Self-Assessment: Evidence Analysis and Reflection - Essay Example

REFLECTIVE REPORT Name Institution Course Tutor Date Reflective Report Introduction The current situation of employment rates caused by unstable economy has resulted into many graduates trying to pursue limited employment chances and vacancies of employment (United States Department of Labor 2012; Peacock 2012; USA.gov 2016). Employers are much concerned with the experience and competencies of the graduate applicants, looking closely to their abilities to provide all that are expected of them as far as their assigned duties and responsibilities are concerned. They give much attention to the evidences that suggest the applicant’s capabilities to the intended job. In this report, I will analyze my professional capabilities based on the evidences from the self-assessment activities I undertook. I will reflect on my self-ratings before I undertook the activities, and after my findings from the activities. The objective of this report is to understand my areas of development over the duration I have been in school, where I need to uplift, and my professional capabilities to competently handle graduate job responsibilities. The University Experience During my time in the university, I undertook some additional classes that were available to help catch up and best familiarize myself with the learning environment. Anticipating challenges allows early potential solutions (Smale, 2012). This was aimed at facilitating my adjustment in the university since; being an international student; I had some relatively challenged adjustment time to new learning environment. Considering my perception about some units of my course that I thought would pose more difficulties, I can say they even became simpler to understand after the making efforts to inquire more about them. The classes I undertook were also straight without any difficulty that got me stuck in any way. I even enjoyed all of them with the help of my friendly tutors that I actively participated with to ensure my success. During my course, I undertook evaluation through course assignments and exams. Most of the assignments I did were much engaging in terms of research work. They required looking ideas and supporting evidences to build developed arguments as far as tasks are concerned. I found this challenging in the first place, but after I made efforts and linked myself with my fellow students as well as my tutors, I even realized to have gained a lot out of these assignments; I developed skills of researching and supporting my arguments while giving solutions to task problems. In addition, I also took part in some extracurricular activities within my course. I joined societies and groups that were aiding the journey of my desired success in school. From these activities, I developed organizational skill needed to relate and effectively work within a team and confidently present arguments within a team context and find best solutions as a team. Therefore, I developed interpersonal skills, alongside leadership skills. Self-Assessment: Evidence Analysis and Reflection During my self-assessment activity that I undertook, I managed to gather some evidences that outline my professional capabilities and competencies. I undertook SWOT analysis, project management plan, and podcast analysis. SWORT Evidence and Analysis It was quite challenging gathering evidence out of this kind of self-analysis. Having to accurately evaluate myself to identify which areas I do best and those that I do not, was the most challenging part of this self-assessment of strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. However, with the help of review to how I have been carrying out myself, and the responses I have been getting from my classmates whenever we get involved in group assignments and activities, I managed to get which areas I perform best the others that still need improvements. Prior to the self-assessment activity, I rated myself based on how I have been performing, undertaking daily course activities, and how I generally feel about my capabilities. However, I after I a conducted a SWORT analysis of myself, I came to realize I have weaknesses as well as threats in some few areas within my profession. It came out to me that the strengths that I have always believed to possess had also some overrating associated with them. I have good time management and dedication in every work I undertake. I have always been organized and motivated as I perform my duties. Within a team context, I have always performed better and express good leadership and interpersonal skills to relate effectively with my colleagues. Determination in my research and other course activities has also been among the composition of my strength list. I do set my goals and objectives in every activity that I undertake and work dedicatedly towards to maximize the outcomes at the end. Furthermore, with the skills that I have developed throughout my studies, I have been able to perform well in subjects that I undertake. This reflects relatively to what competencies I possess when it comes to tasks that require focus on the objectives and goals, systematically implementing measure and steps towards the achievement of the goals and meeting the objectives. However, writing reports and academic works free from grammatical and other errors, has been my worst areas. I did always get feedbacks from my tutors, commenting and recommending to eh improvement of my writing and communicating skill entirely. So, these have been some of my weaknesses as far as SWORT analysis is concerned. Effectively communicating my ideas to my fellow colleagues within my team or group has been relatively challenging, but I have always emerged to make it with few areas of corrections. Another area that was one of my weaknesses is computer skills. I joined university when I was not competent enough in computer related activities. In many cases I would seek assistance from my friend, which was also a problem considering my poor interpersonal skill in the beginning. However, with the extra classes I have been taking in school, as I mentioned earlier, I happened to develop and improve my computer skill. From the evaluation I gave myself during the activities we undertook, I realized competency in computer skills has joined by opportunity list. Having to travel from where I stay to the school and make it in time, especially days that have my classes scheduled in the morning hours, have been quite a threat. Being unable to drive, I have always found hard time commuting every day. Figure 1: SWORT Analysis From the SWORT analysis, I realized my prior judgment on my leadership abilities was actually influenced with the qualities I needed to have, but not the exact capabilities I possess. I overrated my leadership capabilities prior to this activity, and I think I still need to work on abilities to lead. I