University of Greenwich ID Number: 001341201

FPT Student ID Number: GBD220133

Module Code: BUSI 1701

Module Assessment Title: Reflective Report

Lecturer Name: Hang Duong

Submission Date: 9th, August 2023

BUSI 1701 Personal and Professional Development

 Reflective Report

Table of Contents
I. Introduction.........................................................................................................4
II. Academic skills development..........................................................................4
1. What is the goal I choose to develop?..........................................................4
2. Why did I choose this goal?..........................................................................5
3. How did I achieve the goal?..........................................................................5
4. Good things happened...................................................................................5
5. Unfavorable things happened.......................................................................5
6. Things I will fix in the future........................................................................5
III. Employability goal...........................................................................................6
1. What is the goal I choose to develop?..........................................................6
2. Why did I choose this goal?..........................................................................6
3. How did I achieve the goal?..........................................................................6
4. Good things happened...................................................................................7
5. Unfavorable things happened.......................................................................7
6. Things I will fix in the future........................................................................7
IV. Academic rigour...............................................................................................7
1. What is the goal I choose to develop?..........................................................7
2. Why did I choose this goal?..........................................................................7
3. How did I achieve the goal?..........................................................................8
4. Good things happened...................................................................................8
5. Unfavorable things happened.......................................................................8
6. Things I will fix in the future........................................................................8
V. Conclusion.......................................................................................................8
VI. Reference list....................................................................................................9
VII. Appendix.....................................................................................................11
I. Introduction

This report aims to analyze the learning goals of specialized skills that I have set during my
majoring at university. To set goals, I need to understand what goals are? Goals are known to
make specific future plans and goal setting roles to fulfill the set plans, develop skills in all
aspects that the goal setter wants to direct (Houston, 2019). To observe my training, I use Kolb's
four stages of learning to look at my goals, how I'm doing, and what I've achieved in trying to
achieve them (University of Florida, 2022). To accomplish the goals I set out, I learned how to
set goals and achieve them in the best way, so I chose the S.M.A.R.T protocol. This is considered
a smart planning technique. Specifically, the S.M.A.R.T goal is specific, measurable, achievable,
relevant, time-bound (Patterson, 2023). My goal is academic writing, team working, critical
thinking skill.

Figure 1 Kolb's four stages of learning (University of Florida, 2022)

II. Academic skills development

1. What is the goal I choose to develop?

Academic writing is my learning goal. Academic writing is basically understood as analysis.

Academic writing discusses aspects and values of a certain issue in order to understand and
clarify the issue in a lucid and scientific manner. The requirement of academic writing is that the
writer must change from a receiver of knowledge to a transmitter of knowledge (Wilson, 2019).
The factors for better academic writing are formal and logical structure of the academic paper,
understanding of the problem under study, problem-oriented, fair presentation of arguments, and
narrative in an appropriate tone, clear academic language and punctuation is used, arguments are
based on factual evidence, and sources and references are provided as footnotes (University of
Southern California, 2015).

2. Why did I choose this goal?

When I started to study majors at university I realized that academic writing skills are very
important for the report I need to submit at the end of the course. However, through writing and
receiving comments from teachers in class, I realized that I still lacked a lot of knowledge and
skills to do well in an academic paper. Academic writing is important because at university, all
subjects have academic writing, it almost plays an important role in the decision to grade a
student's degree and affects the student's learning process (University College London, 2019).

3. How did I achieve the goal?

To accomplish my goal I have studied several online courses. I took the course A Beginner's
Guide to Writing in English for University Study. This course is taught for 5 weeks offered by
the University of Reading (via FutureLearn). In addition, I also watch teaching videos on
youtube and read some academic lessons on academic writing at universities. The lessons have
given me confidence in accomplishing the goals that I have set.

4. Good things happened.

I was able to learn important knowledge for academic writing such as using third person, using
formal language, reasoning based on specific evidence, finding reputable sources, etc. This
helped me to write the first complete report for my Busi-1695 course at university.

5. Unfavorable things happened

I have not completed the course that I applied for online. So some mistakes happened when I was
doing my report in the course at university. Some of the reference sources I used were judged to
be unreliable by my teachers, and my citations did not match Harvard's references.

6. Things I will fix in the future.

The mistakes I made in the course of the test led me to believe that I still did not achieve the goal
that I had set. However, I was still able to complete my report in the subject thanks to my
practice and the teacher's correction comments for me, which made me quite satisfied with the
first steps. his first.

My course is still 1 week away from completion so I will try to complete the course as efficiently
as possible. And in order to complete the following reports, I will spend most of my time
researching and searching for many reputable academic sources and avoiding unnecessary errors
in the source citation so as not to lose points.

III. Employability goal

1. What is the goal I choose to develop?

The skill that I choose to develop next is teamwork. Teamwork is understood as the work where
a group of people cooperate with each other, solve the work based on the assignment of work to
each person, everyone in the group depends on each other and work together to achieve the goal
stated goal (The Open University, 2023). Important elements of teamwork for building a
successful team are sharing the team's goals, adherence to the team's objectives, roles and
obligations that are precisely defined, setting and agreeing on team principles, fair self-
evaluation, honest self-reflection, and mutual accountability (The Open University, 2023).

2. Why did I choose this goal?

When I was in high school and studying English at university, there were times when I was
divided into group work to give a presentation or make a report, I realized that I was not really
good at my job. I and my team have disagreements that make the work not done well. That
caused the group to be reprimanded by the subject teacher and it made me realize that teamwork
skills in study or work are very important. Teamwork brings a lot of efficiency in work thanks to
the evaluation feedback from members, productivity is increased because the work is divided
among many people, teamwork can help everyone learn from each other, it also builds
relationships (Yale University, 2023).

