How Self Managed Learning Can Enhance Lifelong Development Education Essay

This report will have the information about how self-managed learning can enhance lifelong development by evaluating the approaches to self managed learning, ways in which lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be encouraged and the benefits of self managed learning to the individual and organisation. There will be also information about my own current skills and competencies against professional standards and those of organisation objectives. Identifying of my own development needs and what activities are required to meet them. Personal development opportunities I have got in meeting current and future needs.

INTRODUCTION

Self-managed learning is a way people or individual find different ways in learning things, which could be in the society they are living or at work that is a diversified environment. Self-managed learning also is about setting out the goals for the learning by evaluating the purpose for learning and ways to achieve such goals. People learn new things example the culture of different people, behaviour, personality, perceptions etc. Individual can learn things not only in class but also through friends, news papers etc. Self-managed learning gives people a chance to come up with their own strategy in learning, though sometimes people take a short term in learning something that could be maybe to enable them to pass the exam, or completing a project, it is important for people to acquire such knowledge for long term as the environment now is facing challenges due to advance technology people need that knowledge that they could use them in their personal and professional life. The following are the approaches to self-managed learning.

APPROACHES TO SELF-MANAGED LEARNING

Individual could learn through the research they will be doing that could be either been issued by the university or college even at work place, people could learn different techniques used in doing the research also the information about example problems associated in UK business people could learn what’s going on in business environment.

SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES

People could learn through seminars, conferences what they have experienced over there and make changes for the future. Seminars and conferences gives people the opportunity to present their knowledge about something to other people who end up learning new things. Seminars and conferences helps people becoming confident in speaking in the public and develops presentation skills which are needed in the organisation

SOCIAL NETWORKS

There are different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, My year book etc where people spend more than two hours a day chatting with friends learning new things about other peoples’ information also people could learn through use of bulletin boards, internet and new groups. People can learn how social networks owners such as Mark Zuckerberg how he became successful, individual could learn and find their means of succeeding in their careers.

INTERNET

Individual can learn through internet such as different articles written by different authors concerning management studies, strategic, risk management etc. People could acquire such knowledge that could be transferred to work places. There are different sites that could be searched on the internet that help people learning things example Directgov.co.uk that have different information and services that people could learn from them.

Through self-managed learning, individual such as myself have experienced personal things that there are ways in which lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be encouraged.

WAYS IN WHICH LIFELONG LEARNING IN PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS COULD BE ENCOURAGED

Lifelong learning is all about continuous learning personally that could contribute to the professional context. Individual could have personal assessment as means of lifelong learning by evaluating their strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats (SWOT analysis). My strengths are good learning skills, ambitious, friendly etc, weakness is sometimes I get stressed when I am tired but I try to control it by having enough sleep and doing some physical exercises helps to minimise my stress, opportunities are continuing with further education and my threats are recession, money.

SWOT ANALYSIS

By evaluating personal SWOT this will help me with my professional learning using other tools which are self-reflective learning and continuing professional development (CPD). Self-reflective learning is about trying to review some opinions, judgements, personal understanding and actions that you are willing to take in a proper way and be honest about it. This will help me to link my professional development to practical issues that I have experienced in my life either socially or academically.

SELF REFLECTIVE LEARNING

Self-reflective learning could help learn new skills at work place also developing my personal skills through having work task and responsibility assigned to me. While self-reflective learning reviews things, Continuing professional development (CPD) combines approaches, ideas and techniques that help to develop my personal learning and grow to certain level of that I could link it professionally by planning and evaluating my effective learning that could be through others, accepting judgements or opinions.

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POSITIVE IMPACTS OF SELF-MANAGING LEARNING TO THE INDIVIDUAL

Self-managed learning is about people taking their own initiatives in managing their learning, there are positive impacts of self-managing learning to the individual as well as the organisation. Graduates or students who will be soon graduating such as myself and others acquire degrees from different professional skills in which we have learnt from university and apply that knowledge within the organisation where we will be working.

TEAM WORK SKILLS

Individuals have learnt working in teams from their academic background through group work assignment or university projects such knowledge they will all apply them in the organisation.

PRESENTATION SKILLS

Individuals learn how to make a presentation using projectors which gives the chance to express the knowledge of what they have learnt from particular topic also give them confidence to talk in front of others which become an advantage to the organisation when been given a task to do that need to be presented to the manager and other directors from the same company of different company.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Self-learning helps individual develop communication and writing skills which is of use to the organisation objectives. Individuals through self-managing learning helps them to be independent due to that it challenges them to come up with their own learning that they could connect or share it with others so that to create a good synergy that will enhance organisational development also helps others to learn new things they didn’t know about it. Some people get a chance to be class representative which is part of leadership skills self-managing learning that could be of advantage to the organisation.

ADVANTAGES OF SELF-LEARNING TO THE ORGANISATION

Decision making, self-managed learning help individuals acquiring decisional making skills through various learning experience they have that could be from education or work experience.

Being ethical, individual can learn about moral judgement from personal experience that could be an advantage to the organisation in a professional manner.

Problem solving, these are the kind of skills an individual can have through self-learning that are transferable skills that a person can acquire them from work, education, hobbies or interests on how to solve various problems practically that could be applied in the organisation.

Organisation prefers people to be flexible in the working pattern meaning assigned to different tasks without any personal commitments that could limit someone from working. An individual could acquire this through self-learning by focusing to the organisational objectives.

PERSONAL SKILLS AUDIT LINKING WITH ORGANISATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Organisation try to make sure their objectives are met and such objectives need to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound), this is by evaluating the qualities and expectations they need from the staff to those whom they have contracted with in achieving such objectives. They need staffs that have potential skills such as leadership skills, time management, team player. Writing and communication skills, ambitious etc, such skills could be linked with objectives of the organisation.

