Academic skills and studying with confidence

INTRODUCTION

Academic skills are defined as a core skill in which academic writing, presentation skill, referencing etc. that are underpin complex skills like critical thinking as well as reflective practices (Kimhi, 2016). These kinds of skills encourage students in order to become more efficient learners and it provides confidence to fully participate in some courses like English speaking and these are invaluable outside of the classroom and after they graduate. There are various qualities of academics such includes positive attitude towards study, ability to think independently, passion towards the selected course, ability to perform work and so on that helps in providing confidence to students towards the study. In this assignment, discuss about the portfolio of student based on lectures, workshops and activities along with the presentation and literature review by using proper techniques of research.

ASSESSMENT 1

Assessment Portfolio

The student portfolio is defined as a compilation of academic works and educational evidence that are assembled for the purpose of analysing the quality of coursework, academic achievements and learning progress as well as ascertain that whether students have met academic requirements or learning standards for the specific courses and grade level (Atmatzidou and Demetriadis, 2016). This kind of portfolio provides is termed as a purposeful collection of students work which exhibits the efforts, achievements and progress of students along with the competencies that gained during a time of course. Portfolio represents the learning and efforts of students over time which provide valuable information about student development and mastery of skills. Sometimes, the portfolio can be considered as a physical collection of students work which includes some materials such as written assignment, complete test, artwork, projects, artwork and lab reports etc. are the evidence of their learning and academic accomplishment, honours, awards and so on. It contains collecting information from the various sources like parents, students, teachers, themselves and friends which gives teachers to have some reliable information or understanding about students (Van Emden and Becker, 2016). It facilitates the evaluation of growth of individual which can be integrated into instructions. In this portfolio, discuss about that what a student taught from workshop, activities and lectures. Some of the concepts includes:

Business operation, it defined as an activity that firms engage in its on daily basis in order to earn profits and increase the value of businesses. For which the workers play an important role as they perform marketing, accounting and so many functions (Cleary, Velardi and Schnaidman, 2017). There are many activities of operations such as manufacturing, sales, marketing, advertising that are used in daily businesses. This concept was detailed studied in the lectures for getting to know about the activities and operations of business and develop academic skills as it provides theoretical knowledge about the concept.

Marketing, In the lectures or workshops students learn about the concept of marketing and its importance which is the most important concept of every businesses. It defined as a business activity that are undertaking in order to promote the exchange of goods and services. Marketing activities includes selling, advertising, delivering goods to the customers or businesses in order to earn profits. This is essential for students to know about the marketing activities as it provides various detail information that will be helpful for future.

Finance, it is referred as a function that is to be performed for acquiring funds for the businesses and manage or use them for performing business activity. Financial management is the job which is used to manage resources of company so that they can fulfil organisational goals and objectives (Ibrahim, Boerhannoeddin and Bakare, 2017). It is necessary to know that how funds are managed in an organisation to perform businesses which helps in developing the skills and knowledge of students towards the effective management that will be in used by them in future.

4Ps, In the marketing there are mainly 4ps in general but in addition it is 7ps which stands for the product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical evidence which are essential to market goods and services and businesses to the general public and promotes their sales and revenue. This has been studied in workshop which provides mastery in marketing concepts and develop knowledge about the different concepts.

SIPOC diagram, it is a tool that is used by a team in order to analyse relevant aspects of process improvement projects before the work begin which helps in defining a complex project which may not be scoped and it is employed at the measures phase of six Sigma DMAIC methodology (Tinto, 2019). It has been teaching in lectures for getting to know about the steps that will be used for solving complex things in future. SIPOC stands for supplier, input, process, output and customers.

Types of businesses, in which the teacher gives detail information about the different kinds of businesses along with the legal considerations that are needed for establishing businesses. In this, there are mainly four types of businesses such as sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation and limited liability company. It has been described in classroom lectures for giving an overview about the business and its types.

HR, it is a department in an organisation which is liable for managing the workers of business it includes several activities such as recruitment, selection, training, promotion, development, compensation, reward etc (Álvarez-Bueno, 2017). This is essential aspect for every business and this information has been given by the teachers in workshop so that the academic skills of students are developed.

Quality control, this concept is useful for daily life of individual in which the main focus is on the better quality of working. It includes the testing of units which is to be done for the analysing corrective measures or actions in the process of every activities. This will help in producing better quality of goods and services. This has been discussed in lectures in order to aware students for the quality of things.

All these concepts are included in the portfolio of student that has been discussed in the lectures, workshops or activities (Nolan and Molla, 2017). All these are essential for students to know as it helps in knowing about the all concepts and their uses in future. It will provide mastery of skills to the student and enhance the academic skills as it gives the detail understanding about each concept which are used for the development of individual in present as well as in future.

ASSESSMENT 2

Assessment Presentation (Covered in PPT).

ASSESSMENT 3

Assessment Literature Review

The literature review is done on several topics that are related to this project and need to be assessed effectively. Some of these concepts are as follows:

Academic skills to prepare students

As per the view of Cleeve (2018), The academic skills are important for the student in order to become more efficient leaders as it provides confidence to the students in order to participate in more complex courses like English speaking (Academic skills to prepare your students for higher education, 2018). These skills include critical thinking and note taking which are highly transferable and crucial for the success in any career. There are several skills which students are expected to have so teachers organise them in different categories such as follows:

Academic discourse: It is related to the effective communication which is to be required at a time of presentation, debates and discussions and it is a great skill that is essential to have in all students (Cottrell, 2017). In is associated with the responding to and asking questions that provides a form of feedback to the speaker on how they can deal with some difficult situations in effective way.

