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Thinking about Learning
learning objectives
- To think about the ways in which adult learning is different to learning as a child.
- To consider the usefulness of models of learning, such as Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle.
- To understand the value and limitations of learning styles in helping you to develop your learning skills.
- To understand the difference between ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ learning.
- To identify common learning obstacles and consider strategies to overcome them.
Where are You Now as a Learner?
Box 2.1 reflection point
You as a learner
Spend a few minutes jotting down your responses to the following questions:
- How do you feel about learning? (What kinds of emotions do you experience in relation to learning, or the thought of learning?)
- What does learning mean to you – what is its significance or value?
- What kinds of messages have you received about yourself, as a learner, in the past?
- How have these messages shaped your view of your ability or potential to learn?
Our view of learning, and our ideas about ourselves as learners, can have a powerful effect on how ready, able and willing we are to engage in new learn- ing experiences. This chapter gives you the opportunity to learn more about the learning process so that you can:
- begin to get to know your ‘learning self’ a little better
- feel better equipped to take control and responsibility for your own learning.
Learning as a Child or as an Adult?
Learning experts such as Malcolm Knowles suggest that the learning process is very different for us as adults, compared to our experience as school-children (Knowles et al., 2005). This is summarized by five main characteristics of adult learners:
THINKING ABOUT LEARNING
Table 2.1 Five key characteristics of adult learners
1 As adults, we are used to taking control of our own lives and as a result we prefer to manage and organize our own learning. We will have a natural tendency to question things and will have our own thoughts about how we want to develop our learning.
2 We bring a wealth of knowledge and life experience to new learning situations and like to make links between new ideas and our existing knowledge. We are not ‘empty vessels’ waiting to be filled up with knowledge.
3 Generally, we undertake learning because we want to change some aspect of our lives and this provides a high level of motivation. This is different to when we were at school and were told to learn things because they would be useful to us in the future.
4 We tend to approach learning as a means of solving a problem or changing some aspect of our lives. This means that we tend to be more drawn to learning about things that seem relevant to our own lives and our personal goals.
5 We are more motivated by factors from within ourselves, such as the drive to develop self-esteem, increase our confidence or gain recognition for our achievements. This contrasts with the school child who is largely motivated by factors outside of herself, such as the authority of the teacher and peer group pressure.
Kolb’s experiential learning cycle
Kolb’s theory of learning can be represented in the form of a learning cycle which illustrates his idea that there are four main stages involved in learning from experience.
Stage 1: Concrete experience Kolb says that learning involves having some form of ‘concrete’ experience. He uses the word ‘concrete’ to mean an experience that takes place in the real, physical world. A concrete experience could be:
- talking to a service-user
- reading a book
- putting together a care plan.
Stage 1 Example: Fozia has just given a verbal presentation to the rest of the students in her group.
Stage 2: Observation and reflection In Stage 2, the learner enters a period of ‘observation and reflection’, in which they consciously think about what happened during their concrete experience. This ‘thinking’ can be triggered by their thoughts and memories of the event, or by feedback from others. For instance:
- What did they do well and what could have been better?
- What can they observe about their performance? Was it rushed or too slow? And so on.
THINKING ABOUT LEARNING
- Concrete experience
- Testing in new situations
- Observation and reflection
- Forming abstract concepts
Experiential Learning
FFiigguurree 22 .. 11 Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle
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Stage 2 Example: Fozia thinks about how well the presentation went.
- She thinks that she was effective in terms of making all of the key points she wanted to.
- She remembers that she did not look at the audience very much and caught herself shuffling in front of the data projector at times.
- Feedback from her peers and tutor confirm her observations and reflections.
Stage 3: Forming abstract concepts In Stage 3, the learner thinks about ideas or approaches that might help them to improve their performance the next time they engage in the concrete experience. In other words:
- How could they do things differently in the future to achieve a more satisfactory outcome?
- Is there a theory, idea or technique that they have used previously, which might be useful in the current learning situation?
Kolb refers to this as ‘forming abstract concepts’.
Stage 3 Example: Fozia thinks about how other people in her group delivered their presentations by using keywords and bullet points instead of a full script.
