Reflective Report: Employability & Management in Youth Work

This report provides an overview of personal and professional development skills acquired through a module focused on employability and management in youth and community work. It reflects on module learning, including critical and analytical thinking, problem-solving, communication, presentation skills, and cultural awareness. The report also discusses emotional intelligence, leadership, and reflective practice. A critical analysis of communication skills and emotional intelligence is presented, along with an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses. The author reflects on their active participation in the module, highlighting enhanced knowledge and skills in project management, cultural interaction, and emotional intelligence. The report concludes that the module effectively enhanced thinking and creative abilities.

Reflective report
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Overview of module....................................................................................................................................2
Reflection on learning and development.....................................................................................................3
Critical analysis...........................................................................................................................................4
Evaluation of strength and weaknesses........................................................................................................5
Discussion of module..................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7
Appendices..................................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
The purpose of this report is to provide the overview of the personal as well as professional
development skill with the help of the module learning process. The report will discuss on the
module learning as well as on the development along with the strength and weakness that have
impacted on the personal along with the professional development. Furthermore, the discussion
on the participation in the module will be provided in the report.
Overview of the module
The learning process within the academic session help to improve the personal as well as the
professional skill of the students. In this case, I have learned various concept from this module
within the 30 weeks where the teachers have provided useful discussion on the critical as well as
analytical thinking, then the process of problem-solving. In the module there are a much more
functional activity like the process of communication then the presentation along with the
cultural awareness and much more. This is the primary fact of the module that allows me to learn
various concept within the academic session.
This module learning is being selected to so that I can gather knowledge on the various facts like
the emotional intelligence than the leadership. The primary point is that the personal
development is essential to develop the skill within the academic students. In this module, there
is also employability that is utilized for the development of skills for the various profession. In
this module learning, there is a useful skill which is required to develop a vital aspect of the
academic session. With the help of the problem-solving ability in the module learning, one can
effectively improve their skill to solve the various problem within the personal as well as the
professional life.
Cultural awareness along with the communication process that is also provided in the module is
quite sufficient to deal with the diverse people in the university and even in the future workplace
(Caruso et al., 2015). This module is beneficial for developing the personal skill that is essential
for the professional development. In this module, the vital part is the devising as well as
expanding the project management skill (Kelly, and Kaminskienė, 2016). It will help me to
understand the risk, and the uncertainty that is associated with the project and also the problem-
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solving skill along with the communication is essential in their process to develop the project
management skill (Klebanov et al., 2017).
Reflection on learning and development
The module has provided me with the active learning skill that I eventually required to develop
my personal as well as my professional expertise. From this module, the critical, as well as the
analytical thinking, have enhanced my knowledge on the process of critical thinking. The second
topic of the module is the problem solving, and here also I have learned numerous method and
the various activities that help me to develop my skill for the problem-solving process
(Krishnakumar et al., 2016). The next topic is the communication from which I have learned the
diverse way to communicate with the people and the clients effectively.
The presentation is the next topic, and here I have learned about the process of presenting the
data and the information to the clients in a professional way. It is essential for the career growth
as this show the attribute of the professionalism (Kurunsaari, Piirainen, and Tynjälä, 2015). This
is one of the most critical activities and the learning process that has been utilized within the
module. In this section I have learned about the usage of the negotiation process, then the critical
thinking as well as the project planning process. I have also learned about the risk assessment
which is one of the vital parts of the project management.
In the module, the next topic is regarding the cultural awareness, and in this, I have learned about
the various cultural aspect in the organization. I have also learned about the organizational
culture to improve the working function and maintain active communication level within the
organization (Mathew and Gupta, 2015). The next topic is the emotional intelligence where I
have learned about the practical way of using the emotion within the organization as well as the
project to get the work done most successfully.
Leadership is another topic in the module and form this I have learned about the various
leadership skill and activity that I need to perform in the personal as well as the professional life.
The next topic is the reflective practice, and in this, it is helping me to understand my learning
process and my development till date. The entire learning process within the module is much
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useful and provides me with valuable learning activities that are essential for my personal growth
and also for the career development (Miners, Côté, and Lievens, 2018).
Critical analysis
There are various types of communicational still which needs to be analyzed to increase the
reliability within the concerned areas. The module learnings as effectively reflected the fact that
the barriers of communication need to be removed and enhanced to transmit the message
precisely to the concerned person in a better way. On the other hand, the module learnings
critically reflected the importance of emotional intelligence. It is defined as the subset of the
social indigence to provide and monitor own feelings as well as emotions (Moniz et al., 2015).
