Personal Learning Paper

PERSONAL LEARNING PAPER

Poojan Shah

PGP-11-136

Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviour, skills, values, or preferences. There are various ways or approaches of learning. As per Kolb's model, the learning style which best describes me is not one but two:

* Converger and Accomodator

I don't stop at ideas, I like to find and relate practical applications of the ideas for better understanding and longer retention. Another characteristic of convergent that describes me is my using deductive reasoning ability for problem solving. I call myself an accommodator because merely reading about things is not my style and I need to perform the things actively. I am a doer not a reader.

I realized my styles of learning during our organisational course study. Earlier I was more of a theoretical person, just reading or mugging up the concept and blurting it out during evaluations. I realized that there was no learning happening, which is more useful in the longer run and hence I have been trying consciously to change my style ever since.

Also, my three years of work experience made me face the truth that one needs to work in teams to achieve success and one will have to work in teams all his life. Hence the accommodating style of learning will be of great help to me. To continue my development in this respect, I ensure that I take part in a lot of extra-curricular activities and competitions which will further hone my team working skills.

Who am I? This question is something that has been and will always keep intriguing me all my life. I have my set of strengths and weaknesses. But then what I realized during this course is that there are certain aspects of my personality either I am not aware of, or the others are not aware of, or both me and them are not aware of. This I got to know and understand during my Johari window exercise.

My Johari Window

This johari window shows that I have a lot of scope for improvement. The area which denotes that both me and others are aware is the smallest and the dark spot is the biggest area. Then also the area where people and my viewpoints differ is quite a bit. A few examples to support this face were realized during our PG lab and initial few months of college. Take for example, during our PG lab people voted me as very friendly and approachable whereas I considered myself shy and reserved. On the contrary, I think of myself as a day dreamer and emotional and they believe me to practical and realistic. These are some of the instances where I realized how different people perceptions are about me than my own.

The other thing is that there is a huge area about which neither I know nor people are aware of. This denotes that I need to do a lot of introspection and interaction and get to know myself better. I am usually a slow starter, meaning I take time to open up with people by which they have already formed a perception of me, which I think is the main reason for the smallest size of 1st quadrant. My misconception was thrown right at my face by this study and now I focus to identify my strengths, weaknesses and people's perception towards me.

Also, I don't speak much which makes me come across as too serious and boring which is definitely not the case. I am now making efforts and ensuring that interact enough with people and lose my shyness. But this is not something one can develop in a day and hence I hope to gradually improve upon it by keeping small small targets and goals.

In my exercise at PG lab I perceived myself as "closed book" because even though I have a lot of knowledge and things to share I am not to open. And later on, I aim at becoming a "politician", bringing about a change in the country and more importantly in the outlook of people.

Personality is how one reacts and interacts with others, and keeping this definition in mind I can best be judged as "calm & composed" and "confident".

The Myers briggs test and Big five locator confirmed my perception of myself.

Extraversion/Introversion: I prefer more of introversion, asserting the fact that I am a little reserved and prefer to work on my own.

Sensing/Intuition: I do believe in sensing but I also tend to trust my intuitions quite a bit. I tend to trust abstract information or hunches and is more interested in future possibilities. I listen to my unconscious mind and trust those flashes of memory.

Thinking/Feeling: I make decisions based on both thinking and feeling. Actually, it is very situation specific. At most times, I measure my decision by reasoning, logical and causal ways but in certain situations I tend to empathize and try to achieve harmony and consider the needs of others.

Judgement/Perception: I am more of a perception type of person as I show the world my preferred perceiving function (sensing/intuition).

Openness: I am average to high on openness quotient. I am a curious person but I don't go to much length to satisfy it.

Conscientiousness: I am high on conscientiousness signifying that I am very organised and dependable and consistent in my behaviour.

Extraversion: I am average on extraversion which confirms my reserve nature.

Agreeableness: I stand high on it which means I am compassionate and cooperative which goes with my perception of myself.

Neuroticism: I don't tend to experience extreme emotions that easily. I am more of a calm and composed person.

These tests confirm my perceptions about my attributes and further agree my need to be more interactive and open in my dealings and overall as a person. I need to work more and more in groups and help build a quick true rapport of myself with people around me.

One quality I appreciate about myself is my ability to understand people's behaviour. I am very good at reading other people well and knowing their actions and reactions and the meaning behind it. What I need to learn is to leverage that fact to my advantage. I need to learn how to tackle people in groups and how to work with them in a coherent manner.

Emotional quotient is an important part of a person. They affect the effectiveness of work in an organisation. My Emotional self awareness ratings are pretty decent. I believe this is because I don't let emotions