- She tries to imagine herself using bullet points to jog her memory in the future.
- In her mind’s eye, she sees herself talking confidently and knowledgably to her audience, making lots of eye contact and communicating more directly with them.
- She decides it would be a useful idea to try this approach the next time she is required to deliver a formal presentation.
Stage 4: Testing in new situations This stage is where the learner puts their new thoughts and ideas (the ‘abstract concepts’ from stage 3) into practice. It is a crucial stage because it allows learners to test out their ‘abstract concepts’ (ideas) to see if they actually work or make things any better.
Stage 4 Example: A few months later, Fozia gives a talk in the Students Union about the voluntary work she has been doing:
- She finds that using short bullet points on her PowerPoint slides helps her to maintain much better eye contact with the audience.
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activity 2.
Quick Visual-Auditory-Kinaesthetic (VAK) Self-test
Imagine that you have just bought a flat-pack, self-assembly bookshelf for your home study area. When you come to put the bookshelf together, would you naturally prefer to: A Read all of the instructions before starting, and closely follow the illustrations to see how each piece will fit together? B Have someone else read the instructions out to you as you go about assem- bling it, and ask them questions if necessary? C Ignore the instructions and just focus on working out how to build it yourself through handling the parts and discovering how they fit together? If you selected option A, you are probably more of a visual learner, option B would suggest you are more of an auditory learner and, finally, option C suggests you are a more kinaesthetic learner.
Why are learning styles useful?
Understanding your own learning style can help you to:
- recognize your current learning preferences and tendencies
- ‘play to your strengths’
- identify areas of your learning where you could make further improvements, in order to become a more rounded learner.
Box 2.2 reflection point
Learning styles can change!
The key thing to remember is that learning styles and preferences are not set in stone – they can change over time – and there are conscious things you can do to improve your skills and become a more rounded learner. For example – use natural strengths to develop weaker areas. If I am a student who finds it easier to learn from visual methods rather than listening to a lecturer talk for
an hour, I could make a conscious effort to create my own set of lecture notes which use keywords, pictures, diagrams and concept maps. This may mean doing some more work on them after the lecture has finished but should be worth it in terms of helping me to learn more effectively.
Learning style tools and questionnaires
The value of learning styles activities and questionnaires is that they can help us to identify where our current areas of strength are, and equally importantly, alert us to areas where we might need to consciously think about improving our skills.
activity 2.
Learning styles tools and questionnaires
Many people have developed their own different models of learning styles and they will usually offer some kind of questionnaire or activity to help you to work out what your learning preferences are (e.g. VAK Questionnaire, Honey and Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire (1982)). We do not recommend using any one particular learning styles questionnaire or tool, but would encourage you to explore the range of free options that are available online. Try typing in the phrase free learning style questionnaire into your favourite search engine. Take careful note of how to interpret your result once you have completed the questionnaire or activity.
Limitations of learning styles
- Learning styles become less useful when they are simply used to ‘label’ or stereotype learners (Coffield et al., 2004: 51), e.g.: ‘… oh, she’s the type of learner who always wants to jump in and get started, so she won’t be any good at doing anything that requires some thought and reflection’.
- Some critics claim learning styles can overlook the important social and political aspects of being a learner (Reynolds, 1997), which are shaped by race, gender and social class, as well as by age, disability and sexual orientation.
THINKING ABOUT LEARNING
STEP 1:
Produce something which represents what you think and feel about yourself as a learner. Be really creative and use any medium which you feel is most appro- priate. You might decide to:
- Produce a ‘pen portrait’ – this is a written passage which describes and pres- ents a narrative (or story) of you as a learner. This approach works well if you try to be specific and use real examples and memories to illustrate things.
- Produce a drawing, diagram or collage – use visual imagery to represent how you learn best and highlight the areas that you find challenging or feel that you may struggle with.
- Produce an audio or video portrait – you could use a mobile phone, mp recorder or video camera. This is similar to making an audio or video diary and the aim is to capture what you think and feel about your learning through the things you say, facial expressions and tone of voice.
Whichever method you use, try not to get too caught up in wanting to produce a ‘masterpiece’ – the most valuable part of this exercise is that you make some kind of record of your thoughts, feelings, hopes, desires, worries, concerns and beliefs about yourself as a learner.
