Self Managed Learning: Research

1.a: Identification of Self-management Learning Approaches and evaluation for Career Development

The self-managed learning (SMI) can be of help for individual as well as professional development as it requires one to participate or join in an organization or network. Self-Managed Learning (SML) approaches that would be helpful for my personal and professional development planning are as follows:

Behaviorist Approach: This learning approach concerns with the learners respond to some form of stimuli.

Cognitive Approach: It is based on knowledge as well as retention of knowledge. It refers to the mental activity such as learning, thinking as well as using the language.

Humanist Approach: It is based on the explanations of the individual experiences. It emphasizes on the study of the entire personas well as their behavior.

Self-learning approach can be through effective socializing. Social networking is also useful tool to get to know about the different areas concerning particular subjects.

Self-managed learning further involves performing a SWOT analysis that have helped me in knowing my strengths and weaknesses. As a part of my self-directed learning process, the development of my personal and professional learning plan has enabled me figure out my current and future needs. Based on these, I have set my learning goals and objectives.

1.b: Evaluation of Benefits of Self-management Learning and suggestions for linking Self-managed learning for Personal Development Plan

Self-managed learning helps an individual learn the effective methods of managing their own learning. However, the job of managing my own learning activities was not easy. Self-managed learning process facilitated a systematic approach for managing my self-learning activities. The benefits of self-managed learning process essentially involve a thorough and appropriate process of examining the needs and drawbacks of individuals and helps focusing on those areas of learning for each individual. Therefore, this process is hugely effective for learning at an organizational level. Besides, when taking charge of one’s own learning, it is easier to know the weak points of oneself and then focus on those areas.

As an individual learner, I can effectively utilize the self-managed learning techniques for setting effective learning goals and thereby take up a gradual progress as I continue through the program. The self-managed learning (SMI) process includes a four-step process initiated by the analysis of the different characteristics, study and learning habits and usual surrounding situation of a particular individual. Furthermore, the organized methods of SMI require setting up of the order or sequence of learning activities and build up the structure of the routine accordingly. Apart from that, self-managed learning establishes a timeline or schedule for timely completion of each of the learning activities involved in the program. Besides, it helps clearly understanding the most suitable approach to follow to take the learning in the correct direction.

Self-directed learning helps me to promote the natural development of the self-confidence as well as life satisfaction within me. It also reflects a belief within me to live my own lives as well as follow my own paths. It helps me to finish my work within the given time so that I can undertake my learning procedures efficiently. SMI is necessarily beneficial for my future personal development as it already gave me the ability to engage myself in self-reflection as well as self-evaluation. In addition to that, managing my own learning activities have given me confidence and flexibility in adapting and applying the knowledge and skills I have learnt so far.

1.c: Suggestion for encouraging the long term benefits of Self-managed lifelong Learning

Life-long development is one of the learning approaches that are used to acquire knowledge as well as skill sets. It is all about creating as well as maintain of positive attitude towards learning for personal as well as professional development. It gives benefits to provide better opportunities as well as improve the quality of the life.

The SMI techniques are essentially helpful in future development for my long-term learning. It necessitates adequate co-operation among the learners or participants of an organization. Therefore, it in turn essentially establishes effective team development and motivated work environment to help the organization execute the different projects in an easier manner.

Apart from that, the methods and ways of SMI can be used for personal as well as organizational development purpose ass it efficiently yields valuable feedbacks as each of the goals are accomplished one by one. Self-managed learning further enables one to take serious responsibilities as required by the organization’s objectives and purposes. Moreover, the different learning activities involved in self-managed learning (SMI) facilitate many opportunities for the organization’s project development phases. Other life-long benefits of SMI involve the following:

SMI initiative helps in practicing self-motivation and become confident self-starters. The SMI identifies the issues pertaining to the workplace and the employee’s level of understanding. SMI traditional training programs meet the individual employee needs as well as company needs. From organizational perspective, the self-managed learning courses are easier to support than the traditional training programs as the cost of SMI is far less than that of the traditional training programs. Moreover, salaries arranged for personnel would be significantly reduced as the employees would be engaging in self-directed learning and managers would be transitioned to SMI coaches.

SMI helps me to get motivated towards my work and helps me to gain confident in my work. Therefore, I would able to give the best services to my working organization by increasing the profitability as well as growth.

