Reflective Report: Self-Management for Academic Success (Semester 1)

This report presents a student's reflection on self-management and its impact on academic work. The reflection utilizes the Gibbs reflective cycle, encompassing description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan stages. The student assesses their skills, identifies areas for improvement, and outlines strategies for enhancing time management, communication, and presentation skills. The report details the student's journey of self-discovery, including the challenges faced, the support received, and the positive outcomes achieved. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of continuous self-assessment and skill development, while the action plan provides specific steps for ongoing improvement in various areas to achieve academic and professional goals. The report also contains references from various academic resources.

Individual Reflective Presentation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
REFLECTION.................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The following report contains a reflection on various ways for effective management of
self and academic work. Self assessment is to be conducted in order to understand all the skills
and qualities in self that are to be worked upon. The journey of effective management contains
an assessment, evaluation and then creation of an action plan that will eventually help to attain
required qualities (Blemker and et. al, 2020). In the following reflection Gibbs model is used. It
was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988. It helped in providing a structure to learning from
experiences. There are 6 different stages in Gibbs model which are description, feelings,
evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. With the help of Gibbs model the reflection on
how self management and improvement in academic work can be done is drawn out. It is an
effective model which incorporates all the stages of a journey in a well defined manner from the
beginning to end.
REFLECTION
Self evaluation and judgement of self is the key to success. It is very important that every
individual realises various areas that they need to work up on and all those areas which can be
used by them as their strength. I made sure to evaluate my self in order to effectively manage all
my activities along with my academic work. It was necessary to do so in order to succeed in life
and achieve all my goals and objectives. This journey of mine is explained with the help of
Gibbs reflective cycle including all the six stages of it:
Description: When I realised that it was time to join college I understood that in order to
stand out in crowd there are certain things I need to work upon. It was necessary to make sure
that all the qualities that are required in an individual in order to do good in academics are also
incorporated in me. I expected that it will be a small task which will require only some time and
a few efforts. The initiation of this development only helped me to realise that there are a number
of areas I need to work upon and it might be a time taking process. I also realised that just doing
it once will not be effective enough it was required by me to continuously work on my qualities.
I made sure that I will provide enough time to myself in order to achieve all of this and stand in
competitive world (McKay and Gibbs, 2020). Everyone around me were supportive enough to
help me in self evaluation and suggesting ways to improve. I talked to my mentors who guided
me towards various classes and also suggested some ways for self-development. The result of the

situation was that now I am a self sufficient person who is continuously looking for growth
platforms. In order to achieve which I keep on evaluating myself after regular intervals and work
on my strengths as well as weaknesses.
Feeling: Before I was to join my college I never felt the need to develop qualities in me.
I was of thought that everything I have is enough to successfully pass my exams and live my life.
However when I started looking at various options available for universities I realised that there
are a number of qualities that will be required by me when I go for admissions in college. Even
when thinking about long term goals in order to enter in corporate world one needs to have
qualities of a leader which will make them stand out in competition. I contacted to a number of
people including my mentors, friends and family in order to learn from them the areas I can
improve upon. They were very happy that I have finally decided to work upon my qualities and I
am taking things seriously. My family was happy that I am serious about my goals and future
and that I will now be working upon it sincerely. After I had successfully worked upon my time
management and communication skills I felt more confidence. I do not get anxious now and can
also speak to people freely. Setting goals and achieving them on time have become an easy and
manageable task for me now. My mentors are impressed with this improvement in me. They are
looking at me as a leader and feel confidence in giving tasks to me. They trust me more ans how
faith in me.
Evaluation: There were a number of good effects of this situation upon me. It helped me
to set my goals and actually understand what I want from my life. It was essential that I
understood about various factors that are necessary to learn and apply in life. People around me
were very impressed by me when they came to know about various ways in which I am
developing my self. They also came to me for suggestions and I was happy to resolve any
queries they passed on to me. Their were a few points where I felt demotivated because I was
required to work upon a number of qualities. Also I developed negative feeling when I realised
that there are a number of my skills on which people doubt (Kalk, Luik and Taimalu, 2019).
Sometimes it made me feel worthless as well. At the end things worked in my favour as I
decided not to give up on my goals. Whenever I felt low or demotivated I would stop working on
my qualities for sometimes and make a list of all those I already posses. This helped me to cheer
me up and look at the positive side. My friends were very supportive and gave me company as
well as time whenever I needed someone to practice with. It was majorly in communication and

