Semester 2

Dear all,

Thanks to those of you who managed to get the work from semester 1 submitted and out of the way. There are still a few of you who need to get this done. If you’re struggling with it, please email me (kerry_h@btinternet.com) and I’ll either arrange to see you individually or email you some guidance etc. if you can’t get here. Don’t panic too much about the presentation if you are yet to do this – it can wait until the end of semester 2.

Semester 2 work is now posted. This is not too complicated and, as before, consists of three separate parts. The requirement for each of the parts is as follows:

1a – The Development Plan

This is a means for you to gather information and demonstrate the ways in which you are managing you own learning. It asks you to create short and long term targets (as you did in semester 1) and to monitor your progress against these. Many of the sections of the Development Plan are actually just dividers to support the building of your portfolio e.g. Section 2 - Careers task (this is task 2 on the assignment brief) or Section 3 – Work Based Problem Solving (this is task 3 on the assignment brief) and by completing the work from the assignment brief you’ll have generated most of the evidence for your Development Plan.

The main thing you have to do is to set the targets and to monitor them. You will also need to attach a copy of your CV and to complete a Progress Review towards the end of the year

1b – Reflective Journal

You need to keep your reflective journal going. On the plus side, you should be able to use this for your Work Based Learning unit too so it should save you work in the long run. Also, it does you good to think about the positives and negatives of your job and helps you to evaluate your career progression

2 – The Careers Assignment

This task requires you to carry out some research into careers in the computing area. It is the first formal essay you’ve been asked to produce and you need to make sure that you abide by academic writing conventions. The assignment should be between 800-1000 words and should incorporate graphs / images as appropriate.

In the Study and Research Skills booklet (in the Semester 2 file), you need to look at pages 10 – 13 for guidance on Harvard Referencing and maintaining a Bibliography.

3 - Scenarios

As part of your ongoing reflections, you are asked to identify three specific situations that required you to use your interpersonal skills and to demonstrate how effectively you are able to communicate in the work place.

The three situations you need to explore are:

· Interaction with a client in which you needed to resolve potential conflict
· Interaction with one of your colleagues in which you needed to negotiate a solution to a work-based issue
· Interaction with your line manager in which you needed to be assertive

For each scenario, you need to describe what happened, explore the interpersonal skills you used and evaluate the outcome – consider particularly how things could have been done differently. Do bear in mind that this isn’t just about situations you didn’t feel you handled as well as you could. It is also an opportunity for you to show how you experience and skills allow you to succeed in work.

If you are not currently working, then focus on college situations.

I suggest that you spend the next week or two reading through these tasks and undertaking some research for Task 2. It is also a good idea to establish what your targets are for the up coming semester and beyond. You should record these in your own blogs – make sure I have the links so I can comment on these.

Thanks
Kerry