            Academic text strategies: It is looking for the inferred meaning in texts that being able to make inferences is very essential academic reading skill that not only helps students to understand texts but also motivate and encourage them to look for deep meanings.

Academic strategies: It is related to the writing effective notes it is the most important and necessary skill for students in order to learn before they go on to further education. By using short videos like TED talks which have students in order to take notes while they watch. Students combine notes in order to recreate video in detail as possible or paraphrase notes in their own words.

Composition: In this student developing a coherent argument which is considered as a crucial skill for learners that can practice in classroom lectures (McGeown, St Clair-Thompson and Clough, 2016).

Comprehension: It is based on the identification of some specific idea related to the academic texts and lectures so students need require to be able for providing evidence from the text itself. At a time of classroom activities students have habits of highlighting some important notes or parts of text which they think support answer which will be discussed after the activity or in feedback sessions.

Confidence for studying:

As per the views of Kohli (2020), Confidence in students are essential for the educational success of themselves. While an individual face harassment then the level of confidence can suffer and their grades also suffer. Building confidence in students is the essential part of learning environment because when a child loses their self – esteem then they may lose their motivation in the process of learning and studying (Importance of self confidence in a student’s life, 2020). Student confidence is termed as a vital requirement for their success which can used for possessing their educational goals and requirements. Due to the low level of confidence students suffers a lot as their grades will be affected and sometimes, they may give up on their dreams, hopes and plans and they feel that the achievement of goals is impossible. As self – confidence is considered as an ability to judge personal as well as social standing along with the respect to environment that can be influenced by the several factors such as upbringing, dedication level, work environment etc.

Some strategies that can be used for increasing the self – confidence are as follows:

Practice self – acceptance: For increasing the confidence of students they need to practiced self – acceptance that is alright about themselves in which they look at their strengths as well as achievements which will put a plan regarding addressing the weaknesses of themselves. This will help in maintaining healthy self – confidence that provide strength to the learning of students (Poonpon, 2017).

Making personal changes: For getting and maintain the self – confidence and esteem students decide to bring changes in order to analyse specific goals and objectives. There are several types of changes that will make them better and happy about themselves such as questions about their happiness in life, about relations or social life etc. It is essential to ensures that changes are break down into smaller sections which are manageable effectively. For instance, to become able to speak up in seminars as it may be easier to start with the expressing opinions more often with friends.

Emphasise on achievements: For increasing the self – confidence students have to realise that they achieved a lot in their life as it does not matter that what these achievements are, what really matters that they are important for them. So, they need to prepare lists about it and add it with all these things which they are proud of. Mainly students require to emphasise on favourable and positive things that will aid to raise their self – confidence.

Rewards and support: Give rewards and appreciations to themselves helps in building their self – esteem. The rewards are valuable for the students as it really matters for the development of confidence and increasing their self – esteem (Lee and Shin, 2016).

Seeking positive experience: For raising the self confidence students need to experience positive also they require to spend time with those people who likes us for what they are in useful. Surrounds with the gratitude or positive influences or experience and minimise those things which are constantly adverse.

Peer Evaluation:

It is related to the performance analysis that can be done by two or more people of matching capabilities as well as competencies. It is mainly done between the members of team which is employed to preserve the standards of quality as well as increase productivity and level of performance (Newton, 2016). It is also termed as a 360 – degree assessment with the manager assessment and self – review. This assists in pointing out about the strengths and weaknesses of students which a worker face at the ground level. It facilitates clear insights into the relations of workers which they share with each other’s. It has several advantages as well as disadvantages that are considered as follows:

Advantages:

• It facilitates a wide range of information regarding workers that is significant mainly in modern team based working environment (Murray, 2016).
• It gives a clear and complete picture of workers interactions which reveals workers strengths as well as weaknesses which may or may not be apparent to the teacher but in classmate’s views these can be captured easily.
• Feedbacks which are provided by the classmates or friends are easy to relate with that assists workers in order to understand about their shortcomings that will enhance the student’s performance.
• Peer evaluation is not done by teachers only this will be done by classmates that encourages students in order to work harder.

Disadvantages:

• Sometimes, it may lead to overburden of works for students which may in turn hamper its regular works (Cottrell, 2019).

• It may be uncomfortable as students from small communities at classroom lectures and workshops asking them to analyse and evaluate each other.
• If confidentiality of reviews is not maintained then it might strain the relations of friends and classmates which impact on the team dynamics.

CONCLUSION

It can be summarised from the above report that academic skills are essential to develop as it provides strengths and confidence to the students for learning and development of their personal as well as professional life. It helps in mastering the skills sets of individuals which will aid in getting better understanding about different situations and easily deal with the issues which are being occurred in present as well as in future. In the portfolio, includes all the concepts and topics that was studying in the classroom lectures, workshop and other activities. Also, conduct literature review on the basis of academic skills and confidence for studying in the classroom lectures, workshop and activities.