P1 Workshop – An Introduction to Skills Development and the Warwick Skills Portfolio – First Entry
P1 Workshop - Tutor: Dr. Amanda Randall Entry on: 14/11/2011
This is my first blog entry ever ---> Pretty excited!!!!
The P1 Workshop of the Warwick Skills Portfolio Awards was a great start to a series of workshops i'm looking forward to attending. Being a Masters student of Biotechnology, Bioprocessing and Business Management, i am quite tied for time, but to attend atleast 6 workshops, is a choice i made. The six that i have decided upon, as of now are:
- P1 - An Introduction to Skills Development
- A4 - Effective Learning Strategies
- A5 - An Introduction to Critical Thinking
- A6 - Academic Writing at Masters Level
- A7 - Speedy Reading
- P8 - Leading a Group Project
The first workshop I attended was the P1 workshop on 7/11/2011. The atmosphere was great. A lot of curious, excited faces. We recieved a warm welcome from Dr. Randall, our tutor for that evening and after a series of interactive excercises, the entire crowd seemed to become comfortable with each other. It was nice to see a diverse group of attendees. The workshop taught me a alot about myself; made me thing about my life; what i'm doing well and what i'm not. It gave me an insight on what kind of learner i am, theorist, which was pretty suprising because I most certainly am not! At the end of the workshop, we were asked to come up with a few things that we would consciously want to make an effort to improve, so these were the few Action Points i came up with:-
- Look for new things to do - Status: Working on it
- Try sticking to a routine schedule to stick to, for a better, disciplined lifestyle - Status:Working on it
- Evaluate ideas before proposing them - Status:Working on it
- Be an effective listener; i.e. listen carefully to the details of what people have to say - Status:Working on it
- Attend the Speedy Reading workshop - Status: Completed (Attended the one on 11/11/2011)
- Attend atleast two other workshops before Term 2 begins* - Status:Working on it
* I have decided to attend the ones on Leading a Group Project (P8) and Critical Thinking (A5) on the 12th and 13th of December, 2011 respectively.
So these were the action points i took home from the first workshop and i will strive to achieve each and every one of them, to make myself a better person and make it all worth it, in the long run.
If you are curious as to whether i'm just a talker or i will actually work on my action points, watch out for my next blog...soon!!!
Have a lovely week.
Regards
Abbas
Abbas Siraj Deesawala
14 Nov 2011 22:37
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Tags: P1 Portfolio
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Amanda Randall
Hi Abbas, I’m really sorry that I didn’t receive any notification of your blog, until you sent me your email – hope you got my reply to that?
Well done for coming up with some thoughtful action points. Now try to make these very specific and set yourself deadlines for each one, since this will make it easier for you to measure your progress and achievements over the next few weeks. Remember, the concept of ‘SMART’ action points is that they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant / Realistic and Time-based. So try to relate your point to something specific you will do in a certain time (for example, you have already done this for the workshops you will attend.) An idea for your first action point: decide when (time-base) and how (specific) you will carry this out (maybe join a new society??).
Once you have attended the workshop or however you have chosen to meet your action point, reflect back on how it has helped you develop and how this may affect what you do in future. Remember that reflecting on your actions is as important as setting those actions! It could be that you ask yourself 3 questions after an event: what’s one thing that I didn’t do well, what’s one thing that I did well, what’s 1 thing that I could do differently next time.
So when you write you next blog, you can reflect back on what you have achieved: you can say how you have met your action points, using measurable criteria and say how you have learned from these experiences.
23 Nov 2011, 16:57
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