Professional development plan
Assessment instructions
This assessment requires you to consider a series of questions about ‘what, why and how’ you will manage yourself and others in the future. The questions will engage you with the weekly topic concepts and allow you to think more deeply and personally about your own personal development as a future leader. An action plan to include concrete steps going forward is required.
The development plan should relate theory to practice where appropriate, and integrate references to readings and other course content.
The personal development plan consists of two parts:
Part A: is worth 10% and is an outline of what you hope to build into your personal development plan. The outline will follow the structure of Week 1 to include what you are planning to develop, why it is important for your career, and how you initially think you might action it.
Part B :
is worth 40% and is the completed personal development plan with references to subject concepts and academic sources that inform your planning. The final plan will again include ‘what, why, and how’ going forward into your career, informed to a greater depth by your weekly learnings and self-assessments from subject materials.
What you need
The personal development plan focus is developed from the weekly materials. You should refer to the relevant weekly content to prepare your plan.
Instructions
Assessment 1 involves preparing your own Personal Development Plan with references to academic sources that informed your planning.
Both Part A and Part B should follow
a) ‘what’ skills or characteristics will be developed,
b) ‘why’ the selected skills are personally and professionally important for you and c) ‘how’ you will action the development so that success in the developing skills is more likely to occur.
Both Part A and Part B should incorporate subject concepts and explain the reasoning behind the development of the plan. The plan should have references to additional academic sources that informed your planning. Pote that the content of your report and plan will be treated confidentially.
This task begins in Week 1 of the course as you start to work through the course materials, do self-assessment and reflection activities, explore the readings and identify developmental actions you could potentially include in your plan.
Part A: Using the subject materials, select one concept from Week 1 and one concept from Week 2 that you intend to explore and develop during the six-week subject. Explain your reasons for selecting the concepts and ‘why’ they are personally important to you to specifically develop during this course.
Part B: Using the subject materials, select one concept from each of the Weeks 1 to 6 (six in total) that you intend to develop in your professional work life. Explain your reasons for selecting the concepts and ‘why’ they are personally important to you to develop in your career.
Keys to success for this assessment are:
having the appropriate timeframe and focus, depending on if you are completing Part A or Part B, progressively building your plan throughout the course (rather than procrastinating), getting feedback from peers during discussion posts as well as conducting self-assessment exercises and incorporating learnings into your plan providing a thorough explanation of your reasoning in selecting concepts or skills to develop and why these will assist you in either the subject or future career,
Identifying challenges to implementation of the action steps in future, and deeply reflecting on what you have learned from the process of building your plan, and taking opportunities to reference the literature where relevant.
Presentation style/format
The development plan Part A will be submitted in Week 2. The plan should be submitted as per the format below. A list of references you have used should be provided as the last page of the submission. This reference list should be according to Harvard referencing. No executive summary or separate conclusion are required.
The development plan Part B will be submitted in Week 7. The plan should be submitted as per the format below. A list of references you have used should be provided as the last page of the submission. This reference list should be according to Harvard referencing. No executive summary or separate conclusion are required.
Word Count
Part A – 500 words (maximum)
The plan is an academically evidenced report that can be written in either the first or third person. It provides a detailed description of the three key elements of the plan using principles, guidelines, assessment tools and other resources from the course. It also highlights some of the things you have learned about managing yourself and others as a result of completing the weekly readings and activities and building your plan.
Recognise that the plan is a piece of academic writing, so you should reference the literature wherever possible to demonstrate a sound understanding of the concepts covered during the course. Referring to the literature throughout your report should help to demonstrate understanding of the concepts, strengthen your arguments, and communicate to your Facilitator that you have done the prescribed readings.
Ensure that you use the following structure:
1. Cover page (required in both Part A and Part B)
Include your name, the title of the assessment, your student number, the date and word count.
Reports exceeding the specified word count, or which fail to include an accurate word count, may be penalised.
2. Introduction (required in both Part A and Part B)
Your introduction should briefly communicate the aim(s) of your plan the context in which you have developed your plan (e.g. if it is Part A – your current subject aspirations or Part B – your future career aspirations), and your personal vision for developing your skills to manage yourself and others (i.e. the type of individual you are striving to become).
3. ‘What’ skills / competencies you intend to develop (required in both Part A and Part B)
This section of your plan must briefly identify the weekly skill / competency you are aiming to develop.
In Part A you should select one skill / competency each from Weeks 1 and 2.
In Part B you should select one skill / competency each from Weeks 1 to 6. (The selected Weeks 1 and 2 skills can be the same in both Part A and Part B.
4. ‘Why’ those skills / competencies are important to you (required in both Part A and Part B)
This is the most important section of your plan. It must clearly explain ‘why’ each skill / competency is important to your development.
In Part A each skill / competency selected should be explained in the context of why you intend to develop it in the six-week subject.
In Part B each skill / competency should be discussed in the context of your future career aspirations. (If you select the same skill / competency as Part A, the context and reason for the selection should be discussed in terms of future career.)
Your discussion in both Part A and Part B should include, but not be limited to:
the process you used to undertake self-assessments of your strengths, weaknesses, skills, or competencies throughout the course (e.g. self-assessment activities, reflection questions, readings) how each skill is connected to your personal development in the subject (Part A) or career development and future aspirations
(Part B)
the specific insights you gained during your analysis and reflections on this information as you identify your developmental vision, build self-awareness, identify strengths and weaknesses, and identify developmental objectives as you built and finalised your plan.
Your ‘why’ section is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you have made a significant effort to use some of the weekly resources provided during the course and have undertaken additional research.
5. ‘How’ you will develop the skills / competencies identified (required in both Part A and Part B)
This section of your plan must identify the actions and steps you will take to develop each weekly skill / competency you have identified. The Week 1 subject materials on goal setting and SMARTER+ planning will assist you with developing your action plans.
You should also identify and discuss challenges you may encounter when trying to implement your actions
6. Lessons learned (Part B only)
In this section, reflect on what you have learned from doing this plan with respect to:
Managing yourself and others, including the process of building a personal development plan (e.g. specific learnings that were valuable to you)
Yourself as a developing leader and professional (e.g. your developmental needs, the value of working with a mentor, etc.).
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