Career Action PlanSelf Reflection

• Purpose of the report

• Required information

• Self Reflection – the basics

• Career Action Planning

• How to structure and layout your report

• Submission Requirements

• Beware the Penalties

Enhancing EmployabilityModule code: 5BUS1085

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Reflective Activities

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Complete a personal analysis of what you have to offer this employer at the moment - include your current skills, knowledge and experiences, both academic and from other areas

Review where you see yourself against the requirements of the role identified in the Career Research Report in the form of a “gap analysis” - where do you need to add more evidence of your competence? What additional skills & experiences do you need to add?

Reflection on Group Presentation assignment team working - your role and contribution within the team, the benefits and challenges that working within that team created, how this will influence how you approach future team working

What is Reflection?“looking back on an experience and making sense of it to identify what to doin the future” (Drew & Bingham, 2001:221)

“In an academic context, reflection is the process oflooking back (describing) over past events; analysing how you have learned and developed as a person and your feelings about this, and re-evaluating your experience on the basis of your thoughts.”

(McMillan & Weyers, 2006: 42)

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Why is Reflection important?

It helps you to identify what you can improve for yourself as a learner in order to improve your performance & learning, by identifying what you do well, identifying problems & considering what you need to improve

It is personal development: a positive exercise helps you identify what you are good at and can build on so to improve and succeed. It helps you understand that others may perceive things differently, and consider why this is...

Employers require ‘reflective practitioners’4

About ReflectionSchön (1987) suggests if you ‘reflect on action’ (make sense of something afterwards), you are more likely to ‘reflect in action’(what to do next time when in the situation)

“It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively”. (Gibbs, 1988:9)5

Kolb’s (1984) theory of experiential learning

Do something

Think about what you did

Connect your

experience to theory

Come to conclusions about what

you did

Plan to try again

keeping your conclusions

in mind

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Gibbs’ (1988) 7 steps for deeper reflection

7Source (Gibbs, 1988: 47)

Section 1 – Personal AnalysisPersonal Analysis

• Review of your skills, knowledge and experience• Include information from personal evaluation tests

Gap Analysis

• Review your personal analysis against the requirements that identified in your research

• Focus on areas requiring evidence or examples

Career

Action

Plan

• Looks at personal development and career related requirements• Summarise within the report and provide full detailed plan in appendix

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Section 2 – Team skills reflectionPersonal Contribution

• Reflection on effectiveness of your personal contribution to team• Analysis of role you played in achievement of assignment objectives

Peer Feedback

• Refection on feedback from peers or team members• How this may support or differ from your perceptions

Future

Changes

• Consideration of any changes when working with teams in future• How being more effective team worker may assist you in future

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Tips for good reflection• Be critically evaluative rather than descriptive -

Reflection is about analysis and evaluation of your own/ your group’s experience, rather than a description of it.

• Be specific – choose one small aspect at a time to reflect and focus on, eg time management; team co-ordination

• Do not transfer blame – your reflection should aim at improvement, so focus on your own role and what you should have done and how it could be improved

• In reflective writing it is common to use the first person – ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’

• Use correct tense – when reflecting on action, use past tense; talking about future plan should use future tense

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Task Activities

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Develop your Career Action Plan. This should show both the short-term and longer-term actions required to prepare you for an opportunity in the area you have researched. Your actions must be SMART

Develop at least one completed STAR competency framework for a competency other than team

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A practical plan of action with steps that are SMART(specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound)

• Break your goal down– Break your goal down into smaller steps which are specific. 'I aim to get a place on

a teacher training course' is not specific. These steps are more specific:– Use the 'UCAS Teacher Training' course search to find out where I could train– Look at course directories to find out their entry requirements– See a careers adviser for tips on how to complete my application form

• Make your steps measurable– Make sure you will be able to measure when each step has been completed 'I will develop

my confidence' is not measurable, but 'I will volunteer to lead the presentation on the 14th July to build my confidence' is measurable.

• Set steps that are realistic– Make sure each step is realistic and achievable 'by next week I will get a placement in

marketing' is not necessarily achievable because the decision to recruit you lies with another person. If you were to say 'by next week I will submit my CV for at least marketing roles' this is achievable.

• Set dates – Set yourself a date by which you will complete each step. Also set review dates to check

your progress and make changes.

Structuring your report

•Outline what your assignment will cover – include a brief summary of role/sector that you identified in Assignment 1 and information on key competencies identified Introduction and Contents

• Personal Analysis•Gap Analysis•Career Action Plan summary

Section 1 – Personal Analysis

•Role in achieving team assignment objectives and requirements•Reflection on any feedback from team members or peers•Consideration of any future development or changes

Section 2 – Team Working Reflection

•Brief reflection on how you feel having completed the assignment and how you intend to use your Career Action PlanSection 3 - Conclusion

•Reference sources used to research and construct your report•Career Action Plan in the form of a table•Completed STAR competency framework

References and Bibliography and Appendices

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Writing your report

A report ‘reports’ on

something in a concise,

formal way using clearly

defined sections

presented in a standard

format, which tell the reader what you did, why and how you

did it and what you

found

A report should be

written concisely, in a business

like manner, and have

headings and sub-headings

As this report is personal to you, it can all be written in

the first person , ie, I

Note the available marks for

each section and ensure

that you take account of

these in how you construct your report

Remember to include

your appendices and all your references

and bibliography

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Laying out your report

Use Times New Roman/Arial 12pt with 1.5 spacing

Use 14pt headings and 12pt sub-

headings

Have a title page and a contents

page

Use page numbering from the Introduction

page onwards

Include a final word count on the

title page

Refer to the CASE Guide to Report Writing for more

information

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Submission Requirements

• Ensure that you submit on time – by 10:00 on Monday 5 January 2015

Your report must be submitted to the correct assignment tab

• Only submit an MSWord document (doc or docx), submit one document which containing all the required sections

• Label your document as follows: Your name: Student number: EE1 (eg John Smith 1234567 EE2)

Ensure that you submit in the required format

• The word count for this assignment is 1100 words (+/- 10%)

• Appendices are not included in the overall wordcount

Stay with the required word count

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Beware of the penalties• a penalty of 5% will be deducted from your

mark for eachFailure to label document correctly or submitting the

wrong type of file

• Penalties will be applied from 1% for 1 – 30 minutes late to your mark being capped at 40% if you are more than 300 minutes late

Failure to submit on time

• Penalty of 1% deducted from overall mark for each 100 words over word count Failure to stay within

defined word count

• a penalty of 5% will be deducted from your markFailure to accurately state

word count

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Extension Requests

You must apply for an extension if required by

Friday 5 January 2015

You must provide a valid

reason and evidence if

required to

support your request

Do not assume

that your

extension has

been granted

unless you

receive an

email

confirming this

is the case

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ReferencesCottrell, S. (2003) Skills for Success: The Personal Development

Planning Handbook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Drew, S. & Bingham, R. (2001) The Student Skills Guide. 2nd edn. Aldershot: Gower.

Drucker, P.F. (n.d.) In ThinkExist.com Quotations (2008) Peter F. Drucker quotes. Available at: http://einstein/quotes/peter_f._drucker/

[Accessed: 19 September, 2008].

Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiental Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Eaglewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Schön, D. A. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. 19