Reflective Journal on Study and Employability Skills Module - Analysis

This reflective journal entry explores a student's learning and development within a Study and Employability Skills module. The student utilizes Gibbs' reflective cycle to analyze their experiences, feelings, evaluations, and actions related to various tasks, including a leadership analysis of Mark Zuckerberg. The journal details the skills gained, such as communication, presentation, and research skills, as well as identifying areas for improvement like teamwork. The student reflects on the importance of these skills for career success and outlines an action plan for future group projects, emphasizing the need for better team collaboration and leadership. The journal concludes by highlighting the value of self-assessment and the development of both hard and soft skills for professional growth.

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Reflective journal can be defined as a kind of personal record of learning process of an
individual. It helps in reflecting as well as recording our own response, observation or learning to
a particular situation (Hilliard, James and Batt, 2017). It is one of the best ways to reflect self-
ideas or one’s own understanding. There are various kinds of models that can be used for
reflective journal writing such as Gibbs reflective cycle model, Kolb’s Reflective cycle. For this
assignment Gibbs reflective cycle model will be used for accessing our own learning process,
skill development and achievements of study and employability skills modules in a much better
and appropriate manner.
MAIN BODY
Study and Employability skill of modules helped me in learning various kinds of skills
and also helped in enhancing my knowledge (Read and et al., 2019). I will demonstrate my
learning process and personal development with the help of Gibbs reflective cycle model. It is a
kind of self-management and reflective tool. It is one of the most famous models that helps us to
understand the situation in a better manner so that we can understand what we need to do in
future. This model will help us in reflecting skills and learning of this module.
Gibbs reflective cycle Model
There are six reflection stages in this model that will help in reflecting our own learning
and skills:
Description:
At this stage description of one’s own experience in detailed manner (Tanaka, Okamoto
and Koide, 2018). At this stage complete description of situation or things that were learned
during the module are explained in a better manner. in this PPD module heled me in reflecting
and learning various kinds of skills that not only helped me in identifying my strengths,
weaknesses but also helped me in identifying key area of development and skills that are
required to be development. This module helped in meaning various things and has helped in
enhancing various kinds of skills such as: communications skills, presentation skills, research
skills and many more. This module also helped me in understanding skills that are important and
required to be developed. I have understood that each of these skills have their own important
and value and can are useful in many different ways. It was leadership task in which we were
required to analyse leadership skills of mark Zuckerberg. While completing this task I
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understood that there are various kinds of skills that plays a vital role in success of an individual.
If we want to move forward in our careers then it is important to develop some skills such as
verbal communication skills, management skills, time management skills, leadership skills and
many more. This module helped me in understanding different situation in which different kinds
of skills are required and how we can use those skills to resolve or understand any kind of typical
situation.
Feelings: At this phase feelings are being triggered that we felt during this module (Dhaliwal,
Singh and Singh, 2017). At this stage main question which is asked is what were you thinking
and feeling? This helps in explaining what we were thinking during the module, after the module
what another think about the module and many more. Before or at the starting of this module I
thought I had all the required skills that are required to build one’s own career or move forwards
in our studies and careers. But this module helped me in understanding that there are various
kinds of study skills and employability skills that are required to be developed by everyone.
After completing this task, I was feeling a bit confidence as I was able to learn various kinds of
required skills such as problem-solving skills, team work skills, leadership skills that are required
by a person for building a successful career even though during this module while completing
the task I was feeling a bit hesitant as I did not have team work skills that was one of the most
important skills required to complete the task in a proper manner. After this module I felt that
there are many skills that are important to be learned and plays a vital role in one’s own success.
Evaluation: At this stage we evaluate things that were good and things that were bad about this
experience or task (Sekarwinahyu, Rustaman and Widodo, 2019). All kind of positive and
negative aspects of a situation are highlighted at this stage. One of the best and positive things
about this module or assigned task that worked well was that all the students did their best to
complete their task with good quality of work as well as in required time period. In fact, there
were some studies who worked so hard and even cancelled their own plans in order to complete
this task on time and in an appropriate manner. this motivated me a lot to complete the assigned
task properly by maintaining overall quality of the task. However, there were some other things
that contributed negatively while completing this task. One of them was lack of team working
skills and none of them had leadership skills because of which many other kind of issues were
arising. Due to this we faced some difficulties while working together in this task because of
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which we faced lots of difficulties in completing assigned task in defied time period but we did
complete this task on time because of our problem-solving skills.
Analysis: This section helps in explaining what sense can be made from that particular situation
(Arumugam and et al., 2017). According to me this task was completed on time because each
person has their own opinion and according to their strengths and weakness task work was
divided. This helped me in giving my best to complete the task as we all were working on parts
on which we were quite good at for example I am quite good in researching skills so I opted to
research on leadership skills of Mark Zuckerberg. In order to work in team in an appropriate
manner we used Belbin Theory and distributed out work according to this theory considering
one’s own weakens and strengths. This theory helped a lot as task of each member was
distributed appropriately. But still I think I need to enhance my team working skills and
leadership skills in order to achieve success.
Conclusion: At this stage what else could have been done is discussed (Read and et al., 2019). I
think one of the main challenges faced by us was working in a team even though we distributed
out work according to our strengths and weakness but we did not know appropriate way of
working in a team. Working to team work skills, problem solving skills, time management skills
could have helped in completing this task in a much more appropriate manner. Another way in
which improvement could had been made was by knowing others strengths and weakness. We
only knew our own strengths and weakness and were completely unaware of others strengths and
weakness because of which we were not able to cooperate with each other work together in an
appropriate manner. So, this module has helped me in understanding my strengths and weakness
and parts or skills that are still ned to bring improvement on so that in future these kinds of
problems of issues are not faced and any kind of team task or assignment are completed properly
in timely manner.
Action Plan: This is the last stage in which action plan is developed to identify what will be
done in future if this situation arises again. Next time if it is required to work on a group or team
assignment or task following things can be done. First thing I will do is to identify all the task
that are required to be done and then using proper theories or models these tasks would be
distributed appropriately. Next is at the starting of the assignment we will be choosing or
approving a leader who will be taking responsibility of accurate completion of the assignment or
task. So that even if any kind of issue arises some one will be there to resolve it. According to me
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these two things will help me in working together on a team project or assignment in a proper
manner.
CONCLUSION
From the above reflective journal, I have learned that there are various skills that are
required to be developed within myself in order to build a successful career. This reflective
journal helped me in identifying importance of all kinds of skills and ways in which they are
important in studying or while building our own careers. Other than this with the help of this
reflective journal I was able to identify my key personal strength i.e. things or skills in which I
am quite good at. Some of the skills were my main strength that helped in in completing assigned
task in a better manner such as research skills, ICT skills and many more.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arumugam, B., and et al., 2017. Reflective writing–how a medical student can reflect?. Journal
of Education Technology in Health Sciences. 4(2). pp.47-53.
Dhaliwal, U., Singh, S. and Singh, N., 2017. Reflective student narratives: honing
professionalism and empathy. Indian J Med Ethics. 3(1). pp.9-15.
Hilliard, D., James, K. and Batt, A.M., 2017. An Introduction to Reflective Practice for
Paramedics and Student Paramedics.
Read, D., and et al., 2019. 3 Nurturing reflection in science foundation year undergraduate
students. Teaching Chemistry in Higher Education: A Festschrift in Honour of Professor
Tina Overton, p.23.
Sekarwinahyu, M., Rustaman, N.Y. and Widodo, A., 2019, November. Problem-based learning
skills and reflection skills of biology education students through the problem-based
online tutorial. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1280, No. 3, p. 032004).
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.
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