What Is A Learning Experience

Defining the learning feel

This section looks at the ways in which a educatee develops skills and how you can identify what learning is appropriate for students at different stages of development.

Developing competence

Professional practice is vital in enabling students to 'develop, demonstrate and achieve competence to do. COT (2000) Although students acquire much of their knowledge base at university, it is through practice education that they see the applications of that knowledge, and go aware of the realities of practice and the effects of current legislation, politics and priorities. It will be your role, every bit a practice educator, to help students develop competence through their exposure to do, for the ultimate benefit of service users.

What is competence?

Competence tin be defined as the norms of effective practise in any given profession. This suggests that competence is not static, and that as service delivery and targets for effectiveness change, so too will what is defined as competence. Competence to practise covers a wide range of aspects: not simply noesis, understanding and the ability to take appropriate action, but a broad range of personal qualities.

Professional Bodies expect competent practitioners to be critically reflective, proactive, innovative and adaptable, and capable of working on their own and in a team, in a climate of social, technical and health care change. Every bit well as being able to display attributes and exercise skills that characterise their profession in full general, and satisfy the legal requirement to safeguard the public, the competent practitioner would also need to develop attributes and skills advisable to his/her own service setting.

Condign competent

There take been several studies of the ways in which individuals acquire knowledge and skills, every bit they move from being an unskilled beginner to becoming a competent practitioner and and so an expert. The most well-known of these were undertaken by Benner (1982), in relation to nursing, and Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) with a range of occupations.

Both studies describe the development of competence as a continuum:

This process can be a long i, with proficiency but developing afterwards effectually three years in exercise, and full evolution to becoming an skillful peradventure taking fifteen years. The ability to reflect, and the evolution of clinical reasoning, would obviously be integral to this process, as would the development of autonomy.

How does this continuum relate to professional person practice education for students? Students operating at the 'novice' level, early in their form, would demand to make full gaps in their cognition, and might proceeds confidence from working in a more structured environment where there are 'rules' that they can follow. As they progress, they volition be more than able to relate to the service user equally an individual, and volition begin to appreciate the multitude of factors that operate in any situation. Every bit students develop competence they will become increasingly able to program and prioritise, and to reverberate on their own, and other'south, deportment and decisions.

What factors volition influence what it is appropriate for a student to learn while on a practice placement with yous?

Spend a few minutes because all aspects of this question, non just what has been covered in this section. Jot down your ideas, and compare them with the notes on the following folio.

Factors defining the learning feel

In whatever state of affairs, but particularly in the workplace, many opportunities for learning will arise, and the student should be encouraged to proceeds as much benefit every bit possible from all their experiences.

What we are looking at hither is planning for a student'due south learning - negotiating what they should focus on and aim to achieve, in the light of university requirements, of his/her own learning needs and of the opportunities available in your service setting.

Viewed equally a diagram, the factors might expect like this :

Negotiating a learning contract and setting personal objectives

One way of defining what learning should occur is through the use of a learning contract and the process of setting learning objectives for the placement. You may already be familiar with this process, but do go along working your way through the remainder of the section as the exercises are of import.

Objectives/Learning Contract

"A self directed learner is someone who, with or without the help of others, diagnoses his/her learning needs; sets relevant, feasible and measurable objectives; determines by and large acceptable standards or criteria which will be applied to assess whether learning has in fact occurred as planned; and finally, formulates a coherent learning agreement or personal curriculum for the class".

(Hammond & Collins 1987)

Students are encouraged from the beginning of the grade to be "self-directed" learners and proactive in management of their ain professional development.

Hence, personal objectives in the course of a learning contract should exist set in parallel with those from the module description and any set within placements themselves.

A Learning Contract Should:

Let a student to manipulate the course to come across his/her ain needs.
Issue in learning that is meaningful.
Increase pupil'southward cocky motivation by giving them responsibleness for his/her own learning.
Enable pupil to define his/her own needs.
Enable student to problem solve.
Encourage student to use a wide range of resources and strategies.

Steps a Educatee Should Take:

Discuss in the commencement week the possible learning outcomes for the placement.
Identify personal learning outcomes to have achieved past the end of the placement.
Bespeak against each event strategies and resources he/she will apply to run across their learning needs.
Bespeak how he/she is going to demonstrate that the outcomes have been achieved.
Identify the criteria by which he/she will demonstrate that these outcomes have been achieved.
Interruption downward each result into objectives which should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic & time spring) (Run into farther pages for additional information)
Review these objectives within each weekly supervision session and as the learning outcomes are accomplished have them authorised by the educator on the learning contract.
Revise the objectives in grooming for the following week.

How is the Learning Contract Negotiated?

There are four stages in the initial negotiation:

The learning contract should allow the educatee to see the learning outcomes of each professional practise module. The expected effect should be reasonable and reflect the level of training at which the student is performing. The assessment criteria on the written report forms should be used every bit a guide.

Individual styles of learning contract can be adapted & designed by exercise educators only the following headings should be included:

Aims What do I want to learn?

Long term outcomes to exist achieved past the cease of the placement.

Programme of Activeness How volition I learn?

Objectives, supervisory agreement, strategies and resources, for example discussion with ......, observation of ...... , reading of ..... tutorial near ......

