Academic and Employability Skills: Coursework Reflection

This report reflects on the learning and development of academic and employability skills during a six-week coursework. It details the skills acquired through seminars, presentations, reading advice clinics, academic arguments, and teamwork activities. The report identifies difficulties encountered, such as the misalignment of the course with individual skill gaps and limited educational resources, and suggests strategies for improvement, including enhanced teaching methods, stronger student-teacher relationships, and ethical practices. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of these skills for academic and professional success and highlights the positive impact of problem-solving and critical thinking on skill development.

Academic and
Employability Skills

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Learning from the Module......................................................................................................1
Specific Skills Acquired.........................................................................................................3
Difficulties encountered during the module sessions and their causes..................................4
How were you able to overcome difficulties and strategies those were helpful....................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Academic and employability skills refer to the basic understanding, knowledge and attribute
that are required by an individual for getting success in their academic and professional career.
There are various approaches to student learning and skill development to enhance the learning
ability of the student and support their academic and professional life. As far as the learning and
skill development is concerned the activities at college and university are very effective in
developing the skill of the students for their academic and professional career. Students need to
develop research strategies and various skills so they can enhance their study skills, aiming at
extension of their academic and professional growth. The career growth of a student requires
certain aspects of their primary and academic abilities in order to utilise in real life situations,
which is possible with the scholastic activities. This report will demonstrate the reflection of an
individual on learning of various skills during the coursework of six weeks.
MAIN BODY
Learning from the Module
Throughout this course work, I learnt various concepts of academic and employment skills
which can be helpful to enhance my learning and professional development. I learnt how to
develop and utilize a skill development program in order to maximize the amount of time for
learning and become efficient in my work. We have been through a six week course work that
helped me to develop my skills that are required for the growth of my academic and professional
career.
The first week consisted of seminars and discussions which were based on seminars and
discussions among the students. In this module or course work we needed to read the
assignments for the class and discuss major topics and themes with each other. During the
seminars and discussions all the students were able to interact with each other within small
groups and we developed a greater sense of community and understanding among each other. I
found that the seminar and discussion is helpful to understand each other in better ways to
develop creative solutions for our problems. It also helped us to focus on the perspective of each
other and understand their topics with the help of better transmission of knowledge (Cosenza and
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Buchanan, 2018). This helps to develop our abilities to critically understand our topics and
design a route map in order to complete again the information about these topics.
In the second week of my learning program, I understood about the presentation, which is
very important for developing my professional and academic career. In an activity, where my
tutor asked to stand up in front of people and share my ideas on a given topic which was a
stressful situation for me. It was a form of formal presentation that I need to make immediately
in the public in order to develop the strength of my knowledge and conquer my fear of
communicating with others. With the help of this I learnt how to communicate and present
myself in front of the public and how to respond to the audience in a very confident and
conscious manner. With the help of this activity I learnt about best strategies and techniques of
oral presentation in a given situation and developed my learning for presenting myself to others
in my academic and professional life.
During the reading advice clinic in the third week I was able to understand various sources
that are most suited for reading activities and can help in the development of academic and
professional skills. I understood that reading is a very fundamental learning activity for every
college student because it helps us to do many activities such as research, brain booster and
knowledge about various things. The reading ability also enhances the learning ability of a
student which would be helpful to them during their examinations and it also is important to
develop proper communication with the help of good sentences (Faulkner and et. al., 2019). With
quick feedback from the tutor I understood that reading in college takes the effectiveness and
practice of an individual in order to become an effective reader. I learnt about various strategies
that can be helpful to read effectively and retain the information for a longer time such as using
reading strategy, monitoring my comprehension and scheduling my reading time.
In the 4th week of the coursework I understood about the nature of academic argument
which could be helpful in developing my academic and professional skills. In this activity of
academic argument discuss various academic writings and augmented about the central idea that
it could claim. With the help of academic argument I learnt about the process of collecting
information and clearly defining the central idea that it brings with it. In this activity of academic
arguments I focused on developing arguments in favors of my views regarding a given topic
based on various literatures with the help of clear concrete reasons for my views. This helps to
develop a clear understanding and knowledge of various topics and finding out the conclusions
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with the support of reason. I think that this would be helpful for me to bring out conclusions of
the discussions of various people and become effective problem solvers and decision makers.
In the fifth week of learning I came around the graduate attributes, job satisfaction and
teamwork which could be helpful in developing my academic and professional skills. In this
week we learnt about the general attributes that are required by a person to be a good person in
overall personality. We were given a task to evaluate the role of job satisfaction on the life of
people working within an organization (Green and et. al., 2021). I understand that job
satisfaction is a critical factor that is very necessary for an employee working within an
organization for their skill development and learning. I also learnt about teamwork among people
to attain an objective by working together. The ability to work in a team enhances skill
development and overall growth of the person by combining their efforts with each other and
sharing their skills and knowledge which enhances their performance at the workplace.
In the last week I learned about advice clinics which could be helpful and provide useful
advice to the people regarding various issues. I think this activity has a very positive impact on