am still intolerant; I need to associate it with my patience ability to become tolerant to situations that do please me. Project and Personal Management Plan As argued by Smale and Fowlie (2011), to avoid procrastination and disappointments, and adopting the idea of task completion, it is imperative to keep specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic goals that are also well-timed. I have been practicing this over the year of my studies and from the evidences I gathered, based on the results I have been getting from such plans, I realized I have improved much more that I estimated in the prior ratings before I carried out this self –assessment activity. From research assignment we undertook in a group, with me as the group leader, we managed to assess the requirements of achieving maximum outcome from the research work by drafting purpose of our research, aim, required resources actions, along with measurement of our research project with time scale. Reducing the task into such smaller areas allow easy research and ability to reduce mistakes and errors (Smale and Fowlie 2009; MacMillan and Weyers 2011). Aside from this, I also implemented the same as my personal plan management evaluation, and I realized I am capable of coming up with a project plan, its intended goals, required resources, and actions that I should take in each step to achieve my goals. I also realized how I have developed capabilities of measuring my plan and timing myself appropriately. I was able to acquire the resources need for my plan, execute actions needed, and measure my plan activities within the time frame assigned. I believe I have become more competent in project and plan management more than I presumed before the self-assessment activity. As a leader for the group, I was able to see to it that all of the set goals achieved and desired outcome realized. However, this was supplemented by assistance from my group member. I demonstrated good leadership competency, but I still think I have not reached the required maximum competency in leadership. I will have to work on this as I have worked in other areas that I was not good at, such as computer skills and activities. Figure 2: Management Plan With a well-planned and organized plan, meeting objectives and achieving goals is relatively simpler, and from the evidence I gathered, I possess capabilities of planning and managing plan and projects to achieve organization or own goals. Communication Style and Team Role: Podcast Analysis As portrayed by Belbin (2012), professional, as well as academic workshop that involves working in a team to undertake assigned duties and responsibilities require close observation and respect towards the set protocols that has to be followed for a particular task. This implies that every member of a team has to observe protocols and work in line with the set guidelines for every step of the workshop. I have to admit, working by the set protocols has never been my greatest strength. I have always felt part of lively workshops mostly when I take active role in within the workshop. I have battled this issue, to allow myself be assigned or allocated duties by other members just I would want to allocate to them when I lead the team. I believe my desire has always been influence with how much I want to be a leader, and I have had difficult time in situations that have led. This has been a poor character on my side, but I have learnt and put much effort to reverse the feeling, of which I believe I have been able to, some extent, manage. With the activities that we carried out to assess ourselves, we conducted a presentation using podcast, where each member of our group was recording an audio show to address other groups on our findings. Lee, McLoughlin and Chan (2008), and Jarvis and Dickie (2010) say use of podcasts projects the out the authority in commanding verbal communication. Listening to my audio broadcast, on the topic issues that was assigned to me, made me realize how I have improved and developed verbal communication style. I never expected this, considering the fact that I have always believed to be poor when it comes to communication. I had understated my verbal communication style capabilities in myself ratings, prior to this activity. However, I still need to work hard on my written communication style and match the capabilities I possess in verbal communication style. I found this method of assessment interesting as it gave me the opportunity to exercise and test my abilities to verbally communicate effectively. Conclusion The reflective report based on the three evidences I gathered during my self-assessment activities was aimed to review and understand my professional capabilities and areas that still require improvement. Before the activities, I rated myself higher in some areas such leadership qualities and team role capabilities, among others, than I actually am. Similarly, I underrated myself in computer skills and competency, project and personal plan management, among other areas. I realized I developed various profession capabilities required by employers, and be able to secure jobs with them. My experience in the university has majorly impacted on my capabilities development over the years I have been studying. I believe to be competent in most of profession areas such leadership skills, project management, and verbal communication style. However, I still need to improve in my written communication style and competency. Similarly, team role is also a challenging aspect of capabilities that I still need to really work on. I believe with the discussed capabilities, I am competent in most areas of my profession. Reference List Belbin, 2012. When and how to use Belbin Team role. Available from http://www.belbin.com/rte.asp?id=406 Jarvis, C. & Dickie, J, 2010. Podcasts in support of experiential field learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 173–186 Lee, MJW, McLoughlin, C. & Chan, A, 2008. Talk the talk: learner-generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 39, pp. 501–521. McMillan, K. & Weyers, J, 2011. The Study Skills Book. 2nd Edition, Harlow: Pearson Peacock, L. (2012) Number of graduate job set to shrink in 2012. The Telegraph, 26th January 2012 [Online] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9039252/Number-of-graduate-job-set-to-shrink-in-2012.html Smale, B. & Fowlie, J. (2009) How to Succeed at University. 1st Edition, London: SAGE Smale, B. (2011) PAS 2011-2012 Workbook (ML120 & ML130). [Lecture Workbook] Brighton: University of Brighton Business School, Unpublished United States Department of Labor, 2012. Characteristics of young unemployed people. United States Department of Labor Available from http://www.dol.gov/general/topic/statistics [2016] USA.gov, 2016. Graduate unemployment levels on a par with school leavers. Available from http://wwws.usa.gove/statistics> [2016] Read More