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The purpose of this report is to develop a learning contract and action plan for personal skill development. It helped me in effective planning for achieving my development and objectives and managing my personal performance. Development of a learning contract enables establishing a positive independent study experience for both students and their advising faculty members. I focus on improving my interpersonal communication skills which is considered key managerial skill for achieving desired career goals.
By week 10, I will have developed my interpersonal communication skills which will help me communicate and interact with others in an effective manner and develop strong interpersonal relationships. Improving my interpersonal skills will help me get along with others while getting the job done as a manager in my future organisation.
Interpersonal communication skills are life skills that we use on a daily basis to communicate and interact with other individuals or groups. It is a proven fact that managers who possess strong interpersonal communication skills are more successful than managers who do not. Employers also seek employees who have strong interpersonal skills as they want their employees specially managers to possess ability to work and communicate effectively with their subordinates, supervisors and customers. Managers are responsible for bridging the gap between top management and executives and thus must possess strong interpersonal communication skills to communicate the intended message in an effective manner from one group to another. Developing strong interpersonal communication skills will help me in achieving both personal and professional goals. Verbal communication, non-verbal communication and listening skills are the three main interpersonal skills that I must improve to achieve my current and future goals.
Learning contract is a guide that helps directing, monitoring and evaluating student’s learning and instructor’s teaching. It is an agreement negotiated between the student and the instructor to change student’s behaviour and enhance their chances to learn. Purpose of a learning contract is to help students bring a positive change in their behaviour and attitude towards a desired personal skill while they remain involved in the class. Development of a learning contract involves designing and implementation of manageable learning activities to be undertaken by the student under guidance and feedback from the instructor. The learning contract I have designed will help me enhancing my verbal communication skills, non-verbal communication skills and listening skills which in turn will help improving my overall interpersonal communication skills.
Learning Contract
Objectives What I am going to learn? | Resources and Strategies How I am going to learn it | Target date for completion When I am going to learn it? | Evidence How I am going to know that I have learned it? | Verification How I am going to prove I have learned it | Evaluation Tutors feedback |
Understand the important of verbal communication and ways to improve it. | Extensive reading of relevant course material available such as prescribed course books, magazines, online blogs etc. Enrolling in a 2 weeks verbal communication training program. Discussion with tutor and fellow students | Week 4 | Grades in training program. Certificate of completion of training program. Documentation of Discussion with tutor. Feedback from fellow students | I will give a presentation to my class after completion of my training program on the important to improving communication skills. I will join group discussion and debate clubs to increase my chances of communicating and interacting with new people | I will ask my tutor and fellow students to provide a detailed feedback. It will be used as basis for evaluation |
Understand the important of non-verbal communication and ways to improve it. | Extensive reading of relevant course material available such as prescribed course books, magazines, online blogs etc. Discussion with tutor and fellow students | Week 7 | I will prepare a report on the importance and ways of enhancing non-verbal communication skills and submit it to my tutor. Documentation of Discussion with tutor. Feedback from fellow students | The report will be critiqued for usefulness and comprehensiveness by the tutor. A detailed list of references will also be submitted with the report. | I will ask my tutor and fellow students to provide a detailed feedback. Grades received from tutor. The two will be used as basis for evaluation |
Understand the important of listening skills and ways to improve it. | Extensive reading of relevant course material available such as prescribed course books, magazines, online blogs etc. Discussion with tutor and fellow students | Week 9 | I will prepare a report on the importance and ways of enhancing listening skills and submit it to my tutor. Documentation of Discussion with tutor. Feedback from fellow students | The report will be critiqued for usefulness and comprehensiveness by the tutor. A detailed list of references will also be submitted with the report. | I will ask my tutor and fellow students to provide a detailed feedback. Grades received from tutor. The two will be used as basis for evaluation |
Table.1. Source: Made by Student (2016)
Learning contract will be submitted to the tutor for gaining his agreement and feedback which will form the basis for the development of a detailed action plan.
Action plan is a detailed step by step plan describing how different actions will be performed to achieve desired objectives specified in the learning contract.
Week 2: In this week, I will evaluate my current verbal communication skills. Feedback from my tutor and fellow students on how well I communicate and interact with them and how well I get along while working in teams, will help me in assessing my current skills. I will document all their positive and negative feedbacks and accordingly grade my skills on a scale grade of 0-5. The outcome of the self-evaluation will help me identify my areas of strengths and weaknesses and accordingly focus on my weak areas.
Week 3: Based on the outcome of self evaluation done in week 2, I will start with identifying resources and strategies that can help me in improving my verbal communication skills. I will search for relevant reading materials apart from my prescribed text book to get better understanding of the importance and ways of improving verbal communication skills. I will check for verbal communication skills training programs and collect information about the once that appears relevant. I will enrol for the two weeks training program. The training will start and continue till week 4.
Week 4: I will continue reading the materials I have collected. I would have gained good knowledge about verbal communication skills in training program. I will prepare for the post-training assessment. I will also prepare for the presentation I will be delivering to my class after completion of my training program. My grades in training assessment, certificate of completion and feedback from tutor and fellow students on my presentation will help me in process of further evaluation.
Week 5: In this week, I will evaluate my current non-verbal communication skills. This will involve collecting feedback from my tutor and fellow students over factors such as my facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, tone-of voice and posture while I interact with them. I will document all their positive and negative feedbacks and accordingly grade my skills on a scale grade of 0-5. The outcome of the self-evaluation will help me identify my areas of strengths and weaknesses and accordingly focus on my weak areas.
Week 6: Based on the outcome of self evaluation done in week 5, I will start with identifying resources and strategies that can help me in improving my non-verbal communication skills. I will search for relevant reading materials apart from my prescribed text book to get better understanding of the importance and ways of improving verbal communication skills.
Week 7: I will prepare a report on the importance and ways of enhancing non-verbal communication skills and submit it to my tutor. I will also submit a complete list of references that were used while compiling data for the report. Grades and feedback from my tutor and feedback from my fellow students will help me in process of further evaluation.
Week 8: In this week, I will evaluate my current listening skills. This will involve collecting feedback from my tutor and fellow students over factors like whether or not they find me attentive when they are speaking to me, do they feel I interrupt them while they are talking and do I impose my thought on them while our conversation. I will document all their positive and negative feedbacks and accordingly grade my skills on a scale grade of 0-5. The outcome of the self-evaluation will help me identify my areas of strengths and weaknesses and accordingly focus on my weak areas.
Week 9: I will start with identifying resources and strategies that can help me in improving my listening skills. I will search for relevant reading materials apart from my prescribed text book to get better understanding of the importance and ways of improving listening skills. I will prepare a report on the importance and ways of enhancing listening skills and submit it to my tutor. I will also submit a complete list of references that were used while compiling data for the report. Grades and feedback from my tutor and feedback from my fellow students will help me in process of further evaluation.
The process of developing a learning contract and an action plan has helped me in defined realistic and achievable goals and objectives that will help me in improving my interpersonal communication skills which in turn will me develop strong interpersonal relations as a manager in my future organisation.
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