3. How did I achieve the goal?

To accomplish this goal, I watched instructional videos that teach teamwork skills on the youtube
platform. Next, I often read some more articles on sharing teamwork skills on social networking
platforms. In addition, I have joined the website "edvin" this is a website to study with strangers,
I join it to increase communication confidence, expand relationships and express my views. This
helped me learn better teamwork skills.

4. Good things happened.

When I started to practice teamwork for 3 weeks, I felt a noticeable change. An example of the
change I've received is that I recently had a group assignment in class. When I knew that my
group had people I had never talked to, but I was able to confidently communicate with everyone
in the group and when dividing the work, everyone was very satisfied and worked well together.
This helped my group get a good rating from the teacher.

5. Unfavorable things happened

However, when working in a group, me and a friend in the group had an argument for a number
of different reasons and I got angry with that friend. This caused the group work to be postponed
and almost not completed in the best way. Because of this, I have realized that I am still lacking
in emotional control when working in groups.

6. Things I will fix in the future.

My shortcomings in teamwork caused disunity with the group and made it possible for the work
to not be completed. However, it was fortunate that the group's work was completed and received
a good evaluation from the teacher. So now and in the future I will learn to control my feelings
towards people so as not to make things worse with my own shortcomings.

IV. Academic rigour

1. What is the goal I choose to develop?

The last skill that I want to work on is critical thinking. There are many definitions given to
critical thinking skills, but all can be understood as a skill of evaluating something carefully from
all angles based on goals, criteria and standards (Hitchcock, 2018).

2. Why did I choose this goal?

I chose it because in my university there were often debating tests and this was a test that I didn't
have the confidence to do well on. Through research, I found that critical thinking skills are very
important, not only in learning but also in life. Today there is more and more misinformation,
receiving false information causes many consequences, so critical thinking helps people to select
and receive information in a better way and avoid spreading false information (Dominello,
2021).

3. How did I achieve the goal?

To improve my critical thinking I took an online critical thinking course at Skill Share and my
teacher is Dr. Andre Klapper. I also read some articles on how to improve critical thinking and
watch video tutorials on youtube. Practicing this skill helped me to have a better mindset and
confidence in my debating tests. The best proof is that I have received good feedback from my
teachers.

4. Good things happened.

Through practice, I was able to evaluate a thing objectively, not emotionally like before. I was
able to reason logically, diversify my thoughts and it helped me to be more selective and absorb
information, I was able to find and present research-based, academic evidence that made my
opinions more persuasive. The positive feedback from my teacher on my debate confirmed my
progress in this critical thinking skill.

5. Unfavorable things happened

However, in the positive feedback from the teacher, there were also some comments about my
bad points about the feedback section. I was able to use my critical thinking to criticize the
opponent, but it was not strong enough and still made some mistakes in vocabulary and
grammar.

6. Things I will fix in the future.

From the teacher's feedback I see that this skill of mine has not been fully developed yet. In the
future, I will continue to practice this skill and put it into practice more to be able to develop this
skill in the best way. In addition, I will learn more vocabulary related to the fields to make my
critiques more convincing.

V. Conclusion

In summary, the three skills that I chose, namely academic writing, teamwork skills, and critical
thinking skills, have progressed through practice. However, there are still some shortcomings
that affect my achievements. To ensure my knowledge of academic writing and be able to write
well, I will actively participate in the course, practice and regularly practice writing to improve
my skills. As for my critical thinking skills, just like academic writing, I will actively improve
my knowledge by taking courses, learning more vocabulary, and finding many reputable
academic sources so that my thoughts become better, should be more logical and my words more
persuasive. As for teamwork skills, I will try to be more active, learn how to control emotions,
learn more skills about teamwork to be able to work better in groups. I will try to practice my
skills better to serve my studies at school and my job later.

VI. Reference list

Dominello, N. (2021). The Importance of Critical Thinking, For Students and Ourselves.
[online] Southern New Hampshire University. Available at:
https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/education/importance-of-critical-thinking-skills
[Accessed 6 Aug. 2023].

Hitchcock, D. (2018). Critical Thinking. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. [online]

Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-thinking/ [Accessed 6 Aug. 2023].

Houston, E. (2019). What is Goal Setting and How to Do it Well. [online]

PositivePsychology.com. Available at:
https://positivepsychology.com/goal-setting/#google_vignette [Accessed 2 Aug. 2023].

Patterson, N. (2023). What are SMART goals: Examples for students and work. [online]
Southern New Hampshire University. Available at:
https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/education/what-are-smart-goals [Accessed 6 Aug.
2023].
The Open University (2023). The Open University. [online] The Open University. Available at:
https://www5.open.ac.uk/choose/unison/develop/my-skills/team-working [Accessed 6 Aug.
2023].

University College London (2019). Academic writing. [online] Teaching & Learning. Available
at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/publications/2019/aug/academic-writing [Accessed 6
Aug. 2023].

University of Florida (2022). Kolb’s Four Stages of Learning - Center for Instructional
Technology and Training. [online] Information Technology University of Florida. Available at:
https://citt.ufl.edu/resources/the-learning-process/types-of-learners/kolbs-four-stages-of-learning/
[Accessed 6 Aug. 2023].

University of Southern California (2015). Research Guides: Organizing Your Social Sciences
Research Paper: Academic Writing Style. [online] USC Libraries. Available at:
https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/academicwriting [Accessed 6 Aug. 2023].

Wilson, J.R. (2019). Academic Writing. Havard University.

Yale University (2023). We know teamwork is important, but how important? [online] It’s Your
Yale. Available at: https://your.yale.edu/we-know-teamwork-important-how-important
[Accessed 6 Aug. 2023].

VII. Appendix
Academic skill development
Employability goal

Academic rigour
Feedback from teacher