Portfolio Assignment on Personal Development Plan and Academic Writing

The Purpose of the Assignment

This assignment has been designed to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your achievement of the following module learning outcomes:

 

LO 1  Reflect on personal achievement and continuous improvement; 
LO 2  Prepare a personal development plan; 
LO 3  Demonstrate awareness and the use of evidence-based writing to support conclusions and recommendations; 
LO 4  Understand good academic writing and referencing. 

Overview

Prepare a portfolio that applies the academic skills from the module to a business issue, reflects on the learning that has taken place and also includes a personal development plan.

The portfolio is split into three key parts:

• The submission of a written report that discusses a business issue using a wide variety of research materials (800 words).
• A reflective piece of writing that summarises the learning from the module and how it will be of use for both your studies and future plans (500 words).
• A personal development plan that focuses on academic skills.(200 words)

Part 1 – Report (800 Words)

Throughout the module we will be examining a variety of current business issues using a variety of research materials.

You will need to choose one business issue from the list below to base your report on:

1. Adapting to new technology
2. Environmental sustainability
3. Workforce planning

The report must:

1. Give the full Harvard reference within the reference page for each item used, and the correct Harvard ‘shortened’ reference within the report;

2. Include both direct and indirect citations from a wide variety of sources (including at least one academic journal articles)

3. Make use of the relevant research items from within the module;

4. Explains and discusses the business issue of your choice by describing what the issue is, and how companies are reacting – positively or negatively?

See below for more information on the constituent parts.

A suggested format would be to create one paragraph of 250 words each, within the main section of the report for each of the questions raised in bullet point (d)  i.e what the issue is and how companies are reacting , ensuring that the conclusion offered recommendations of how a business can solve the issue. The remaining 300 words need to be used for the introduction and conclusion of this report task.

Part 2 – Reflective Writing (500 Words)

 Using content from the module (e.g. academic skills) and the work you have produced for Part 1, reflect on the learning you have taken from the module and how this learning will support your studies and future career/business development plans.

The reflection needs to explain:

1.What you have learnt from the module - this should be personal to you and not a list of all the topics covered in the module.

2. Why the learning may be important – what can you achieve with the new knowledge?

3.How is the learning going to be of use to you in your future studies and development plans?

You will need to include direct and indirect citations and a reference page.

A suggested format would be to briefly introduce the reflective piece and create one paragraph for each point above (approximately 150 words each).

Part 3  - Personal Development Plan (200 Words)

Create a personal development plan that focuses on the academic skills from within the module that you want to further develop and improve.

The plan needs to highlight:

1. Which skills you will focus on;

2. How you plan to develop them.

3. A minimum of three different skills need to be included.