NHS OBJECTIVES

Providing a comprehensive range of services to the people

Shaping its services around the needs and preferences of individual patients, their families and their carers

Responding to the different needs of different populations in the environment

Improving the quality of services and minimise errors, using different strategies of reporting health problems

Supporting and valuing its staff

Public funds for healthcare will be devoted solely to NHS patients

PERSONAL SKILLS

I am good at writing skills, listening skills, friendly, researching skills, these kinds of skills I have could be useful for meeting organisations expectations from my personal skills. These skills I could transfer them to others so we all work together in bringing new ideas to the organisation. I have got caring skills for other people as organisation such as NHS requires a an individual to have that kind of skill in their organisation, I am working on developing business skills that I could apply them professionally at NHS as my objective are set on working with that organisation in the business department, their objective is to provide good health services to people in all the areas of the organisation from the health department to finance, human resources and strategic level.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT NEEDS AND ACTIVITIES REQUIRED TO MEET THEM

As organisation requires an individual to have time management skills, leadership skills and IT skills, in which to me those are the weaknesses I have in which I am working to acquire them by engaging myself in training at the my working place setting out tasks and taking leadership part monitoring time management from the start of the assigned task to the completion. As I do face communication problem sometimes, try to solve my weakness by having class presentations about certain topics.

PERSONAL STRATEGY

I read more books, news papers such as business pages like The Times, Financial times, Telegraph etc to expand my knowledge that will help me develop my communication skills which is required by the organisation also proper strategic planning through reading Harvard business review learning how other organisation have taken to improve the performance in their organisation. Personal development by developing my learning through researching what kinds of changes might happened in the future years to come organisations by evaluating the environment politically, economically, socially, and technologically (PEST)

DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES TO MEET CURRENT AND FUTURE NEEDS FOR BOTH PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL

CURRENT NEEDS

As at the moment I am still pursuing my qualification higher national diploma in business. My target is completing all the assignment by end of June so that my results or transcript could be used by the university to enrol me for the final year top up degree in BSc in business.

FUTURE NEEDS

Opportunities are the chances that a person may have I developing themselves further in another level of understanding and professional. Opportunity I have personally is continuing with further education that is joining university for the third year degree top up in Business. After that am planning to specialise in strategic management, after my degree I will have various training in strategic management as my future needs for both personal and professional. I also have the opportunity for doing my Masters in Strategic management that will help me formulating strategic plans.

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Personal development plan is the way that individual such as students or anyone draw up a plan that will help them know where they are and where they are heading to in future prospective personally and professionally. Professional bodies try to encourage members to continue updating their record for professional and development for the purpose of maintaining registration or professional status that organisation prefers for future development.

Personal and professional development plan requires individuals such as me to have a proper planning put in place for my future development which need to be flexible due to the job requirements and aspirations change. Changes happened continuously in all aspects of life and individuals put efforts into keeping side by side new knowledge and expanding their abilities that will receive rewards when opportunities arise. The following are my stages for the professional development plan

Developing Curriculum vitae, this is my first stage of knowing where I have reached in terms of my education and skills that need to be developed more.

Short-term objective, focusing on what I am doing now on completing all my course modules before June, as it will be my condition for enrolling for the BSc course.

Long-term objective, I have set out my action plan with the dates showing what I want to achieve in five year time from now

SWOT analysis, monitoring regularly personal analysis by trying to develop the areas where I have realised are my weaknesses, developing other areas where I found I have got some opportunities

Time frame, will be having my professional development time frame from the time I started my career till the time I am planning to reach

How to learn effectively, by attending various learning programs that will help me develop personally and professionally

Regular reviews of my personal and professional development plan

The diagram shows my personal and professional development plan and actions that I will take by evaluating my strengths and weakness.

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CHART

ACTION

RESOURCES

WHEN

Further business studies after my higher national diploma in business (HND)

Finding a university than will help me enhance my business career

From September 2011 to June 2012, complete within one year

IT training

As my business area requires high level of IT skills, I will find a short course for developing my IT skills

Plan to complete within three months

Leadership skills, decisional skills and time management

I will join various training and a workshop that will develop my leadership and decisional skills and manage time

Plan to complete within six months

Masters in strategic management

Finding proper business institute that I could acquire such qualification

Planning to complete within one year

Join NHS organisation

Finding opportunity to join NHS organisation in the strategic department in the health sector

After my Masters in strategic management

Register with professional body

Finding a strategic management professional bodies so that I could become a member for my future development

During my employment period

CONCLUSION

Self-managed learning is not something easy, though some people tend to passive that managing their own learning through self-managing learning is an old fashion way of learning. The fact is that it’s not true, the basic requirement needed to set out the goals and meeting them is hard approach to learning. Proper plan put in place by making an action plan, monitoring it, setting the date, reviewing it regularly will help learners achieve their goals. Though they need the help from the colleagues by accepting opinions and judgements that will help them to learn. Individuals need to understand the stages for the professional development plan for the purpose of having a clear objective of what they would like to achieve from self-managing learning

RECOMMMENDATION

My recommendations is that learners in order to develop their learning skills they should have join self-managing learning programmes into certain groups between five to six individuals where they could put in place proper strategic learning and reporting on the progress of it. The group should be meeting from time to time for reviewing their learning assessment and challenges they might be facing through their learning. I believe that learning groups provides a unique, cost effective way that helps individual to learn in a clear sense and solving business problems that tend to happen from time to time due to different circumstances such as economy, natural calamities, environment etc