STEP 2:
After you have completed your learner portrait, reflect back on it and write a short piece of 200–300 words in which you identify what your portrait reveals to you about your relationship with learning.
- Make links and draw your own conclusions – and if you feel comfortable, seek the creative input of peers and tutors.
- Keep your finished portrait somewhere safe as it records a useful snapshot of you at a particular point in time.
- Just like an old photograph of yourself, you can look back at it and acknowl- edge how you have changed and developed over time, with certain ‘features’ remaining constant.
Skim the Surface or Dive in at the Deep End?
Deep learning
Sometimes you may go into a lecture or teaching session feeling really motivated about what you are going to be doing because:
THINKING ABOUT LEARNING
- you have a real interest in and passion for the topic
- you are curious about how there might be links between this topic and other areas you are interested in
- you have a number of questions in your mind about the topic, and look forward to the prospect that at least some of them will be answered
- you are keen to develop your broad understanding of social work ideas, in order to become a better social work practitioner.
Learning experts say the factors described above are more likely to be linked to deep learning (Biggs, 1999; Entwhistle, 1988; Marton and Säljö, 1976; Ramsden,1992). Deep engagement with a subject provides a really good grounding from which to do all of those things that are asked for in assignment guidelines and marking criteria, such as:
- ‘critical thinking and analysis’
- ‘making links and connections to other ideas, theories and topics’
- ‘weighing-up the evidence’
- ‘providing a discussion or balanced view’.
Surface learning
At other times, we may go into a lecture or teaching session planning to:
- just note down and remember those things which are relevant to our assignment
- focus on relevant facts which can be memorized and discard the rest
- not worry ourselves about how this topic might fit into the grand scheme of things.
This approach is often described as ‘surface learning’. There are times where we all engage in surface learning in our daily lives. For instance, we may be told that a new records management system has been introduced into our workplace and our first response might be, ‘… just tell me about the bits that are relevant to what I do’. This kind of surface approach can help us to get by, and is often enough in the short term. However, in relation to your academic assignments, you need to consider whether an entirely surface approach to learning is going to be enough to get you through your course, with the kinds of grades you are aiming for. To illustrate this, think about how many times in the past you have heard a tutor say:
- ‘look beneath the surface ’
- ‘aim to examine the subject in depth’
- ‘consider things from a number of perspectives ’
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STUDY SKILLS FOR SOCIAL WORKERS
Common Learning Obstacles
Barriers to learning
Box 2.3 reflection point
Learning barriers
Based on your own previous experiences of learning:
- What are your particular learning barriers or obstacles?
- What kinds of strategies could help you overcome them?
- What support and/or resources would you need?
- How will you measure your progress?
- When will you re-assess the situation?
Taking positive ownership of your own learning
Learning how to become self-directed, organized and self-motivated can be a real challenge in itself! That is, before we have even started to think about learning about the subject of social work. For instance, if you have previously been studying a course where your study was largely directed by the teaching staff, or if you have been in a job in which your work was closely supervised, it may come as a shock to suddenly have all of this freedom! The following chart uses the mnemonic (memory aid) ‘EMPOWER’ to help you to focus on the qualities required to take ownership of your learning, together with practical suggestions of how to develop these.
