Reflection and Professional Development Essay
Introduction
According to Winstanely (2007), PDP plays a significant role in personal effectiveness, organizational and professional context. Personal development and planning (PDP) stages provide a person with a great opportunity to reflect on the following from a given learning experience. Firstly, an individual should have an idea of what he or she wants to do achieve in life. Secondly, a person should be able to understand oneself and the surrounding environment by realizing how learning has changed his or her life and that of a workplace. Thirdly, the person should be able set perfect personal goals and ambitions. The goals should be in line with the profession individual wishes to join. Fourthly, PDP helps in realizing whether one is making the right decisions capable of helping in achieving life goals. Finally, PDP gives a person a chance to understand oneself in terms of education by taking self-control. Self-control helps in better management of oneself, better control over people in an organization and better performance of professional duties (Biggs & Tang 2007). PDP forms an institution-supported bridge between the personal and public performances. The discussion below gives a critical reflection of my experience, feedback from others, individual psychometric measures, organizational measures and professional metrics.
Analysis of learning
Approaches to learning unravel the relationship between learning and reflection in the learning process. PDP helps a person discover new things in life that are essential for wholesome relationship with others and promotes professional effectiveness. According to Routledge & Carmichael (2007), learning enables individual gain interpersonal development and management skills that are essential in day-to-day living. Reflection and personal development planning has made me discover many things about myself that I never knew before. Every time I learn a new thing, I reflect on its importance in my life, and it helps me discover myself better. John Dewey’s theory on education implications of education shows reflection as a special way of thinking. According to Dewey, reflection helps a learner turn over a new experience and give it serious thought (1933). Through reflective learning, I was able to discover what I was capable of achieving in life. In addition, I could discover my own values and principles that have assisted me leave a peaceful life with others. Before this lesson, I could study just in order to pass exams but I have now realized that I need to study hard to land in the profession of my choice.
What successes and difficulties did you encounter and why?
Secondly, PDP has plays a significance role in the success of an individual. According to Cottrell (2010), an individual requires a number of skills in order to be successful in life. Personal development planning goals enable a person determine own strengths and weaknesses. I could realize myself and worked hard for a particular goal. In addition, I was successful in teaching others how to manage well in life through proper reflection on learning. Moreover, using self-analysis tools like an attitude tests, I discovered I had reduced my negativity on education and it made me become a student leader in my college. On the other hand, I faced some challenges in my personal development planning. Firstly, some subjects seemed hard to understand, and they always discouraged me. Secondly, the types of people I interacted me slowed down my performances because they had different reflections with my reflections. As Adrian (2007) argued, one should build self-confidence in people in order to make life achievement. I always saw other learners as failures and could not stand taking advices from them. I later realized my negative attitude cost my success and adapted accordingly.
What did you enjoy/not enjoy and why?
After understanding the importance of reflection learning, individual gains some interests in having the desire to acquire new experiences. Several theories of learning assist in demonstrating the importance of reflection learning in personal developmental planning. According to Maak and Plesss, reflection on learning helps a learner discover the necessary requirements in life and start living a responsible life (2006). PDP also makes a person enjoy his or her duties in an organization without fear of making mistakes. After discovering the importance of reflection on learning, I used to enjoy every subject taught in class. In addition, it was exciting to put my knowledge into practice as I gave instructions to my colleagues as a leader. On the other hand, my reflections on learning played a vital role in helping me achieve my professional dreams. PDP helps in developing core aspects of self-awareness that makes the world a more exciting place to live. These aspects include self-evaluation, gaining emotional intelligence, developing good values, and new learning styles (McCarthy & Garavan 1999).
Did anything surprise you about yourself or others?
Reflection on learning introduces new aspects in a learner’s life. A person gets to know new things about oneself and others in the society. People always get surprised about what they realize about themselves after doing a reflection on learning. According to Thomas and Kilmann theory of learning, personal development gained from reflection on learning assists enables a person handle conflicts easily (Pavlina 2008). I could not handle any simple conflict either in class or at the workplace but after this topic, I was surprised on how easily I could solve problems. Five factors contributed to my knowledge managing conflicts. These are competing, collaboration, compromising, avoidance and accommodating. On the other hand, I was able to discover some qualities of my colleagues that were worth taking. It was surprising to see how people received promotions from the workplace without even upgrading their education. I came to realize that most people who have developed personal plans understand how to perform their duties efficientlyand always please their employers.
How did you perform in teamwork?
PDP structure helps learners reflect upon their learning, performance and achievements in order to come up with perfect plans about their personal, educational and career development. Effective PDP assists a learner in building capacity for personal and teamwork in order to increase the understanding in learning. Teamwork helps people learn from others and plays an important role in increasing the performance at class or workplace. In addition, a person gains new life management skills. According to Whetton & Cameron (2010), management skills developed by undertaking PDP reflection increases ones adaptability to the environment, it increases personal analytical skills, better business understanding and improves leadership qualities. My performance in the teamwork was improved bearing in mind that most of my team members were dedicated people who had good visions in life. Moreover, my team mates discovered my efforts and gave me a leadership position that boosted my performance because I was in charge of training others on how to be successful in life.
What did you notice about the performance of others?
Different people have different performance levels depending on how they utilize the PDP structure. Personal competence involves recognizing and articulating personal values and principles, and discovering how they vary with those of others. A PDP structure provides a sound base for someone to reflect on his or her own life, but how a person utilizes this structure differ. Most people take it for granted and end up showing poor performances that make them miss out job opportunities (Ward & Richardson 2007). From my experience with PDP structure, I discovered that some people performed better than others did under the same learning environment. The performance of others was determined by their dedications and seriousness in putting what they learned in class into practice. Through observation and reflection, I could easily analyze the score of others in their performance sheet and link them with personal goals and objectives.
