PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Personal and Professional Development in Health and Social Care

TASK 1

Key Influences on Learning Processes

Introduction

Learning is a process of continuous change. The importance of this process in the highly competitive world cannot be ignored. Different methods and styles of learning have been proposed by scholars and researchers. Moreover, there are several factors which influence the learning process. These include the personality, skills, interests, values, level of motivation, educational and professional background and surrounding culture of the individual. In the following section, I have described my preferred learning style, rationale for selection and its impact on my learning as an individual.

Preferred Learning Style

My preferred learning style is experimental learning, which is presented in four basic modes (Levinson 1978, pp.91).

Concrete Experience (Feeling)

Reflective Observation (Watching)

Abstract Conceptualization (Thinking)

Active Experimentation (Doing)

The learning style methodology is based on responding to a questionnaire. Once you answer all eighty questions, all answers are evaluated to define one's preferred learning style. My response showed that I was a reflector. I care of other people and; therefore, I scored high on feelings related questions. I collected data from different sources before jumping to the conclusion.

This methodology was shared by Stephen Covey in his book Seven Habits of highly effective People. There are four quadrants, in which a person defines his activities in order to improve his/her time management. I used this matrix to separate Important and urgent work from other categories, in order to focus on most necessary things. As I am a reflector, I thoroughly studied this matrix before deciding on using it.

Figure 1: Urgent versus Important Matrix (Covey 2004, pp.72)

I also tried the learning style through individual development design. This individual development method is a process, which starts from self evaluation. Once I identified my strengths, weaknesses, skills, abilities and knowledge, I was able to develop some short term and long term personal goals. These goals were aligned with some activities, which are illustrated in my personal development log in Task 3 (A). I have also set some strategies to achieve these goals. Undertaking activities to achieve these goals helped in developing in some professional skills including Time management Skills, Problem-Solving skills and Communication skills.

I took suggestions from many people on how to improve my speaking skills before I joined the elderly care centre. Most of them told me to read loudly and practise presentations in front of a mirror. I followed all the methods but the learning through practice and real time experience proved to be most helpful

After planning though urgent versus important matrix, I have been able to separate my overall activities. Before using this matrix, I used to take my tomorrows work or future studies with ease, however, as I had studied this matrix I came to realise that even future work is very important, if not urgent (quadrant 3) and; therefore, I started to work in advance for completing my future assignments, cases and projects on time. The major weakness of using this method was that I sometime ...