Table 2.3 EMPOWER
Quality: Characterized by: Helped by:
E Enquiring • Asking questions • Listening to the questions that
- Debating ideas others ask
- Following up your own • Reading around the topic to areas of interest see how issues are ‘debated’
- Keeping an open mind and discussed
- Making notes of interesting things to follow up and research M Motivated • Being focused on own • Setting SMART learning goals learning goals which feel helpful and relevant
- Being clear about why to you you want to do the course
THINKING ABOUT LEARNING
Table 2.3 (Continued)
Quality: Characterized by: Helped by:
- Monitoring your progress and rewarding yourself for your efforts
- Attending regularly and participating fully P Productive • Completing work and • Avoiding procrastination developing your learning using techniques suggested in and understanding Chapter 3
- Making best use of the • Focusing on the bits you can time available to you do and coming back to the bits
- Seeing pieces of work you know you struggle with through to their conclusion • Avoiding unnecessary distractions (e.g. text messages, television) O Organized • Being at the right place • Using simple tools like timetables, at the right time diaries and schedulers – these
- Making sure you know are invaluable what you have got to do • Writing down the tasks you
- Thinking about the best need to do and prioritizing them order in which to do things • Keeping relevant handouts and notes together in files and folders W Well-prepared • Having the materials, • Studying your timetable and resources and equipment getting a sense of what topics needed to do a given task will be covered – if possible
- Being clear and focused doing some preparatory reading about what you have been • Always using assignment asked to do guidance
- Considering reading, research • Using lectures notes and reading or other preparation before lists to guide your background beginning to write your reading assignments • Taking equipment you will need along to taught sessions (e.g. pens, paper, laptop, memory stick, etc.) E Engaged • Contributing to sessions • Pushing yourself to make
- Taking part in activities contributions where invited to do
- Finding points of personal so – do not wait for someone else interest, even in the to speak first sessions that may seem • Looking for the interesting point, dull or irrelevant angle or perspective – it can be found in even the dullest of topics! R Resilient • Being able to accept • Using feedback on your work to constructive criticism guide your learning development
- Being able to cope under goals pressure (i.e. family • Factoring in relaxation time or commitments, work stress-busting techniques (see commitments, looming Chapter 4) assignment deadlines) • Trying to think of ‘mistakes’ or
- Accepting that learning can failures as important learning sometimes involve ‘getting opportunities it wrong’
Learning Goal
Action Required
Resources
Timescale
Figure 2.
Learning Development Plan
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Be SMART!
Make sure that your learning goals are ‘SMART ’!
Did you know? SMART Goals
‘SMART’ is a convenient mnemonic to help you remember the various factors that you should aim to take into account when planning, carrying out and eval- uating your own learning goals. For instance, if my learning goal is to ‘improve my referencing’, I could apply SMART in the following way:
S specific e.g. I will aim to strengthen my referencing and citation skills in my academic work.
M measurable e.g. I will aim to get 90% of my references absolutely correct in my next essay/assignment.
A achievable e.g. I will focus on book, journal and web referencing to begin with and then look at other kinds at a later date.
R relevant e.g. I will make sure that I use resources which focus on the Harvard Reference system, as this is used at my institution.
T time-bound e.g. I will aim to have developed this for when I do my next essay on 18 November 2010 (two months away).
Using SMART helps you to be much more specific about your intentions, so that you can actually translate them from positive intentions into positive actions.
Tackling Boredom and Frustration – Head On!
No doubt we have all had experiences of sitting in a classroom or a lecture theatre and listening to someone who has completely baffled us within the first 10 minutes of their lecture. We might have then spent the rest of the hour-long lecture:
- doodling
- checking out our fellow students’ fashion sense
- mentally devising shopping lists
- imagining ourselves reclining on a tropical beach!
- make assumptions about what we already know
- use language and terminology that we are not always familiar with
- present things in an order that makes sense to them, but which might not appear to be organized or sequential to you. As professional social workers, we will still be expected to:
- pick out relevant details
- identify key themes or concerns
- take a flexible and responsive approach to note-taking and information recording.
summary of key points
- Models such as Kolb’s experiential learning cycle can help us to gain a better appreciation of how learning actually takes place.
- Understanding our own learning styles and preferences can help us to identify our strengths and weaknesses and set ourselves appropriate learning goals.
- Learning styles should not be used in a self-limiting way.
- Many student social workers face learning obstacles but these can be tackled with the right attitude and appropriate support.
further reading
Burns, T. and Sinfield, S. (2008) Essential Study Skills: The complete guide to success at university. London: Sage. Clegg, B. (2008) Studying Creatively. London: Routledge. Cottrell, S. (2003) The Study Skills Handbook , 2nd edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (especially Chapters 2, 3 and 4). Hargreaves, S. (2007) Study Skills for Dyslexic Students (Study Skills Series). London: Sage. Hoult, E. (2006) Learning Support for Mature Students (Study Skills Series). London: Sage.
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(Continued)
