Brief description of one vocational example with an explanation of the choice and ways in which it demonstrates your employability skills

Paper details 

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING II

FINAL SUBMISSION

You are required to write a 2,500-word Personal Development Plan based on the four learning objectives:

•What is your pathway choice( my pathway is global business management) and how it enables you to develop your employability skills?

•Brief description of one Regent’s academic example supported by reasons for the choice and fit with employability skills

•Brief description of one vocational example with an explanation of the choice and ways in which it demonstrates your employability skills

•What do you hope to learn about yourself out of this reflective review exercise?

Grading and Comments

Over-arching assessment criteria and integration of employability skills and reflective thinking

Students should systematically address the 4 core assessment criteria and align to selective employability skills utilising a STAR Plus approach so that they integrate. Some may have taken a bit of a linear approach sequentially separating core areas, employability skills and then reflective aspects, be a little lenient, whilst recognising this is not ideal.

Theoretical concepts can be used. E.g. Belbin but do not describe the framework but use it for self-reflection.

• Critically discuss your pathway choice and how it enables you to develop your employability skills?

• Identify and critically evaluate a Regent’s academic concept / example that fits with employability skills e.g. Presentation skills or ratio analysis

• Identify and critically evaluate one vocational example with an explanation of the choice and ways in which it demonstrates your employability skills e.g. from an internship or working in the family business. Bramley Lakes can be a substitute.

• What do you hope to learn about yourself out of this reflective review exercise?

Employability skills- Students need to align the best fit examples to the 3/4 key areas – Ideally two examples adds more weight per core criteria.

Employability skills

• Professional Attitudes

• Initiative: ability to take action unprompted

• Ethical sensitivity: appreciates ethical aspects of business

• Professional behaviours

• Self-management: ability to work in an efficient and structured manner

• Critical analysis: ability to ‘deconstruct’ a problem or situation

• Professional skills

• Political sensitivity: appreciation of how organisations actually work

• Problem solving: selection and use of appropriate methods to find solutions

• Negotiating: influencing others during discussion to achieve mutually satisfactory resolution of contentious issues

STAR Plus approach

Students on order to gain higher level grades need to offer these deeper insights in systematically addressing the 4 areas. We can describe this as STAR Plus.

Situation-Describe briefly the context

Task- Describe objectives

Action- Analyse skills /attributes and processes relative to some employability criteria / narrative

Results-How did the outcomes impact on you, your performance and that of organisation? What did you learn? What would you do differently? What skills did it reinforce, or what other skills do you need to develop?

The + critical reflection side!

What were my feelings when…?

How did my emotions affect my decisions, behaviour?

What was the thinking behind my strategy…how accurate was this?

Why did this situation have such significance for me-what was at stake?

How does this relate to the employability skills?

Am I happy with the way people seem to see me? Do I need to change anything to get better outcomes?

What is my action plan and how will I execute?

Grading is based on the following

QUALITY OF LINKS BETWEEN EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS AND THE PATHWAY CHOICE, ACADEMIC AND VOCATIONAL EXAMPLES

QUALITY OF ANALYSIS OF INSIGHTS GAINED FROM THE EXAMPLES

QUALITY OF SELF-REFLECTION IN RELATION TO PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PERSONAL VALUE OF THE REFLECTIVE EXERCISE

OVERALL QUALITY OF SUBMISSION

GENERIC SUMMARY CONTENT

Actual Descriptors

Quality of links between employability skills and the pathway choice, academic and vocational examples

0%-39%- It is not clear where the significance of the examples lies in relation to employability skills and personal development

40%-49% – There is some evidence of care given to the development of a links between the employability skills employability and examples.

50-59 -There is clear evidence as to the significance behind the choice of the examples and their links to employability skills.

60-69-The narrative sets up useful links between personal development and the examples, where examples are clearly evaluated for their personal development impact

70-100- The narrative offers a critical review of the examples to tease out the significance and meaning behind them and to carefully establish links to employability

Quality of analysis of insights gained from the examples

0-39-There is no evidence of any significant analysis of the examples to identify learning opportunities​

40-49-The exploration of the pathway and the two examples offer some analysis leading to personal insights​

50-59-The analysis offers insights drawn from beginnings of questioning of the examples​

60-69-The analysis is grounded in questioning of the significance of the observed insights​

70-100-The analysis is grounded in questioning of the significance of the observed insights

Quality of self-reflection in relation to personal development and personal value of the reflective exercise

0-39-The submission is descriptive in nature and offers no reflection on any personal insights​

40-49-There is some reflection, but it only focuses on gained knowledge and skills not on developmental insights

50-59-The narrative provides good self-reflection with initial questioning of personal development​

60-69-The narrative offers very good self-reflection not only exploring areas of development but also considering recommendations for improvement​

70-100-The reflection forms a self-questioning narrative which explores not just lessons learned, but also opportunities for growth

Overall quality of submission

0-39-The submission has no internal logic, is predominantly descriptive and lacks personal insights​

40-49-The submission shows flow of logic based on some reflection and some personal insights​

50-59-The narrative is personal in nature and there is evidence of effort to gain opportunities for personal learning ​

60-69-The narrative captures enthusiasm for the submission and offers very good personal learning insights ​

70-100-The narrative demonstrates student’s ownership of the submission through curiosity and willingness to explore the challenge all grounded in self-reflection

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