Was there anything that you think affected your engagement or performance on the module?
The performance of a learner in the PDP measurement depends on many factors. Firstly, the nature of institutional opportunities for PDP structure affects the performance of reflection on learning module. Some tutors could not deliver full context of the subject that contributed to low performances. On the other hand, the available resources in the institution determined the performance of an individual. In case one wanted to become a doctor by profession and the institution lacked the necessary resources to teach medicine, then that person fails in achieving his or her career goals. Another factor that challenges the implementation of the PDP structure is the flexibility of an individual to adapt into changes. In order for someone to gain a better reputation from colleagues, flexibility to changes plays a greater role (Hannum et al 2007). On my side, at first I was extremely slow in adapting changes but later realized the importance of keeping in pace with other successful learners. How did you feel at various stages of the learning process?
According to Moon (2004), PDP involves various stages of learning and each stage has its influence on personal, organizational and professional development. During the first stage (planning), an individual gets a better understanding on what he or she wants to know. At this stage, I was not sure of what I wanted to achieve in life, and my plans were just to study and pass my exams. At the second stage (developing), I developed a personal strategic plan about what inspired me in my life and how it could assist me achieve my professional dreams. I had a written plan that I could refer whenever I was reflecting on my learning experience. During stage three (reviewing and updating plan), I had learned many things from my friends that enabled me chose the most important goals that I should achieve at the end of my education. I effectively updated my plans to meet my new goals. Taking action is the final stage. This stage involved performance measurements and self-evaluation processes that determine how effective a PDP is. What did you think about the feedback you received for others?
The feedback from others assists a person in improving on areas that receive lower scores, and maintaining high performances on recommended areas. I always loved to be gauged by others because it helped me rectify my plans and make the necessary corrections on areas that required more work. In addition, feedback from other people assists in identifying personal emotions and attributes that affect the behavior and judgment about others. Feedback from a variety of people provides a variety of options that assist in improving the performance at personal and professional performance (Quast 2007).
Competence
A competence framework forms a useful tool for evaluating the effectiveness of a personal development plan (PDP). The framework reflects on the educational models used in a certain institution that promoted personal achievement and growth. The following competence framework captures the overall design of the PDP structure in relation to personal, organizational and professional development goals. Three activities are of importance while designing the PDP competence framework. The three activities occur interactively and randomly. The vision of a learner about the design of a PDP competence framework is guided by activities involved in the design process that controls the learning process. In addition, a learner must have a vision that gives a point of reference for their PDP decisions (Hummels and Vinke 2009).
- What is the learner’s vision in designing the framework? The vision and its approach it should be highlighted in the plan.
- What is the learner’s vision on identity as a competence designer? The learner’s ambitions and their different they are from others should be analyzed in the framework. In addition, the learner thinks of what he or she should become and achieve in the future.
- The level of developmental stage reached and what has been achieved so far. This question is answered on the part of successes achieved.
- How can a learner achieve progress within the same developmental stage and enable him or her reach the next stage? The following question is clearly answered on the issue of feedback from others.
The three activities needed in determining the competence of a PDP structure are;
- Self appraisal (analysis)
The following activity involves the following stages.
- Making a visual presentation on individual competences and developmental goals achieved and including brief reflections on learning activities going on,
- Choose deliverables from the achieved goals and illustrate the best way of designing life goals,
- Making a conclusion of the reflections demonstrated in respect to overall competences.
- Setting direction
Individual’s visions give directions of the PDP design process and learning process. A variety of activities assists in developing a vision on the best route to take in order to achieve personal, organizational and professional goals.
- Progress monitoring
In every journey, it is importance to determine how far one has gone and what distance remains to be covered. Once a person completes developing the learning activities and receives written feedback, it is important to reflect on the learning process and determining what has been achieved compared to personal goals. In addition, progress monitoring helps in reflecting how different subjects have contributed to the overall development and identification as a PDP program designer (Sala 2002).
On the other hand, the formulated goals should be SMART and provide the learner with a sense of designing an effective PDP structure. By SMART, it means the goals must be Specific, Measurable, Apparent, and Realistic. n order to determine the effectiveness of PDP structure goals, these questions must be considered:
- Does the goal indicate the type of activities intended?
- Does the learner have other means of measuring the effectiveness of achieving the PDP goals?
- Are there specific duties allocated to specific people concerning different activities?
- Is there a check for the feasibility of the goals? And
- Are there times indications stating the starting and finishing time/how long will the process go?
Conclusion
Learning is a daily process that gives a person new knowledge after passing through a certain experience. A student learns by doing an act that he or she did not know or could not do before. Learning occurs through three main processes. Auditory is the first process where a person learns through spoken words or discussions. The second type is the visual learning that occurs through written words, diagrams or pictures. Kinesthetic is the final process where a person learns through experience by doing physical work (Smith 1999). On the other hand, it is important for a person to reflect on newly learned experiences by analyzing their importance in personal life, professional life, or in an organization where one works. To increase one’s reflection ability, several theoretical approaches try to explain the importance of reflection in learning. While doing a reflection on personal learning, it is important to realize the meaning of personal development planning (PDP). PDP involves many forms of reflective learning and learning in general. The topic on reflection learning plays a significant role in the life of a learner in both theoretical and practical ways (Jackson 2001).
List of references
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