University of Suffolk PPD Module: Reflective Journal Assignment

This assignment is a reflective journal detailing a student's experiences and learning during a Personal and Professional Development (PPD) module. The journal employs Kolb's reflective model to analyze the student's development, focusing on key employability skills such as communication (verbal and written), research, teamwork, time management, self-management, and problem-solving. The student reflects on their strengths and weaknesses in these areas, using concrete experiences from completing tasks to identify areas for improvement. The journal includes a development plan outlining strategies to enhance skills like analysis, written communication, and teamwork, including participation in workshops and active team involvement. The conclusion emphasizes the significance of self-reflection and the identification of skills requiring development, promoting a continuous improvement approach.

Personal and Professional
Development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
Reflective Journal........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Personal and professional development is a process of development of individual in
which organisation and individual both take part in order to meet the challenges and desired
goals. This involves development of individual for their personal goals and which contribute to
effective achievement of organisational goals. Personal and professional development includes
development of various skills which are possessed by individual and through which individual
can achieve organisational goals.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
(Covered in PPT)
TASK 2
Reflective Journal
This journals involves experience and learning I had during completion of above task.
This learning and experience was related to various employability and study skills
(Sekarwinahyu and et.al., 2019). These skills are communication skills verbal and written,
research skills, team work, time management and self management skills and problem solving
skills.
As this is a reflective journal this enables me to use models such as Kolb’s reflective model to
broadly explain the experience which I had during completion of above task and what was the
earning associated with that.
Kolb’s reflective model
This is a model which is based on experiential learning and as completion of above task
was an experience in my learning I am applying this model. This involves four stages which are;

Concrete Experience
This means that individually physically experience a situation. This experience makes
individual realise that they need to reflect systematically in order to learn something new and
enhance their existing skills and practice. The task completed by me made me realise that there
are various skills that I need to enhance and achieve. I experienced that reading and analysing
various sources are important to different type of documents. In order to complete above task I
read various articles and books which enabled me to know about leadership and its importance.
Some of the articles I read included about leadership of Jeff Bezos which was a part of the above
task. Leadership skills was another area which I read more deeply while doing this above task
(Markkanen and et.al., 2020). The experience that I gained made me realise that leadership and
effective leaders are made by combining several skills. This made me realize that I lack many of
the skills which I should have to be a effective and successful leader. The above task was to
make a presentation, some of the skills which are required in this are proper analysis and
presenting in conscious and simple manner which is attractive for the audience. This made me
realize that analysis skills are not as good as they should be and this is because lack of practice.
Communication skills which are another requirement for the effective presentation through the
completion of task I realized that my written communication skills are required to be enhanced in
order to make them effective. This was first stage and for my learning and development I noted
down the experience and difficulties I felt while completion of the task. Some of the skills which
I found as my strength and these are time management and self management skills on the basis
of experience because I was able to complete my task before the final date and this allowed me
enough time to review the task.
Reflective Observation
In this stage of my learning and experience I recalled and reviewed the experience which
I had during completion of my tasks. This was to allow for a deep and more critical thinking
concerned with the experience and why they occurred to me. I was not good at analysis and this I
realised by observing my peers whose performance was much better than my in the same task.
Analysis which they included in their presentation was more rationale and clear and more
effective than what I included in my presentation (Sekarwinahyu and et.al., 2019). This made me
realise that my Analysis skills are really not good and on the basis of leadership characteristic of

Jeff Bezos which involves detailed analysis and simplification I assume that my analysis skills
requires to be improved.
During this I started developing my development plan. In my development plan skills
requiring improving analysis skills and plan through which I can improve this is reading more
about the concepts and understanding and thinking about them from various perspectives. This
will allow me for better analysis of the concepts and situation.
Communication skill was my personal observation and experience as I was having
difficulty in writing the presentation which is precise and attractive to audience this made me
realize that my written communication skill require improvement. Regarding this I have received
feedback from my teachers as well and this also becomes basis that I should work on my written
communication skills.
The plan I made to improve my written communication skills was to participate in
workshops which help in improving written communication skills (Markkanen and et.al., 2020).
Taking help from experts and peers was another action I involved in my plan to improve my
written communication skills.
One of the experience which I noted down just after they occurred and later when I read them I
realised that one of them relates with team experience where I was part of a team but even after
being part of the team I was not active in team communication and decision making was doing
what I was told other teammates. This I did not realised at that time but later I realise that this
happened because of my team work. Though it cannot be considered as my weakness because I
was effectively performing what I was responsible for doing being part of the team. But this is
also cannot be considered as my strength as I was doing only what I was told to do and did not
take part in decision making where I can express my thought and opinions about the matters
being discussed.
This reflects that my team work is good but skills are weak and to improve this I can join
workshops and on personal level should practice to be a active participant in the team.
Some of other experience written by me reflects that my Information and communication
technology skills are good and most of the content I found was through using such mediums.