Task 2: Description of Taking Responsibility for own Personal and Professional Development

2.a: Identification of Important Management Skills and Evaluation with the Current Level of Performance

MANAGEMENT SKILL	Interpersonal Skills
POSITIVE	I am able to communicate effectively and build good relationship with my team members and co-workers. Furthermore, I am able to address individual employee issues and establish motivation in the work environment.
NEGATIVE	I encounter significant difficulties in communicating with diverse group of workers. Therefore, I take quite long time to initiate and reduce the communication gap among the different people coming from different cultures.
IMPROVEMENTS	I have made significant improvements by increasing adaptability and flexibility in my way of communicating with my co-workers and team- mates.
MANAGEMENT SKILL	Communication Skills
POSITIVE	I can establish effective relationship among the team members. For taking a project towards its desired direction, I have effectively set out all the mandatory objectives and strategies for achieving those objectives.
NEGATIVE	As a communicator, I rarely find it difficult to ensure efficient functioning among the subordinates or the team members or to learn the inside conflicts or issues as the team members are quite unlikely to reveal all the details.
IMPROVEMENTS	I have made significant improvements in this area as I went through learning some problem solving skills and learned taking decisions that ultimately are beneficial for the organization.
MANAGEMENT SKILL	Leadership Skills
POSITIVE	I can able to motivate my team members and give them the proper support to carry out their tasks.
NEGATIVE	I can communicate well with the team members.
IMPROVEMENTS	I should need to improve my communication level so that I can able to manage my team members and motivate them to work more for the organization.
MANAGEMENT SKILL	Time Management Skills
POSITIVE	I can able to manage the time and finish my work within the given deadlines.
NEGATIVE	I can finish my own work within time, but unable to force my teammates to finish the work on time.
IMPROVEMENTS	Needs to improve the leadership skill by forcing the teammates to manage the time.

2.b: Personal SWOT Analysis and Recommendations to improve Weaknesses & Threats

SWOT Analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses
Calm and Content Good Sense of Humor High level self awareness High Leadership Skills Excellent Communication Skills High Flexibility Enthusiastic Self Focus High Commitments to work	Low Judgment Skills Egoistic Problems Disorganized Personality Carelessness Too much addiction with Social Media Lack of Interest in software learning Lack of Qualification in Online Marketing
Opportunities	Threats
Emergence of Online Marketing High increase rate of start-up online marketing Business organization getting aware about effective leaders	Increase rate of using accounting software in business industry Business Organization more concentrating on online marketing Lack of opportunity in future Growth

Strength: I have a good communication and leadership skill as I can communicate with my teammates more efficiently. It gives me flexibility to work and increases my self-awareness towards my work.

Weakness: I cannot judge the person based on their looks and behavior. Due to lack of interest in software learning, I cannot get knowledge about the advanced technology.

Opportunities: In this current era, I can get high increase rate of start-up online marketing.

Threats: As my business organization is concentrated on online marketing, therefore I face many issues due to lack of knowledge on online marketing.

Plan to improve areas of weakness: I would divide my time according to the specific tasks I have to perform. I would develop a routine that would essentially help me to positively and efficiently manage the different activities that I have to carry out on a daily basis. furthermore, I would revise and adjust my schedule at a regular interval in order to review and keep track of my progress on a weekly as well as monthly basis. Apart from that, I would seek for support for my personal development plan, research and study from different online resources to improve my skills.

Plan to overcome threats: I would invest my time to learn the process of online marketing and advertisement strategies. Thereafter, I would follow a thorough schedule to manage my time in learning the required skills to improve my ability and competency in the my field of specialization so that I can take appropriate actions against difficult situations.

2.c: Identification of Future Development Needs and Specific ways to meet them

LONG TERM CAREER PLAN	FUTURE DEVELOPMENT NEEDS	ACTION
My long term career planning involves being promoted to middle level manager so that I can gain support from the senior level mangers and my workplace co-workers or colleagues. Thereafter, I would work and improve myself towards becoming the head of department.	For future development needs, I would necessarily require taking up greater roles and responsibilities to complete and solve complex problems and improve my understanding and skills in demonstrating the required activities involved in organizational projects.	To achieve this goal I would start acting on the actual planning right from the present. In order to become successful I would do the needful to keep myself on the track. After starting the cycled of learning process, I would follow the systematic or gradual action plan for executing the plans. To become the head of the department, I should improve my management skills so that I can manage all the works within the organization.