There exists a crucial fact that the emotional intelligence can be effectively learned and
strengthened as per a few of the researchers. It helped me in evaluating my emotional skills to
perform any tasks and carry out particular activities. Reading of the emotions of our people helps
us in executing or responsibilities appropriately. I have gathered knowledge that use of the
feelings critically helps in promoting thinking level as well as in fostering cognitive activities
(Naseem, 2017). The most important is to understand emotions as well as manage those
emotions correctly. The evaluation of the strengths reflects that the managing of the feelings
helps in managing various work activities in the better way. One of the crucial factors in the
development of self-awareness which helps in providing immense knowledge regarding the
execution of the work processes ineffective way. It is a matter of the fact that different people
execute their respective work processes in different ways depending upon their capability of
managing their own concerned emotions. I understood the fact that the use of emotional
intelligence is considered to be vital in workplaces as it helps in developing collaboration as well
as cooperation with the concerned team members. One of the other skills is the development of
project management skills which helps in executing the work processes faster. Raising of
awareness regarding the values and ethics throughout the concerned workplace is considered as
to be vital (Njoroge and Yazdanifard, 2014). The learnings critically reflect the fact the raising of
awareness is defined as the desired process which changes our way of thinking that the work
executed with the young people are mobilized an enacted. Moreover, the discussions among the
group members helps in performing various tasks in more systematized way. There exists crucial
change that needs to be implemented between each of the people working at the workplace
regarding emotional intelligence or developing of the self-awareness.
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Evaluation of strength and weaknesses
One of my strength developed after going through the learning models were the development of
the self-awareness and self-confident regarding the execution of the work processes in a more
effective way. On the other hand, it is important to respect the cultural values and beliefs of other
people to enhance the effectiveness throughout the work area. Furthermore, Foucault helps in
focusing on the way in which knowledge discourses to various people. I evaluated that disclosure
analysis is regarding the saying and understanding the specific matter that is communicated
within the concerned group of members. My strengths were regarding the establishment of the
concept of self-awareness which is required to collaborate and cooperate between the groups of
concerned members. There are different styles of leadership such as the autocratic, democratic,
transformational, transactional which helps in providing the desired direction for a leader to
execute their respective work processes more smoothly (Schutte and Loi, 2014). One of my
weaknesses was the establishment of the concept of leadership in a practical workplace which
would have provided me with the correct direction to understand the exact detail of the work
processes. The limitation was the restriction of the scope to understand the use and concepts of
leadership skills in a practical environment (Serrat, 2017). The method of the emotional
intelligence concepts in other learning modules has provided me with the confidence to
understand the attitude and behavior of my own along with the other people. I believe that the
development of the action plan is vital as I help in carrying the concerned tasks more effectively.
Few modules evaluate the concept of critical thinking which is very important for the execution
of work processes. Moreover, it is a matter of the fact that the reflective practices are not
considered as a skill, but it reflects naturally and thus, the concerned person should enhance the
critical thinking. I have gathered knowledge regarding the development of the powers which will
help in improving my profession like self-confidence and self-awareness (Shum et al., 2016).
The transformational style of leadership effectively provides the desired scope to change the
work processes of an organization as per the requirement and the latest trends. Moreover, I can
collaborate with other people, but I need to work on the development of the better management
skills and leadership skills.
Discussion of the module
I have actively participated in the module learning process that enhances my knowledge to
critically think and analyze my understandings. From this learning procedure, I came to know
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that critical thinking refers to the process that use to uncover the feelings of an individual. In
other words, critical thinking helps me to solve any problem and thus for increasing my level of
thinking I will choose a topic and critically think about that. From this module, I have also
learned that how to interact with the persons belonging to the different community (Tanaka et al.,
2018). For increasing my communication level, I use to interact with people of the different
community, but I face problem while interacting with them. To reduce my problem, I often read
some texts books so that I can fluently interact with them. Besides this, I have also learned about
the procedure of devising and developing Project Management skills that help me to gain
knowledge about the project management. The module will help me to differentiate between
general, project and program management and later on I can use this project management
technique in my academic practice (Vratskikh, Al-Lozi, and Maqableh, 2016). In the beginning, I
faces problem to discriminate this three management procedures but later on I able to know their
differences, and after that, I completed my work properly. I have gained knowledge about the
effect of emotional intelligence within the organization and this help to enhance my leadership
quality. The module helped to gain facts about cultural awareness as well as employability that
help to develop my skills of a profession and lastly I became able to know about reflection
writing (Wan, Downey, and Stough, 2014). Hence it can be said that all these learning
procedures enhance my thinking and creative mind both.