Method of Evaluation What form will the evaluation have and who will be involved? How will I know when I have achieved this?

For example, feedback from ....., presentation to ..... observation by.

Equally each learning consequence is accomplished, the educator and the student should sign and date that outcome.

Have a look at the example of a learning contract on the next page. This is but i type & yous will come across many unlike styles.

The educatee volition probably come with learning outcomes or aims for the placement set by the university, which will be reflected in the focus of, and criteria for, educatee assessment. Nevertheless, outcomes are normally no more than than broad statements about the learning process. They cannot have account of the particular nature of the opportunities for learning in your piece of work environment, or of the pedagogy/learning preferences of you and the student.

Objectives are the particular steps that need to be taken in guild for an outcome/aim to be accomplished. They describe aspects of performance or behaviour in the learner that contribute to the achievement of the consequence or aim, and provide a means by which a student can demonstrate his/her learning.

If you take not had experience of setting aims and objectives before, it is probably helpful to think about them in relation to everyday activities get-go, before you try to imagine them in relation to professional practice education.

An aim for many people is to pass their driving exam.

What objectives would need to be realised in guild for this aim to be accomplished?

Try to write down four to vi objectives - steps in the process - that would atomic number 82 to y'all passing your driving test. Compare your notes with those given in SR6

The example of passing a driving test is a good i, because it illustrates that there is not just 1 way of the aim being achieved. Some people may choose to learn only with a driving instructor, others may larn from friends or family unit - a few may even use a driving simulator or an intensive week of training. The aim itself did not gear up limits on how it would be fulfilled.

In the same way, the aim in the practice did non set up any time limits for passing the exam, and then none were used in the objectives in SR4. Notwithstanding, in many cases, an aim is expressed with a particular time frame in listen - for example, passing your examination by your eighteenth birthday. The objectives would and then also need to exist worded to take this into business relationship.

The outcomes for students on practice placements are likely to take to be accomplished within the elapsing of the placement period, even if this is non expressly stated. You will demand to fix fourth dimension aside at the start of the placement to discuss with the student his/her learning needs, establish a baseline (reflecting the student's previous experience, knowledge, skills and stage of training), and negotiate a learning contract with objectives for the first week or 2.

One fashion of ensuring that objectives that contribute to the fulfilment of each event are appropriate, is to make sure they are SMART:

In considering the starting time of these - being specific - it can be a good idea to find answers to questions such as, 'Who?' 'What?' 'Who with?' 'Where?', while answering 'When?' will fulfil the last SMART requirement, by putting it within a time frame. Asking 'With what result?' Volition aid to ensure the objective is measurable. Withal, do try to avert following a 'formula' for the phrasing of objectives - too rigid an approach can sound rather like a game of Cluedo, continually referring, for instance, to 'the student, in the treatment room, with the practitioner... '!!

Wait back at the objectives you wrote for passing a driving test. Effort re-writing them so that they are achieved past the age of 18, and fulfil the SMART criteria in a higher place.

Advantages of setting learning objectives

There are a number of advantages to using objectives to structure the learning experience of professional practice students. Objectives will:

Provide students with clear guidelines every bit to what is expected of them
Enable students to focus on specific tasks
Help to identify what resources are needed to reach the outcomes
Relate firsthand efforts to longer-term outcomes, making them seem more achievable
Provide both student and practice educator with a ways of measuring student progress
Provide a framework which, in the outcome of the absence of the educator, can be understood and monitored by some other colleague
Provide an opportunity to evaluate the approaches and methods used
Include a tangible method of accountability.

Avoiding the pitfalls

Care needs to exist taken to ensure that some of the common issues with setting learning objectives are avoided. Endeavour not to write objectives that are:

besides difficult besides complex

likewise easy over likewise long a time frame

not measurable over too curt a time frame

too numerous irrelevant.

Being SMART should aid to avoid most of these! Information technology should besides exist remembered how broad the notion of competence is - aims and objectives are not only most developing practical skills, only also, for instance, increasing a student'due south knowledge and affecting his/her mental attitude.

Word between you and the student is the key to ensuring that yous both have a clear understanding of what the student is aiming to achieve, and that the objectives are advisable to that aim within your particular service setting. Copies of the objectives should be held by both of you, and it will probably exist helpful if other members of the team are enlightened of what these are.

Above all, it is vital that setting learning objectives is but seen as the starting time of the process. In Part One you saw how student learning depends to a great extent on yous, as do educator, beingness able to pass on your knowledge, skills and attitudes through discussion and explanation. It is also important that you monitor student progress as s/he works through the learning objectives, and that you provide him/her with constructive feedback through supervision.

This checklist may be helpful in defining the stages to be worked through in setting learning objectives:

Call up that all students will be working towards condign competent wellness care practitioners; what is important is the level of autonomy they have achieved in this process.

Whatever expectations there are of the student's learning during professional practice, it volition be your actions and attitudes - in guiding and supporting the student, in providing straight educational activity, and through ongoing feedback, supervision and assessment - that will be crucial in enabling the student to fulfil his/her learning needs. In the next section we look at the processes of feedback and supervision in more item.