Work Based Learning: Reflection on Skills and Career Development

This report reflects on a student's experience in a "Work Based Learning" module, detailing the educational and lifelong learning gained. The module covered topics such as presentation skills, stress management, personal development planning, reflective writing, CV and LinkedIn development, and effective communication. Specific workplace skills acquired include presentation, stress management, effective communication, teamwork, and leadership skills. The student plans to develop training, time management, technical, problem-solving, and recruitment/selection skills to prepare for a future role as a human resource manager. The reflection emphasizes the importance of work-based learning and employability skills for personal and professional development, highlighting the role of reflective writing and feedback in improving weaknesses.

WORK BASED LEARNING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
What you have learned in the module?..................................................................................1
The specific workplace skills you have acquired...................................................................2
What other skills are you planning to develop after this module against your future job role?
................................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
References:.......................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
In the education system there is huge importance of work based learning as this helps a
student to undertake a practical experience that differs from the traditional school learning
(Battistelli and et. al., 2019) . Work based learning is basically a educational approach in which
student work at real workplace and work is provided with appropriate learning of knowledge and
skills that help a student to experience a real work activities and also gain future career
opportunities. Work based learning is important in order to motivate, engage and augment the
learning within the employees. The present report is the is reflection on my experience in “work
based learning” module and employability skills. The report outlines what I have learned in the
module and specific workplace skills I have acquired during the module. In the end, the other
skills that I want or planning to develop for my future job role is discussed.
MAIN BODY
What you have learned in the module?
The “Work based learning” module helped me in gaining a educational and life long
learning experience. The module was for duration of 6 week and in each week there were two
sessions on different genre. All the sessions were highly informative and knowledgeable and
tutors were talented and skilled in educating through different ways of teaching. As a learner I
have very learning experience through the entire module. In this module I have learned different
things that are discussed below:
 The topic for the first session of the week 1 module was “Introduction to Work based
learning”. This session helped me to learn about the basic understanding on the work
based learning and its importance and significance. Through this session I also developed
my knowledge on advantage of Work based learning in context of student, organisation
and employees. Later in that week in session 2 which was on presentation skills I learned
about the presentation skills at higher level. In this session I learned about different
software like Microsoft power point used to make effective presentations.
 In week 2, session 1 was on stress management. In this session I acquired an learning
about meaning of stress management, disadvantages and consequences of stress, methods
of stress management and importance of stress management. I have learned myself that I
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must manage my stress in order to stay productive and also to experience positivity. In
addition to this in the similar the second session was on learning style. This helped me to
learn about the different forms of learning styles that I must learn and opt best one as per
my way of learning. During this session I have learned about the visual learning style,
kinaesthetic learning style and much more
 Personal development plan was the topic for session 1 of the week 3 that was highly
informative and learning experience for me as I have never before learned about this
subject. I learned how to develop PDP which is good for my self-learning experience. In
the second session of the report the subject was action planning which helped me to learn
about developing SMART goals as an action plan to make the target more realistic and
achievable. This session was very impressive and helped me in developing my skills of
developing an action plan and PDP.
 Further, in the week 4 the first session was on reflective writing and second session was
regarding the theory “Gibbs reflective writing practice” used for generating effective
reflection of own. This week helped me in learning my weaknesses and opportunities that
made a goof reflective writing person.
 Moreover, in week 5 the first session was related to the CV and LinkedIn development
which was highly knowledgeable and lifelong learning for the modification and up
scaling of my future career. This also helped me to learn what new skills I must gather to
meet the current job market trends. The session 2 for this week on the topic effective
communication for career interview this made me learn excellent communication skills. I
believed and observed that for the future career growth and for current expertise
communication is must.
 In the last week 6 the creating assignment draft is the most common among friends and
colleagues. Due to this I have learned to develop the build the assignment draft which is
as learner will help me during my university Assessment period. In this week, over the
session 2 I learned about the formative feedbacks and their importance in the student life
as a learner.
The specific workplace skills you have acquired.
During the whole module experience I have learned different workplace skills that will
help me to perform explicitly during my employment period. Workplace skills are also known as
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employability skills that are transferable skills essential for the individual in order to attain future
employability. The workplace skills which I have acquired during this module are discussed
below:
Presentation skills: During the first week session of this module I have gain an opportunity to
enhance my presentation skills. In this module I have explicitly developed my presentation skills
by learning different tools and techniques to increase the creativity and structural format of the
presentation. I have learned about the features of MS PowerPoint provides to learners to learn
and develop some effective presentation through pre- in built presentation template. In the
modern workplace setting there is huge importance of presentation skills in order to demonstrate
effective presentation as a pitch in meetings with investors or customers, suppliers etc.
Stress management skills: through this module in week 2 I have acquired stress management
skills. I have gained knowledge about different ways to manage a stress such as meditation,
active listening, planning etc. I have acquired strong stress management skills which will help
me in my future career job roles and also provides my work more quality and productivity. In the
workplace there are many times of uncertainty and challenges in which I may come across the
stress and pressure, during such period with my strong stress management skills I will be more
relaxed and mitigate the challenges easily.