interpersonal skills where I was comfortable speaking to them. They motivated me from time to
time mentioning all my achievements that helped me to move forward and not give up. This was
a great way to practice and also get honest review so that I can make changes if results were not
good enough.
Analysis: I believe that the reason I started to work upon my qualities was because I got a
self realisation of fact that my existing qualities are not enough to achieve my goals. I understood
if I need to achieve big in life I am required to work hard on it as well. I also analysed that I was
more happy improving my skills that are already good rather than working upon those which I
still need to acquire. I analysed all the options available to me for developing qualities. It was
necessary to prioritize all the qualities and understand what I need to do first. Not paying
attention to every aspect also caused me losses as I enrolled for an interpersonal development
class and a presentation skills class at the same time. It became difficult for me to manage both
these classes together and I ended up doing bad in both of these. It was a lesson which taught me
that time management is also a great quality every individual must possess in order to manage
their day to day life. According to me making a plan is most important in every field. It is
universal and must be used by every individual. I created a plan which kept me in touch with my
goals and my progress (Cui, Wise and Allen, 2019). It enables to understand effectively various
ways in which same task be performed and also allows one with a chance to make changes when
results are not as expected. A number of my peers also worked as my subjects who helped me in
self evaluation and also compare myself with them, in order to understand basic difference and
how can these difference affect the end goals of individuals. This was an important stage that
effectively permitted me to grow and achieve all my objectives as after analysis of the overall
situation only further steps were taken. These further steps resulted in acquiring of certain
knowledge skills and qualities.
Conclusion: The end results of all this work I have done upon myself helped me to learn
about myself and what I actually want for life. It was necessary for me to work on certain
qualities which was made possible due to this self- evaluation. From this process of self-
development I understood about various qualities that are also required for specific field. There
are different skill sets that are required by certain individuals in different field. Presentation skills
and communication skills were most important for me. It helped me to successfully excel in my
field. However I could have done better seeking more professional help rather than doing

everything (Hutchison, 2020). The learning from practising all these skills would have been
more fruitful if I would have taken proper training for communication and development of
interpersonal skills from a professional who specialises in formal communication. Also there are
a number of skill sets like this that individuals require. In future I can continuously work on these
skill sets and also look for more skills to help me in my academic career and my professional
career as well.
Action plan: It was necessary to make an action plan after analysation and evaluation of
all the skills that I need to develop. Action plan consists of all the steps that are to be undertaken
by an individual in order to make sure that everything is planned and all the efforts are made to
successfully achieve set goals and objectives. I divided my action plan into certain criteria which
included the activities to enhance skills, the external help that will be required in the process and
time required to work on skills. In order to improve my communication skills I decided to work
for 45 days. These 45 days were divided into theory classes practical classes and then practice at
last. I started from theory and then applied all that learning into practicality. It was then time to
test myself for which I took help of my mentors and peers. In order to develop time management
skills I worked on certain projects individually (Campbell, 2019). I took 3 projects of 10 days
each. In these 30 days I made sure that all the efforts are done by me to complete the projects on
time completing each and every task. It was necessary to make sure that I am prioritising all the
task according to their importance and dividing time accordingly. My action plan contained of 2
last days in which I reviewed the overall projects and took steps to work on any deviation from
plan. This also provided me with sometime for revision and last minute check. Similarly few
more action plans were made which included development of presentation skills, interpersonal
skills, learning skills and so on. I will continue to successfully make them in future too which
will allow me to keep enhancing my qualities further.
CONCLUSION
With the help of the above stated reflection it can be clearly understood how individuals
go through a journey of development of skills and betterment of self. There are a number of
skills which an individual requires and also a number of different ways through which individual
can successfully achieve it. It is necessary that self evaluation is conducted also help from close
ones is taken in order to understand what are the skill set that one needs to work upon. This
reflection also concludes that just development of few skills is not enough. It is important that

continuous assessment is done from time to time to look into more skills. This is an ongoing
process. No matter whatever qualities an individual possess, in order to achieve some more in
life they will definitely require some more and efforts. Also one can gain additional knowledge
related to subjects which will enable them to improve the already existing qualities. In this way
one can effectively manage themselves to improve in their academic work.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Blemker, M.A. and et. al, 2020. Modulation of the Visible Absorption and Reflection Profiles of
ITO Nanocrystal Thin Films by Plasmon Excitation. ACS Photonics.
Campbell, C.E., 2019. The 2018 J. Willard Gibbs Phase Equilibria Award. Journal of Phase
Equilibria and Diffusion, 40(4), pp.443-444.
Cui, Y., Wise, A.F. and Allen, K.L., 2019. Developing reflection analytics for health professions
education: A multi-dimensional framework to align critical concepts with data
features. Computers in Human Behavior, 100, pp.305-324.
Hutchison, C., 2020. The role of reflection within dentistry. BDJ In Practice, 33(6), pp.20-22.
Kalk, K., Luik, P. and Taimalu, M., 2019, September. The Characteristics of Tutor Blogging
Predicting Student Reflection in Blogs. In International Conference on Web-Based
Learning (pp. 119-129). Springer, Cham.
McKay, L. and Gibbs, K., 2020. Using Arts-Based Reflection to Explore the Resilience and
Well-Being of Mature-Age Women in the Initial Year of Preservice Teacher
Education. In Arts-Based Research, Resilience and Well-being Across the
Lifespan (pp. 105-126). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.