Self Managed Learning free essay sample

Self-managed learning (SML) is a concept, which has had a lot of speculation and has a variety of different interpretations. A broad definition of SML is a process in which individuals manage their own learning and are responsible for controlling how, when, what, why, and where they learn. SML refers to ‘self-generated thoughts, feelings and behaviors’ that are oriented to attaining goals’ (Zimmerman, 2000). (1). It’s about setting goals for learning by understanding the purpose of what you want to achieve. At the beginning of the 20th century phycology has become more of a science and the interest of how individuals differ on their educational functioning has increased. Huge growth in information technology and the increased global knowledge has increased the importance of learning on society. People need to be constantly moving forward and improving their abilities in order to keep up. It is possible to learn from almost all situations, not just in the classroom. You can learn from social situations, from the media, from within their job or even whilst on the bus. The benefits are clear and if you have the drive to learn yourself, you can do so and improve yourself dramatically. Self-managed learning is an approach to management development, which enables managers to be aware of how they achieve key results using everyday work issues. They are able to control the pace of their learning style to best suit them individually and control the content. In the workplace however it is uncommon for the managers to give individuals complete responsibility for their learning. They are more likely however to give them a choice from several given options to meet their individual preferences. From my own experience when I’ve been given choice over what and how I learn I feel my opion in more valued and am more motivated to produce quality work. Some other firms don’t take a SML approach and it is often the case that when given the opportunity to mange your own learning, you are less motivated to do so. Such as students when handing in assignments, often leave it to the last minute. It is heavily dependent on your individual preferences, and no one is identical in the way that they learn. Lifelong learning is the voluntary self-motivated pursuit of knowledge either for personal or professional reasons. It is not always used to improve a person’s employability or competitiveness yet can also be used for personal development and self-sustainability. It does not have to be approached from within the workplace. Individuals can improve their personal development by attending Study Circles for example. This is a method of Study first practiced in Sweden and involves a group of people meeting up to have good old-fashioned conversation and to educate themselves in an informal setting. This can be used in the professional situations as well by putting groups of employees together to discuss important issues, using group knowledge to identify and overcome problems. It can also prove good to obtain critical feedback. The Japanese model of ‘Kaizen’, meaning continuous improvement is a good way of reflecting how constantly learning and improving yourself can bring benefits within organisations. Employees who can self manage themselves to learn new ways in which they perform their job can reduce wastages, increase efficiencies, productivities and motivation. Through giving employees the responsibility to improve themselves they will feel more valued and motivated and they may also learn new ideas that may not have been known about before hand. LO 2 From looking at my personal skills audit attached, I have identified key skills in which I need to improve to become more employable. I have set a goal to become more employable, to obtain a placement and eventually become a manager. I can see what position I am in and where my weaknesses are from my Skills audit (See Appendix A) to uncover areas for development to achieve my goal. I believe I am a great team player and work well in group activities. My teamworking People are the fundamental building block of any organisation, which makes being able to work well with many types of people a major attribute for me to have for future careers. However I’ve noticed a lack in communicational skills and time-management skills on my behalf. I have therefore chosen these as areas for my development. In today’s era job security has fallen. People are less likely to be employed by the same firm for the rest of their life and therefore I feel the need to create a personal development plan has increased. Creating a personal development plan will help me reflect upon my personal career goals and can organise my thoughts, making them easier to process. From understanding what I like and dislike in the workplace I can create clearly defined steps on how to achieve what I want. Discussions with others such as my supervisor at work can help me understand what I’m good at and what I should be doing in the future. Once my goals have been identified action plans can be implemented. Examples of action steps in a personal development plan could be; Update CV, Enroll at University, Attend Conferences etc†¦ These steps can be devised to personally suit me and can help me achieve my goals of becoming a The short-range goals for me are to constantly improve my skills in all relevant areas in order to meet the new demand for flexible workers that can move between job descriptions. I am unlikely to be in the same job for the rest of my life and therefore there is a need for me to be able to cope with change and have a varied set of strong skills. I have identified that I need to improve my communicational skills in the preparation for future careers. Most companies require the professional standard of speaking English language in their employees. Whilst I have this key communicational skill I feel the need to improve my oral communicational skills in presentations and for interviews and meetings. By improving my communicational skills it will bring with it new skills. To improve this in the future and to make me more employable in the financial sector I have set a development plan. Practice speaking in front of groups of people I am comfortable with. Attend Study Circles Research into cultural diversity Learn appropriate terminology for the business world The Professional Development Plan is a tool that can help me focus, evaluate, and prioritize my professional development activities. The Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) defines a Professional Development Plan as a planned program for faculty and staff acquisition of knowledge and development skills (ABHE Guide, 2005, p. 67). (1). This would include description of my professional aspirations, goals, interests and activities. And sometimes a history of previously completed professional development activities. This will then be used to create a