Effective Communication skills: In the week 5, I have acquired effective communication skills
which is very important transferable skill that every employee or student must attain. For
acquiring this skill I have also learnt the active listening skills. In week 5 the whole session was
on learning effective communication skills which will be also useful for me in interview process
for attaining a desired job. Communication skills are vital in order to acquire networking in the
workplace or to communicate the goals and objectives with clarity. The effective communication
skills acquired by me will also assist me in communicating with higher authority in professional
manner
Team working skills: during the module there were several group activities where the work is
required are done in a team. This practice of completing a task in the module helped me acquire
team working skills as they are highly important in order to work effectively in a team as team
member. Team working is a capability of a pupil to collaboratively work with the others without
any conflicts and interruptions. For the team work that has higher productivity, better results and
performance it was important for me to develop and acquire the sound team working skills. For
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this I also learned about the delegation of work as this make team working more easy and
comfortable. The team working skills are the transferable skills that will help me in every
specific areas of the employability and also make me good coordinator.
Leadership skills: During this module I have acquired the
Organisational skills:
What other skills are you planning to develop after this module against your future job role?
During this module I observed that that there are several limitation in my CV and skill set
for which I must plan to develop some key skills in order to attain my future job role of human
resource manager. Human resource manager is the person that has duty to manage the workforce
of the organisation. Some of essential skills that I need to develop against this future job role are
discussed below:
Training skills: for the human resource manager it is important to have training skills in order to
guide and train the new interns or employees regarding their job roles and organisations working
environment. For an employee or new comer training is essential in order to make them learn
and understand about their working environment. Thus, to become human resource manger I am
planning to develop my training skills for which I must attended some training session myself to
learn the techniques of training and also I should learn about different learning styles.
Time management skills: for the human resource manager it is important to manage the time as
in the organisation there many employees to be managed and also the human resource manager
has to perform several different functions such recruitment of employees, training and induction,
interviews etc, for management of time for timely execution of each activity is essential.
Technical skills: Human resource information system is one of the digital technological
software that counterparts the human resource management within an organisation. For the HR
manager it is very important to have effective knowledge regarding the technological system of
the HRM this includes most of the information regarding performance evaluation payrolls
rewards and benefits hiring and much more related to the human resource of the organisation.
With the growing technology and digital age world every employability must have some key
technical knowledge skills in order to gain accuracy and preciseness in work. Therefore, to
develop my technical skills I will attend the online course of HRIS.
Problem solving skills:
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Recruitment and selection skills: To be a successful human resource manager I need to develop
my recruitment and selection skills for this I have to develop my communication skills which are
very important for a human resource manager as I need to talk and reach out to people as a
recruiter most of the time. I also need to focus on my decision making skills so that I can take the
decision fast and fair as much as possible. Thus, in order to become a human resource manager
these two skills are highly important and essential therefore, I am planning to develop the
recruitment and selection skills through work based learning style in which I will join a firm as
HR assistant to learn these skills.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that for the student or the employee it is essential to
focus on gaining work based learning in order to have personal and professional development. It
is analysed that for effective working at workplace it is important to acquire the employability
skills such as presentation skills, time management skills, communication skills and much more.
Reflective writing is also a part of work based learning as this helps person in identifying the self
strengths and weaknesses. For the professional development a employee or student must develop
a strong CV and LinkedIn profile in order to seek attention of recruiters of top most
organisations. Thus, feedbacks help a person in improving its weaknesses and turn them into
strengths.
References:
Books and Journals
Battistelli, A and et. al., 2019. Information sharing and innovative work behavior: The role of
work‐based learning, challenging tasks, and organizational commitment. Human
Resource Development Quarterly, 30(3), pp.361-381.
Bahl, A. and Dietzen, A. eds., 2019. Work-based learning as a pathway to competence-based
education: a UNEVOC Network contribution. Leverkusen: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Andresen, L., Boud, D. and Cohen, R., 2020. Experience-based learning (pp. 225-239).
Routledge.
Vogler, J.S and et. al., 2018. The hard work of soft skills: augmenting the project-based learning
experience with interdisciplinary teamwork. Instructional Science, 46(3), pp.457-488.
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Morris, C., 2018. Work‐based learning. Understanding medical education: evidence, theory, and
practice, pp.163-177.
Kis, V. and Windisch, H.C., 2018. Making skills transparent: Recognising vocational skills
acquired through workbased learning.
Troussas, C., Krouska, A. and Sgouropoulou, C., 2020. Collaboration and fuzzy-modeled
personalization for mobile game-based learning in higher education. Computers &
Education, 144, p.103698.
Ornellas, A., Falkner, K. and Stålbrandt, E.E., 2019. Enhancing graduates’ employability skills
through authentic learning approaches. Higher education, skills and work-based learning.
Wilken, J.P and et. al., 2020. Lessons of inclusive learning: The value of experiential knowledge
of persons with a learning disability in social work education. In The Routledge
Handbook of Service User Involvement in Human Services Research and Education (pp.
385-402). Routledge.
Brew, A. and Saunders, C., 2020. Making sense of research-based learning in teacher
education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 87, p.102935.
Almulla, M.A., 2020. The effectiveness of the project-based learning (PBL) approach as a way
to engage students in learning. Sage Open, 10(3), p.2158244020938702.
Wolfson, M.A and et. al., 2018. A cross-level investigation of informal field-based learning and
performance improvements. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(1), p.14.
Kaput, K., 2018. Evidence for Student-Centered Learning. Education evolving.
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