2.d: Personal Development Plan (Short, medium and Long Term Objectives and Timescale for Review

Short term goals	Timescale
My short-term goal is to accomplish a degree after the completion of my present course of study and thereby engaging myself in the process of practical hands-on experience learning, especially in the cross-functional business projects or works.	2 years from present
Medium term goals	Timescale
My midterm goal is to take up the responsibility of leading a cross-functional and diverse project management team and lead the project towards a successful completion achieving great outcomes, also to participate n projects that give me significant exposure.	2 to 5 years from present
Long term goals	Timescale
My long term or lifelong goal is to gain a promotion to the middle level management and thereby gain adequate support from the senior executives and managers in the cases of leading and managing large and complex projects with a significant number of team members involved in the project team. After that, my long term or lifelong goal is to gain a promotion to the middle level management and thereby gain adequate support from the senior executives and managers in the cases of leading and managing large and complex projects with a significant number of team members involved in the project team. After that, I want to possess efficient and high level of leadership skills to be able to take the roles and responsibilities of the head of department.	5 + years from present

 

Task 3: Implementation and Continual Review of Personal and professional Development Plan

3.a: Consideration of the Way of Implementing Personal Development Plan

As an activist, I can make some kind of changes socially. I can desire to make improvements within the society as well as make correct social injustice. As a theorist, I can deal with the theory of my subject. I can develop my ideas to explain the events. As a pragmatist, I am quite practical to focus on my goals, as I am self-focus and self-awareness. Lastly, as a reflector I can able to reflect my own decisions on others and motivate them to work.

For my self-managed learning process, I have adopted the Honey and Mumford learning style. Firstly, I have understood the different approaches involved for the each individual learning style. However, the ‘Questionnaire’ as I developed, involves several methods and factors facilitating the learning.

The characteristics of Honey and Mumford learning style have immensely helped me in gaining in-depth knowledge understanding; thereby successfully carrying out my personal and professional development plan. The feature and characteri0s-c helped me are Group discussions, application of theories, use of models and statistics, participating in competitions , solving games and puzzles, and ultimately brain storming.

3.b: Explanation of Planned Development Activities for Progress

Career and personal Objectives	Action to be taken to develop and achieve each objective	When I will achieve this by	Learning style/progress
Finish my training and degree courses with honor	Perform each activity with proper sincerity and follow the learning process to achieve the sub-goals in a timely manner.	I will achieve this objective within 3 months of time.	I will go through all the processes in a systematic and organized manner.
Achieve in-depth knowledge and understanding of the business processes both internal and external	Carry out detail observation of the activities and work processes, consult with the senior managers and executives for gaining deeper understanding of the methods and techniques.	I will complete this objective within 2 months of time.
Achieve core business expertise and understanding of the processes	Participate in mandatory training processes and volunteer in organizational projects	I will achieve this objective within a period of 2 and  half months
Improving my decision-making and planning efficiency	I will try to gain better experience and indulge in real time project develop in work environment to grasp the technicalities and complex decision-making ability	I would achieve this objective within a time span of 4 months at most.

3.c: Assessing the Learning Activities to achieve Original Development Plan

I have been able to meet the original objectives that I had set for my personal development plan. I successfully cope with the methods and planning processes involved in the activities such as appropriate team management and communication and time management. I have been able to carry out a through personal analysis of my strengths and weaknesses. I defined my skills and competency within the boundaries of personal and professional development planning.  The short term, long term and medium term goals set by me are adequately achieved within the accurate span of time. I have performed all the necessary activities to be able to consider myself as a dedicated professional. I take immense pleasure in my work. Apart from that, my interest in learning technical skills has successfully contributed towards the development of my personal and professional career. I further gained sufficient experience in effectively communicating, establishing thoughts and ideas as a leader and public speaking.

I can able to analyze my progress by making critical judgment towards my work. I can check my own management skills if I have the proper skills in my disciplines. I can able to communicate effectively both orally as well as written. I have the ability to use the skills in order to devise solutions to any issues.

3.d: Revised Version of Personal Development Plan

OBJECTIVE	ACTIONS	TIME
To engage in complex project activities	I take responsibilities to take up complex activities to manage cross-functional projects. Furthermore, I try getting support from middle management.	I would complete this objective in 3 months at most.
To improve decision making and planning ability	I will gain practical hands-on experience of analyzing business process activities. Apart from that, I will use the real working environment for improving my decision- making ability.	I would complete this objective in maximum 2 months of time.
To achieve core business knowledge and expertise	I will take part in the competency development course and complete the organizational training programs	I would necessarily achieve this objective within 3 months of time.
To improve my personal leadership understanding	I will take up sincere observation of the experienced managers and at the same time gain significant amount of trust and friendship	I would essentially complete this objective within 3 months of time.
To gain deeper knowledge in external business activities	To participate in the training and development program that essentially involve carrying out external business activities	I would require exact 2 and half months to compete this particular objective.
To increase my personal fitness	I would allocate a fixed time in some of the specific evenings for indulging myself in fitness training activities.  I would ask for adequate support from my fitness trainers and instructors.	I would require4 months to achieve this objective.