me because I learnt about solving the problems of others and providing advice to them to tackle
certain problems which may be related to their workplace, family and life. I understood that the
problem solving ability is very necessary to understand the problems of people and provide
adequate advice to solve them. I found that this activity was very helpful in developing various
scales such as problem solving and critical thinking to enhance skill development for
professional and academic careers.
Specific Skills Acquired
From the first activity of seminars and discussion I developed a basic skill of talking
constructively and criticizing the facts of others in order to understand the materials in better
ways. With the help of this the ability to process the information and respond to the criticism of
others was developed by me. I think this would be helpful in creating a positive relationship
among the group members and help us to learn constructively (Hasanzadekafshgar Kalei, and et.
al., 2020).
In the second week of presentation I was able to develop my presentation skills and public
speaking ability that allows me to present myself confidently and effectively to others. This
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helped me to develop as a person with good presentation skills and I understood about the use of
eye contact and body language to engage better communication and presentation.
With the help of a reading advice clinic I developed my ability of reading comprehension
and understanding of what I read. This skill is not only helpful to study better for my tests but it
is also helpful for my professional career to research and write things in better ways.
With the help of academic argument I was able to develop the abilities and scales such as
critical thinking which is helpful to analyses information effectively and provide conclusive
answers (Matthews and Pilkington, 2018). I think that critical thinking ability would help me to
be mindful and create constructive answers to address any problem.
Moreover, with the help of the activity of the 5th month about graduate attributes, job
satisfaction and teamwork, I understood that collaboration and group work with others is very
important to be effective at academic and professional life. I came to know that learning how to
work productively and improving communication, leadership and conflict resolution could be
helpful in my academic and professional career.
With the help of an advice clinic, I was able to develop my research skill and time
management because in this activity I needed to organize and schedule my time in order to
manage the problems of people and answer them. Moreover, it helps to develop my research
abilities for finding credible sources and using effective search strategies for finding better
solutions to the problems of consumers.
Difficulties encountered during the module sessions and their causes
From the learning program throughout this course work I identified certain problems
during the sessions such as the inability of the tutor to identify the need for different skill gaps
among the students. Identifying that the students have different skill requirements and the course
was not set out in such a way that it could help to develop the skills of everyone with different
needs. It is a fact that people have certain skills and may not possess some of them but in this
course work the skill development during the module was not equitable for all and many students
faced challenges during this course work.
Another challenge that was identified was limited education, I found that the students have
higher learning abilities but the education that was provided was very limited in quantity that
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must be enhanced. I think that one of the reasons for incomplete skill development among
various students was due to the limited amount of education provided to the students.
I also found that the organization has the subtitle challenges of corruption due to which the
student faced the problem of providing complete fees for their course work or module. I think ok
this is a destructive activity within an institute and it hindrances the learning and skill
development process of the students (Toews and Zagona, 2022).
How were you able to overcome difficulties and strategies those were helpful
I would recommend certain strategies that could be helpful to overcome the challenges
faced within an organization to enhance its academic learning process of the students.
The institution can improve their ability to enhance the teaching skills and find skill gaps
for academic success including organization and time management of the students.
Enabling tutorials in the learning process and identifying the skill gaps with the help of
strategic tutorials could be helpful to identify specific requirements of the student and optimize
their learning (Vansteelandt and et. al., 2020).
Building strong student teacher relationships and creating positive peer groups for
students would be also helpful to provide more education and knowledge to the students with the
given amount of resources in the organization.
Moreover, the development of academic mindset and culture and stretching the courses
that are provided within the models and sessions could also help to enhance the quality of
education among the students.
The institution should also develop good ethical behaviors and moral values among its
members to reduce the chances of corruption and provide the best education to the students.
CONCLUSION
The above report had been explaining various academic and employability skills
enhancement activities such as seminars, discussions, presentation, reading advice clinic,
academic argument graduate attributes, advice clinics and teamwork activities with the help of
course work and modules at the institution. Moreover, the report had been describing specific
skills such as communication, reading comprehension, critical thinking, teamwork, time
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management and research skills that are acquired while attending the course work. Further, this
report identified certain difficulties such as corruption and unlimited education along with the
solutions to these problems to enhance academic and professional development.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cosenza, M. and Buchanan, M. eds., 2018. Visions from professional development school
partners: Connecting professional development and clinical practice. IAP.
Faulkner, F. and et. al., 2019. Teacher learning and continuous professional development.
In Examining the Phenomenon of “Teaching Out-of-field” (pp. 269-308). Springer,
Singapore.
Green, K.a and et. al., 2021. Individualised Professional Development Using the Pyramid Model
in an Urban Head Start Programme. International Journal of Disability, Development and
Education, 68(3). pp.347-361.
Hasanzadekafshgar Kalei, F., and et. al., 2020. Presenting a professional development model of
managers with future research approach within Mazandaran province
schools. Educational Development of Judishapur, 11(1). pp.86-96.
Matthews, L. and Pilkington, R., 2018. Developing Teaching Standards: A professional
development perspective. In Handbook of quality assurance for university teaching (pp.
397-408). Routledge.
Toews, S. G. and Zagona, A., 2022. Collaborative Professional Development to Support
Inclusive Instruction. Inclusive Practices. p.27324745211039745.
Vansteelandt, I. and et. al., 2020. In pursuit of beginning teachers’ competence in promoting
reading motivation: A mixed-methods study into the impact of a continuing professional
development program. Teaching and Teacher Education, 96. p.103154.
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