Problem solving skills are also good and this is based on the feedback which was given to me by
the teacher (Tanaka, Okamoto and Koide, 2018). This was based on one of the incidence where
two teammates were having conflict and a proper solution was required by third person that time
every teammate expressed their views and my views were considered appropriate by everyone in
the team and this incidence reflect that my problem solving skills are good.
Abstract Conceptualisation
The model involves this and this stage involves that on the basis of reflective observation
what should individual has done to improve the situation or to do it differently or better. For me I
developed plan to work on the skills I found lack in me and how can I improve those skills.
During this I started working with the plan which I already made in the second stage (Dhaliwal,
Singh and Singh, 2017). I developed because at the time of reflective experience thoughts related
to improvement and development were in my mind and this is why I developed plan while
experience lack of and under developed skills. Being at this stage I was working on the plans I
developed and as my plans I joined workshops which were helping people with their
communication skills and this helped me in improving my written communication skills. In some
of the activity I got an opportunity to be a part of the team and this is why I implemented my
plan and tried to take active participation in the team. Lastly related to analysis skills I started
reading more about one concept in order to improve analysis and critical thinking about the
situation and concepts. This is to help in understanding better.
Active Experimentation
This stage of the cycle involves where individual actively experiment what they have
learnt and acquired. According to my development plan I was working in improving my written
communication skills, analysis skills and team skills. Regarding this in this stage it can be said
that except test at the workshops I did not get any specific opportunity to reflect and experience
my improved written communication skills (Vescan, 2019). Regarding team work and team
skills my experience is that I got an opportunity to be part of a team and this time my
participation was much more effective than my previous experience. Experience regarding
analysis was that improved analysis skills and critical thinking reflected through my improved
understanding of various matters.

A development plan based on the above discussion is as follows-
Skills to improve Plan to develop Time required Result of
development efforts
undertaken
Written communication Participation in workshop 8-10 months Improved written
communication skills
and knowledge of
writing various skills
Analysis and critical
thinking
Increasing reading efforts
and collection of more
information
Continuous
development needs
Increasing and
enhanced
understanding of
difficult concepts and
situations
Team work and skills Participation in workshops
and improving at personal
level
4-6 months Better and significant
participation in teams.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above reflection it can be concluded that regarding development and
identification of factors and skills requiring development initial focus can be significant
contributor. This concludes that writing after experiencing and later reviewing can help
individual to analyse their strength and weaknesses and they can be used to improve skills.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dhaliwal, U., Singh, S. and Singh, N., 2017. Reflective student narratives: honing
professionalism and empathy. Indian J Med Ethics. 3(1). pp.9-15.
Markkanen, P and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research. pp.1-17.
Markkanen, P and et.al., 2020. A reflective cycle: Understanding challenging situations in a
school setting. Educational Research. pp.1-17.
Sekarwinahyu, M and et.al., 2019, February. Development of problem based learning for online
tutorial program in plant development using Gibbs’ reflective cycle and e-portfolio to
enhance reflective thinking skills. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1157,
No. 2, p. 022099). IOP Publishing.
Sekarwinahyu, M and et.al., 2019, February. Development of problem based learning for online
tutorial program in plant development using Gibbs’ reflective cycle and e-portfolio to
enhance reflective thinking skills. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1157,
No. 2, p. 022099). IOP Publishing.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., 2018. Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health. 10(3). pp.283-288.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., 2018. Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health. 10(3). pp.283-288.
Vescan, A., 2019, August. Does learning by doing have a positive impact on teaching model
checking?. In Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGSOFT International Workshop on
Education through Advanced Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence (pp. 27-
34).