Higher education skills and competencies

Assignment Brief for UGB003 Higher Education Skills and Competencies
Assessment Weightage Submission Deadline
Reflective Report 100% Canvas & JIRA Deadline: Tuesday
13th February 2018 by 16:00

Section 1 of 3.
The purpose of the reflective report is for you to demonstrate the following
knowledge and skills:-
Knowledge
K1 The distinction between learning in the School environment and Higher
Education.
K2 Engagement with critical reading and thinking.
Skills
S1 The ability to locate, collect and record appropriate information using a range of
academic resources.
S2 Evaluation of the reliability of information
S3 Construction of a portfolio of evidence clearly showing independent learning and
thinking, self-reflection and evaluation.
Guidance on the choice of evidence
1. Look back over your weekly notes from the learning logs/diary then think about
the challenges and how you progressed. What did you do and what worked?
2. Choose the best examples of your work to support your statements of evidence.
3. Remember how we have worked on the ‘4 x Ws’ – What, Where, Why and
When?
4. Rearranging your evidence can help structure your report. For example time
management is not always improved on the first few exercises.
5. The order is up to you but keep the statements clear.
6. You will need to demonstrate you understand referencing in your text and provide
a list written to the Harvard Referencing Style.
The Reflective Report must be presented as a Professional Word Document, submitted
as one word file with appendices. Word length is 1500 words with an allowance of +/-

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10%. Instructions on how to load the document will be provided in the Module on
Sunspace.

The Assessment Criteria is attached in Appendix A.

Section 2 of 3.
Reflective Report: – Some guidance on writing the report and presenting the

supporting evidence

You will need to type the reflective report and support your statements and claims
with evidence from the exercises set in the workshops. Each week, you were
presented with individual and/or group tasks which provided opportunities for you
to demonstrate your learning and development as you progressed in the module.
Here is a reminder of the worksheets you have completed during the course of the
module; you can choose any 4 – 6 examples of your best work, but you must
ensure you reflect on each one of the learning outcomes.
1. The distinction between learning in the School environment and Higher
Education: the time management and learning style worksheets.
2. Engagement with critical reading and thinking: worksheets on the Post Office,
Global Company, Lidl and Aldi.
3. The ability to locate, collect and record appropriate information using a range of
academic resources: the Volkswagen team task.
4. Evaluation of the reliability of information: material related to the group tasks and
theory and evidence in relation to study skills and reflection.
5. Reading skills: Speed, comprehension and critical reading of a text.
6. Self-reflection: what could have been improved? What was really good?
7. Evaluation of your progress over the module: explain how you progressed from
week 1 to week 11, referring back to good and not so good learning
experiences, note some plans for next term’s modules.
8. Employability: Class worksheets and help from Alice from Careers Advice.
The following section explains how to set out the reflective report.
Section 3 of 3.
Your report will have a front title page as follows:
Student’s
Name………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……….

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Student’s Identification
Number……………………………………………………………………………………….
Group
Number:………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
…..
Date of
submission……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Declaration that this is your own work – a simple statement such as:-
I declare that this report is my own work.
Name of
Tutor…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The second and subsequent pages are written in a report style with appendices.
You can write the report in any appropriate style, remember in professional reports,
points are numbered. The following is a simple report style and is offered as a
suggestion:-
Simple Report
Assessment Title: Report on my progress in developing the knowledge and skills for
study in higher education for the module: UGB003 Higher Education Skills and
Competencies.
Aim: to demonstrate the development of higher education skills and competencies
Introduction: Use first person pronouns to write a short introduction. For example:
I found some skills easier to develop than others. The main difference between school
and higher education is the importance of self managed study. I loaned a copy of
Cottrell’s (2011) book from the library and from my employment experience I learned
how to work well with others, but I found the group exercises challenging at first……
…. (then write a few more general sentences before linking in to your evidence). You
might like to write a link such as:
I have numbered the skills and competencies below and noted how my knowledge
developed against the criteria, with my examples of evidence noted in the Appendices 1
to 6. The references are at the end of each document.
(Or alternatively you could write one reference list in the Harvard style if you prefer – try
to show examples of different types of references throughout your report – e.g. for the
Volkswagen exercise you may have considered government or legal documents.
Remember too Cite the Right gives examples of all types of citations)
Here are some examples of how you might write your reflection:-

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1. The distinction between learning in the School environment and Higher
Education:
I found it quite easy at first to see the difference between school and higher education.
In school, the teachers set the work and tell you what to read, in HE, the tasks are still
given but what you read and when is up to you. I chose not to read much but then….
I have attached xxx in Appendix 1 which shows how I addressed this aspect of my
studies.
2. Engagement with critical reading and thinking
I read several documents such as X and X, I found I would get distracted if I did not
understand the article, so I would employ strategies such as X and then I would see that
I needed to xxxx but my best piece of work is a critical evaluation of X. I have included
this because it demonstrates how I was able to read the article several times, making
different sets of notes each time. The first reading was just for general understanding,
then a made a series of notes such as xxx and each time I checked back to ensure I fully
understood the content of the article. My report on X shows how I was able to fully
engage in critical reading and thinking.