Conclusion
The paper effective reflects the learnings performed in different modules. Development of the
self-awareness is essential to execute required activities within a group of people. Moreover, the
reflective practice is increased when people carry the desired sets of skills and capability. There
are few of the leadership styles as well as management theories which helps in providing the
right path to enhance the personal and professional skills. The paper also reflects my strengths
and self-awareness is one of my strengths that will help I finding and discovering better
opportunities for my future career. One of the areas where I need to improve is the establishing
of the effect of leadership skills in performing with a group of people.
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References
Caruso, D.R., Salovey, P., Brackett, M. and Mayer, J.D., (2015). The ability model of emotional
intelligence. Positive psychology in practice: Promoting human flourishing in work, health,
education, and everyday life, pp.545-558.
Kelly, E.J. and Kaminskienė, N., (2016). Importance of emotional intelligence in negotiation and
mediation. International Comparative Jurisprudence, 2(1), pp.55-60.
Klebanov, B.B., Burstein, J., Harackiewicz, J.M., Priniski, S.J. and Mulholland, M., (2017).
Reflective Writing About the Utility Value of Science as a Tool for Increasing STEM Motivation
and Retention–Can AI Help Scale Up?. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in
Education, 27(4), pp.791-818.
Krishnakumar, S., Hopkins, K., G. Szmerekovsky, J. and Robinson, M.D., (2016). Assessing
workplace emotional intelligence: Development and validation of an ability-based measure. The
Journal of Psychology, 150(3), pp.371-404.
Kurunsaari, M., Piirainen, A. and Tynjälä, P., (2015). Students’ experiences of reflective writing
in physiotherapy education. Physiotherapy, 101, pp.e803-e804.
Mathew, M. and Gupta, K.S., (2015). Transformational leadership: Emotional
intelligence. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 12(2), p.75.
Miners, C.T., Côté, S. and Lievens, F., (2018). Assessing the validity of emotional intelligence
measures. Emotion Review, 10(1), pp.87-95.
Moniz, T., Arntfield, S., Miller, K., Lingard, L., Watling, C. and Regehr, G., (2015).
Considerations in the use of reflective writing for student assessment: issues of reliability and
validity. Medical education, 49(9), pp.901-908.
Naseem, K., (2017). Job Stress and Employee Creativity: The mediating role of Emotional
Intelligence. International Journal of Management Excellence, 9(2), pp.1050-1058.
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Njoroge, C.N., and Yazdanifard, R., (2014). The impact of social and emotional intelligence on
employee motivation in a multigenerational workplace. International Journal of Information,
Business, and Management, 6(4), p.163.
Schutte, N.S. and Loi, N.M., (2014). Connections between emotional intelligence and workplace
flourishing. Personality and Individual Differences, 66, pp.134-139.
Serrat, O., (2017). Understanding and developing emotional intelligence. In Knowledge
Solutions (pp. 329-339). Springer, Singapore.
Shum, S.B., Sándor, Á., Goldsmith, R., Wang, X., Bass, R. and McWilliams, M., (2016), April.
Reflecting on reflective writing analytics: Assessment challenges and iterative evaluation of a
prototype tool. In Proceedings of the sixth international conference on learning analytics &
knowledge(pp. 213-222). ACM.
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R. and Koide, K., (2018). Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health, 10(03), p.283.
Vratskikh, I., Al-Lozi, M. and Maqableh, M., (2016). The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on
Job Performance via the Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction. International Journal of Business
and Management, 11(2), p.69.
Wan, H.C., Downey, L.A. and Stough, C., (2014). Understanding non-work presenteeism:
Relationships between emotional intelligence, boredom, procrastination and job
stress. Personality and Individual Differences, 65, pp.86-90.
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Appendices
Action plan Table
Activities
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6
Development of emotional
intelligence skills
  
Professional courses   
Short term courses   
Maintaining a journal  
Reading books  
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Figure: Development of employability chances through planning
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