 

Task 4: Demonstration of Acquired Interpersonal and Transferable Skills

Problem 1: Team Dynamics: When working in a team project, the most frequent problem I faced was related to team dynamics. The coordination among the team members were significantly poor causing good amount of confusion and miscommunication, ultimately affecting the project development. The obvious challenge was to cooperate with the team members for carrying out a specific activity involved in the project. Therefore, most of the time there was quite a lot of confusion, conflict and disagreement before reaching to a final decision or conclusion.

Factors: Lack of trust, confusion and miscommunication

Causes: There are no trust among the team members and the relationship among the team members are not good well

Solution: In order to solve this issue, a formal approach has to followed. The formal problem solving technique involves identifying the major areas or sources of the specific problem and then distinguishes between the potential alternatives to solve the problem. The best possible solution is therefore selected. For this problem, solutions to be adopted are as follows:

Conducting regular team meetings

Seeking relevant and useful feedbacks, suggestions and ideas from the team members

Establishing freedom of speech, expressing thoughts and issues and ultimately follow effective communication methods

The particular target areas for applying the solution approach are to be undertaken at the time of initiating or building the project team. The target areas are communication planning, adaptability and decision-making activities.

Problem 2: Diversity: Another significant problem was in relation to the diverse work group that I was involved. The impacts of diversity were obviously creating several issues such as communication gap or problems to cope up with the present culture and work place surroundings.

Factors: Surroundings of the workplace and diverse culture

Causes: Different people working together under the same roof were essentially resulting to frequent issues and friction from time to time. Sometimes, different cultures cause problems to the individuals working in the organization, as their own ideas are not matching with each other.

Solution: The formal approach to resolve this particular issue involves identifying the main factors of the problem such as diversity related factors viz. race, gender, culture or religion. Then the probable alternative courses of actions to address the problem are to be identified. After evaluating the alternatives, the most suitable course of action is selected. It involves:

Addressing individual issues focusing on different points of feedback received from each individual

Encouraging the participants or team members to interact with each other with a purpose of identifying diversity related issues

Apart from that, other methods and techniques include encouraging contribution from individual ideas and viewpoints in decision-making activities.

Therefore, the challenges of diversity in workplace can be effectively mitigated by establishing increased adaptability, encouraging uniformity and fairness. Furthermore, the barriers among the work group caused by diversification should be balanced in a way to take advantage of the individualities and differences.

4.b: Demonstration of Communication Based Class Activities during Development

Structure	In the presentation given by me as part of my course schedule, I took an in-depth research to be able to build an attractive and appealing structure.
Content	In the content of my presentation, I included the necessary amount of meaningful, relevant and valid information.
Volume	The volume of my presentation was appropriate to yield the interest of my viewers.
Pace	I maintained a smooth and consistent pace throughout the period of my presentation, expressed, and delivered the information in a most comprehensible manner.
Body Language	Throughout my presentation, I maintain consistent eye contact with my audience and assessor.  I showed enough confidence while delivering my speech on the stage.
Timing	I maintained a proper time and balanced the division of my time span for each of the slides in my presentation.
Energy and Commitment	My team members and I were adequately enthusiastic throughout the delivery of speech to keep the audience interested.
Other Comments	I maintained better ethics with my teammates for maintaining appropriate team dynamics and coordination.

4.c: Identification of Effective Time Management Strategies

TO DO LIST	A NEED TO DO (6-10)	B DO NOW (1-5)	C (A - B)	D ORDER OF PRIORITY/WHEN
Identify my strengths	Carry out a detail SWOT analysis plan based on my current skills and expertise	Carry out and be able to maintain a diary of my personal and professional improvements	I have already developed the plan for carrying out my self-managed learning activity. Based on my current skills, I have carried out the SWOT analysis	First week
Identify my weaknesses	SWOT analysis is carried out to identify my areas of weakness	I have to take proper steps to improve my weakness areas	I have already developed the plan for carrying out my self-managed learning activity. Based on my current skills, I have carried out the SWOT analysis	First week
Identify the most appropriate and suitable learning style	Identify, assess and evaluate the different approaches involved in the different learning styles, for choosing the most suitable learning style (Honey and Mumford) for my self-managed learning process	To study the benefits, pros and cons of the different learning style to know the best path to choose. After choosing the Honey and Mumford style, I go through the tasks, activities and characteristics in Honey and Mumford learning style	I have maiin9aned the schedule for executing the high priority tasks such as carrying out SWOT analysis to identify my strengths and weaknesses  as well as my opportunities and threats	Second week
Build up the development  plan	I develop a weekly schedule for effective time management purposes. I set deadlines for my projects	Encouraging the participants or team members to interact with each other with a purpose of identifying diversity related issues	I have already carried out and be able to maintain a diary of my personal and professional improvements	Second week

 

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