Your paper MUST include the following 5 sections in order to receive full credit:
Submit your completed document including each of the above sections to the appropriate Assignment Dropbox in D2L.
Summary of this Assignment
The goal of this assignment is for you to show what you’ve learned and to apply it to your own development via self reflection. You need to prepare an assessment summary and action plan of the results from self-assessments of your choice.
To demonstrate your learning, principles of motivation are also expected to be evident in your action plan.
Completing the Assignment
Step 1: Define the requirements of the role you want
Start by thinking about why you’re getting your degree – what made you come to school and take this course. Using that as your guide, consider the role you want to have in the future (or the role you currently have which you want to advance at). Think about the following:
· What are the key relationships that will be important for success in this role?
· What will be the key tasks that you will be performing?
· What additional knowledge and understanding will you need?
· With whom, and how will you mostly be communicating?
· How clearly will your goals be defined?
· What personal pressures will this role impose on you?
Step 2: Choose and complete self-assessments
Using your answers to the above questions – define for yourself what skills are going to be most important for your advancement. Then complete The Big 5 (if you haven’t already) and choose at least 4 other self assessments that are relevant to those skills. (NOTE: You can use the assessments you’ve taken throughout this course. No need to re-take them – this is why I tell you to hang on to your scores/results!)
Complete Self Assessments
For each assessment, you will need to present your score and briefly summarize what that score means (i.e. a high Extraversion score means you are more likely to be outgoing and that you enjoy interaction with others). At this time you should also be organizing your sources for where you got this information and be sure to keep track of it using APA formatting. Identify which ones you feel are strengths, ok as is, and areas you could improve, like this example table (you don’t have to use a table like this):
Areas of Strength
Ways to Use it More Extensively
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Areas for Development
Ways to Address It/Improve Yourself
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
Step 3: Finalize a SMART Action Plan
Working with the areas you have selected in the previous section, identify the specific actions you plan to take to bring about change and development for yourself. The plan should be SMART, here’s an example of what I mean for someone planning to improve their skills for international teamwork:
· Specific: Is your goal well-defined? Avoid setting unclear or vague objectives; instead be as precise as possible.
· Instead of: “To listen more”
· Make it specific: “To use the next meeting I have with XXXX as an opportunity to practise listening behaviours and to reinforce this by writing detailed minutes of the meeting”
· Measurable: Be clear how you will recognise when you have achieved your goal. Using numbers, dates and times is one way to represent clear objectives.
· Instead of: “To find out about South Africa”
· Make it measurable: “To use the internet and the local library to identify and read key references and make notes on the history, economy, and politics of South Africa. This is to be completed by the end of next month.”
· Attainable: Setting yourself unrealistic goals will only end in disappointment. Make your goals challenging, but attainable.
· Instead of: “Learn German by Christmas”
· Make it attainable: “Register with a language school and attend classes to learn German on a weekly basis for the next 12 months. Then review progress and set new goals”
· Relevant: Ensure that any development actions that you plan are directly relevant to the context that you are currently, or will be, operating in. Test them for relevance against the answers you gave in Step 1.
· Time-bound:Set a time scale for completion of each goal. Even if you have to review this as you progress, it will help to keep you motivated.
FOR CREDIT: Turn this into a report that I can read
Take what you compile for Steps 1 – 3 and turn it into a report similar to what you might submit to a supervisor/employer. This plan should be an executive summary/informational report version of the insights you have gained or confirmed about yourself from completing this assignment so far.
1. Introduction
State the role you had in mind when you completed this assignment and anything else we need to know before we read the rest of your assignment
2. Overall Results
Summarize your overall results on the self-assessments (what was the main takeaway for you?)
a. Example: You could present your results on all of the assessments by saying I am more introspective (surveryauthorlastname, year), less of a helper (surveryauthorlastname, year), have a high affective commitment (surveryauthorlastname, year), etc. etc. and then tell me what all of that means to you.
3. Summary of Strengths
Summarize your strengths and highlight one in particular you intend to build upon
4. Areas for Development
Present your areas for development and the SMART plan you have for them (you can do this in a table if you prefer – an example is included below*).
*Example: Table for #4:
Development Objective
Specific Actions
Blockers & How to Handle Them
Support Required
Benchmarks: How will I know I Achieved my Objective?
5. Conclusion
Did you find this helpful? Would you do it again outside of our class?
Performance Rating/Grading
Each of the 5 sections listed above will be rated using
our standard course performance appraisal which is a 0-2 scale
, for a total of 10 possible points. I will be looking closely for thoroughness and application of course concepts in appraising each section – clarity can also affect this rating. You will lose points if your references are not included and are not in APA format.
