2.+Interpersonal+and+Communication+Capability

Interpersonal and Communication Capability was one of the most important capabilities I had strengthened throughout my degree. Developing such a capability greatly assisted me in my career and my skills communicating with people from different ages and backgrounds. The following courses have helped me develop my leadership skills, be an effective team member, be a good listener, engage in class and group discussions and also develop my report writing skills. Achieving this capability will greatly help in my future career to better understand the organisation's culture and interact with other employees and employers in a more professional manner. = = =Introduction to Organisational Behaviour=

I undertook this course in the second semester of the first year (2009). At first, I wasn't quite sure of what the academics of this subject expected from us. From the first week, students were broken down into groups of 4-5 members, and those groups were expected to take turns to lead a 2 hour seminar each week. While leading the seminar class, other groups were expected to write minutes and comments on how the group led the class and what their strengths and weaknesses were. During the semester, our group led 2-3 seminars. Before each class, we constantly had meetings to decide how we would run the class, the kind of activities to introduce and what the purpose was for introducing those materials and activities. This was the most challenging part as a student in the first year of tertiary education. Graduating from high school, most work was done solely, and being a part of a team and working with other team members was a whole new experience. I discovered a lot about my personal attributes being a part of the team, contributing towards a specific objective to be achieved. I have also strengthened my presentation skills as part of what we were assessed on was a powerpoint presentation about a particular theory of the book. At the end of the semester, I gained the following experience: It can be concluded that this subject was entirely different than all other subjects I undertook during this program, mainly because there was a strong emphasis on teamwork, rather than individual assessments. I however noticed that this course had changed me a lot. I became a better listener, made good use of other people's thoughts and ideas, strengthened my confidence to present in front of students I didn't personally know and also develop basic report writing skills.
 * Teamwork (contributing to decision-making and new ideas) and working collaboratively
 * Presentation skills
 * Assessing other people's work and giving fair feedback


 * Assessment** **Tasks:**

=**Workplace Employment Relations**=

This course was an elective I undertook in the first semester of the second year. It discussed the variety of workplace employment conditions, relations and employee's behaviours. This course was a simple one that clearly aimed to create awareness of workplace relationships and empolyee's behaviour in the workplace. Each week, we would spend 3 hours, going through the textbook's topics and discuss the tasks to be completed. Unlike the majority of the courses I have undertaken, there was no focus on group work because all assessment tasks were done solely. The 2 essays we were to write discussed the means of workplace in the past in comparison the recent times, and the second topic discussed the important of knowledge workers in the recent times. Due to my lack of skills in writing essays, I had failed the first essay which was worth 40% and barely passed the second one which was also 40%. The 20% worth of task was presenting about a specific critique from a list provided on powerpoint slides. In conclusion, this course created awareness of the behaviours that employees seem to adopt in the workplace and how to communicate with such behaviours. Although this course wasn't very beneficial in my area of study, neither was it a course I was interested in to undertake as an elective, it was however an important learning leap when I discovered where I went wrong in my essays, which was extremely beneficial later on when I undertook Criminal Behaviour Analysis as an elective, which heavily relied on essays as the main assessment tasks.


 * Assessment Tasks**

=Information and Knowledge Environments2=

One of the assessment tasks for this focused on group work to form a wiki about a particular subject, and a report that explained our information sources and how we went about forming the wiki and dividing the work on the 4 group members. Although, this experience wasn't the most pleasant one I had in my tertiary journey, I however managed to get my tasks done efficiently and helped other groups members who found difficulties completing their tasks. In this particular assessment task, I developed good leadership skills when taking over the group and set tasks for everyone, maintaining good relationships with the group members and getting all tasks done within the timeframe agreed on. I also developed my skills communicating with difficult group members and maintain a friendly environment to work on the assessment task to be completed. Looking back at how this task could've been done better without conflicts, Our group might have needed to stay more in touch to keep everyone updated with what tasks were required to be done first, and also make sure that everyone in the group contributed equally to each assessment task to avoid conflict and ensure that nobody was doing the task of someone else, which was what happening.


 * Assessment Tasks **
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