timeline for future development. By being more conscientious of my communicational skills I am able to constantly seek ways in which I can improve it. By setting a clear goal of improving my oral communication I can practice it in my everyday life, not just in professional situations. Practice of communicational skills in front of people I feel confortable with can give me increased confidence and can improve presentational skills and communication in other professional situations. By being more aware of the differences of audiences, dependent on their age, culture and gender for example, I can tailor my communication to best suit them, and can be taken more seriously. Attending classes and conferences for example can help me learn new styles of communication. Asking friends for feedback on how I can improve my communication can provide me with critical feedback that I can use to make adjustments and improve myself. Resources needed for achieving this would be finding information and details of classes on the Internet. Study Circles as I stated earlier are a great way for me to improve my knowledge and communication. It can teach me a widespread of views from different opinions. This is important when in the workplace as they are increasing in cultural diversity and an understanding of how views can vary is essential. I need to learn how to take other peoples opinions into account and listen to their ideas to better myself. Especially in my desired position as a manger is this going to be important, as feedback from employees are going to need to be evaluated for example. Researching into cultural diversity is something that I can do at times that are usually wasted. I can be sat on the bus whilst reading reports on other cultures business norms and values. This can give me an increased awareness, broadening my mind and improving my knowledge; all beneficial for future careers. Through reading articles in my spare time I can learn appropriate terminology and language techniques that can help my communication become more professional. It will help conversation flow amongst professionals and myself in the future. The benefits of using my Professional Development Plan will help me find ways to further enhance the skills I’ve already acquired as well as helping to achieve my achieve my goals. It will serve as a tool for me to evaluate my educational activities and will make clearer what I need to do for my improvement. From my personal skills audit I have decided that my time management skills are at a good standard, however there is always room for improvement. I hope to improve time management qualities such as punctuality, deadline meetings and to avoid procrastination when completing tasks. The tasks to which I have assigned myself are to; Schedule and report all activities and tasks Make use of ‘Wasted time’ Deadline setting From effective scheduling I can improve my time management skills. I will be able to understand how much work I can get done in a day and can set appropriate targets as a result. Scheduling my social life as well as my work life can help me to get used to managing my time and being disciplined, which will be a great attribute to bring to my future careers. Making use of my wasted time is a great way to gain new knowledge and can get myself used to learning and not wasting valuable time. For example, instead of browsing on social media sites, I could read relevant articles and publications giving me knowledge of the business world I hope to enter. When working on assignments’ I will set appropriate rest periods. Planning an hour of work followed by 20 minutes of rest has been said to be beneficial for learning. If I do not appropriately set myself break periods from my learning I can have an overload of information and may not learn as much. When planning tasks that need to be completed I believe setting time periods on when they need to be completed is a technique I need to use to help me in the future. Not doing this can create a To-Do List that seems never ending whereas having time deadlines for each task can reduce this burden. Employers in the future are going to be looking for individuals who posses time management skills so their required tasks can be completed quickly and efficiently, decreasing time spent on tasks and saving them money. The final key skill I have identified for me to focus my learning upon is my team working skills. LO – 3 After gathering all the resources I started to implement the development plan onto my life. First, on the way to work I read business related articles on the internet via my mobile phone. This helped improve my knowledge and I felt cleverer on the subject than I was before. This has been something I have repeated in many situations whereby my time would have before been wasted. Such as when I was in the waiting room at the doctors, I read another similar article. When writing tasks down in my schedule, they seemed to build up and build up causing there to be an overload of tasks I had to complete. I feel that I documented them wrong and should have included time periods for my tasks to be completed, as well as the details for the task. By doing this I believe that I can get used to trying to finish tasks for a deadline rather than just understanding what needs to be done. This can help spread my workload and reduce stress. I can take this to my workplace, as when tasks get given to me I will be better trained at completing them on time. I have also learnt that some tasks were more difficult than others were and required more attention. I will therefore include into my development plan the complexity of the task, so that I can prioritise my time and not leave little time for a complex task. When looking back at the effect of my development plan I realise that there needed to be some revisions. I also realise that they require a lot more dedication than what I first put in. I needed to understand how each task was helping me improve in order to maximize the level of learning. To better my development plan I ensured I had the resources to complete the development plan, such as a scheduling book and from taking books from the library containing useful information. LO 4 Communication between management and staff is the cause of a variety of workplace issues. If management is not open to listening or implementing solutions that would make life easier or more efficient for workers, it can be perceived as cold-hearted or uncaring, and lose the respect of the employees. If, on the other hand, workers do not give a manager an honest chance to lead the team and refuse to follow suggestions, the manager may become resentful and angry. In a workplace setting, it is vital that everyone feels that they have an arena to be safely and fairly heard. Management can go a long way to preventing communication breakdowns by setting team meetings and insisting on a respectful atmosphere for all involved.