things at a time. During schools, the scope of learning was
limited but in college it is huge thus managing time for all the things becomes quite difficult (De
Hei et al., 2015)
During school time, I was quite a fast learner, in order to learn something I preferred the visual
education where I learned by watching stuffs or touching them. In order to memorise something I
used to listen to it on a repeated basis. I was not much of a bookworm and was more into games
so I invented ways to learn things by associating a name to them that would be easy for me to
remember. However, during higher education I found the learning procedure quite tough in the
beginning. There were many lectures to follow and it was very difficult for me to manage my
time. I had to follow several other books along with the main textbook for one subject, which
made the procedure tougher. Higher education also demanded me to follow various seminars and
professional lectures to cope up with my subjects requirements, thus it was a difficult procedure.
However, this change has helped me understand the importance of time management and now I
have successfully managed to cope up with my learning requirement by using appropriate
schedule for my daily activities.
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Engagement with critical reading and thinking
I read various articles, as I am a very curious person by nature and prefer to add to my
knowledge from various sources. However, in the initial stage I found it very difficult to
understand few aspects of the articles and to retain the information, I gathered from reading the
article. In order to get over the problem, I employed the meta-cognition strategy into my reading
habits (Paris et al., 2016). I started identifying the areas where I was having most of the problem,
and then I started laying focus on what exactly was my problem. Then I adopted the habit of
reframing the difficult sentences into easy structure or in my own words so that I can retain the
information for a long time and understand the fact easily whenever I go through it. Apart from
that, I inculcated the habit of going through the same information repeatedly until I am thorough
with the subject.
After adopting these practices, I noticed a significant change in my information retaining
capacity, now I get a better understanding of the subjects I read and can critically evaluate the
same. My report on the working of Lidl and Aldi demonstrates my reading and comprehensive
skills, it is one of my best work until now. While working on this article, I went through the
various source of information and made several notes after each reading. For my better
understanding, I used various graphs and semantic organizers. For instance, I used Venn diagram
to compare the information received from two sources so that I can make use of the best source
of information. I made use of storyboards to keep track of the events in the article. All these
techniques together contributed greatly in improving my reading and comprehensive skills.
The ability to locate, collects, and record appropriate information using a range of
academic resources
The process of collecting information and analysing them plays a significant role in the student’s
life. I have been recently working on a case of Volkswagen team task, where I was needed to
locate resources from various sources. I referred to various websites, articles and journals for
gathering information for the subject. I am quite week at locating information so I used various
strategies to address the problem. I made notes of various websites that could be used, after
speaking to my teachers; I even prepared a list of articles that could be utilised for the task. I then
went through one article and website at a time and prepared necessary notes from the same.
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During my preparation tenure, I understood that in order to collect the appropriate information, it
is necessary to decide upon the source of information first and take decision regarding the
method of deducting information from the chosen source. I used both primary and secondary
source of data for my assignment. I used websites and journals as a source of secondary data. For
the primary data, I conducted a survey by distributing questionnaires among 60 people seeking
information regarding my assignment. The entire process taught me the importance of locating
and collecting information, apart from that data management plays a crucial role in the success of
any assignment, even if the researcher collects the information successfully and not maintained
appropriately, becomes futile (Hsu et al., 2015). For the management of information availed I
prepared various reports and charts so that the information could be represented easily and big
information’s could be represented in a simpler form.
Self- reflection
From the above cases, it has become evident that I was weak in many aspects however; I have
managed to improve my condition by adopting various strategies into my daily learning habits.
According to me, some improvements could have been made in few aspects of my learning.
Though my learning pattern has undergone a revolutionary change, I could have improved it by
making optimum utilization of the resources available to me. I could have made better use of the
video lectures available to the student body. I could have worked on improving my time
management skill that would have facilitated me to undertake several other activities or could
have saved me time to pursue anything of my choice. I could have made good use of the team,
by learning from my team members and enhancing my skills. I could have also worked on
enhancing my personal traits and skills such as communication skills and interpersonal skills by
working well and interacting more with my team as I lack in these areas.
However, the entire process has helped me learn various stuffs. It has helped me improve my
information gathering and retaining skills by familiarising me with various means and modes of
collecting information. It has also helped me improve my reading and comprehensive skills, it
has taught me how to effectively restore the information gathered from reading articles.
Working in team helped me understand the importance of group work and the elements of good
and a bad team. It also made me capable of bearing the team pressure and familiarised me with
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various responsibilities while working in a team. Thus, it could be concluded that the entire
learning process had both negative and positive impact on my life. However, I managed to
incorporate the necessary changes successfully into my life for further improvements.
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Conclusion
It can be concluded from this report that I have experienced a major change in the learning
pattern during my higher education, which has severely affected my understanding capacity. It
has also given rise to the need of time management in my life. The report also throws light on my
reading skills and critical analysing skills and shows how I managed to improve the same
through application of various strategies. The report suggests the importance of collection and
management of data for the success of any assignment. It includes various measures adopted by
me to improve my performance while working in a team, reading, or comprehending an article.
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Reference list
De Hei, M.S.A., Strijbos, J.W., Sjoer, E. and Admiraal, W., 2015. Collaborative learning in
higher education: lecturers’ practices and beliefs. Research Papers in Education, 30(2), pp.232-
247.
Entwistle, N. and Ramsden, P., 2015. Understanding student learning (Routledge revivals).
Routledge.
Hsu, L., Martin, R.L., McElroy, B., Litwin-Miller, K. and Kim, W., 2015. Data management,
sharing, and reuse in experimental geomorphology: Challenges, strategies, and scientific
opportunities. Geomorphology, 244, pp.180-189.
Paris, S.G., Wasik, B.A. and Turner, J.C., 2016. The development of strategic readers.
Pruet, P., Ang, C.S. and Farzin, D., 2016. Understanding tablet computer usage among primary
school students in underdeveloped areas: Students’ technology experience, learning styles and
attitudes. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, pp.1131-1144.
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