Understanding The Learning Process

Understanding The Learning Process

Outline

The learning process can be an effective one only when it is properly understood by the learners otherwise it will go in vain. That’s why, before selecting a learning process it is essential to identify the appropriate way of learning that matches the learner’s ability, skill and requirement. Learning can be done in different ways. Some are based on physical ability and some focused on mental competence. It depends on the learner and the teacher to choose the appropriate one wisely. There are some other elements in learning that should be considered important like concepts, principles, facts etc. like other sectors learning is a must in health and social care. Learning helps the health service providers assess his patient’s physical and mental condition properly and give service accordingly.

Task 1

Domains in Bloom’s taxonomy of learning

It was formed in 1956 with the guidance of psychologist Dr. Benjamin Bloom to encourage intellectual methods in education, like investigating and assessingconcepts, procedures, actions, and principles, rather than just routine learning that is remembering facts. It is frequently used while planning teaching or learning procedures.

It has three domains:

• Cognitive refers to psychological abilities known as knowledge

This domain connects to the learner’s understanding and the growth of intelligent capabilities and talents and made of six major programs those are revised in 1990. These are:

• Affective refers to the progress in outlooks or sensitive regions framed as attitude

The attention of this domain is on the learner’s attention, approaches, principle. It is comprises of five modules. These are

• Psychomotor refers to physical or bodily skills simply named as skills

This domain signifies on mechanical skills. Initiators argue that all detail information on motor expertise was obtainable in every institution like school, college and universities at that time, so the improvement of a grouping of this domain would not be beneficial.

Learning of concepts and principles

In the cognitive domain of learning there are five artifacts and those are listed below:

Concepts– A course of matters, words, or thoughts that are recognized by a mutual title, contains numerous particular samples, shares mutual characteristics. There are two styles of concepts such as concrete and nonconcrete or abstract.

Concepts are an important cognitive matter in workplace of health and social care. There are several concepts like:

• Equality: Health and social care facilities must satisfy the requirements of persons from all circumstances. You should not be taken less seriously than someone else for his religious faith.
• Diversity: It exactly means dissimilarity. It is about distinguishing a person’s and group dissimilarities like gender, race etc. In health care center people should be treated as individuals and their differences should be valued positively.
• Rights: This contain providing care for people with psychological problems, supports old and incapacitated persons in their households, day care centers and concerned for kids who can’t live with their families. When one goes for health and social care he should not to be distinguished because of his race, sex, incapacity, religion.

Principles– Rules, instructions, and considerations that administer. It contains not only whatever must be performed, but also anything must not be performed. Principles permit one to predict and construct implications. Assumed an effect, one can conclude the reason of an occurrence. Principles are the elementary constructing blocks of fundamental models or theoretic simulations.

• Safeguarding: To maintain this principle of health and social care one has to know firstly the main types of abuses that can occur with him or her. Abuses like Physical, sexual, psychological are the common types. Whenever this type or any other types of abuses happen with a person should be treated properly regardless of anything else. This principle has separated into the subsequent four portions:

1. Identifying symptoms of injury and abuse
2. Techniques to decrease possibility of abuse
3. Reacting to suspected or revealed abuse
4. Nationwide and local framework of safety from injury and abuse.

Different organizations have different courses of principles so as to health and social care centers. The National Health Service (NHS) of UK has set some standards for it which are the main principles of this organization. It performs its activities mainly based on three major principles. These are mentioned below:

• It should meet the needs of everyone
• Its service will be free of cost at a certain point of delivery for specific people
• Its service will be delivered grounded on the patient’s medical need, not their capacity to pay

Theories of learning

A learning model is a comprehensive structure of combined concepts and values that define, explain or forecast how persons learn.

Behaviorist theory

Behaviorist theory is only concerned about people’s behavior whatever they really do. They are not concerned in whatsoever is going on in others heads. Behaviorists use systematic philosophies to learn behavior. Here it is not significant to examine and study people’s thought and emotion. Behaviorist methods are actually concepts about learning and are not difficult to use to health and social service. Concept is that if we know how persons learn, we can support them to acquire new abilities. One can also support others to unlearn old behaviors that are not good for them. A Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov established this concept. In short, this theory overlooks what goes on in the mind of individual which obviously always tough to discover. Behaviorists notice responses and then operate the atmosphere to create the proposed variation. This theory considers beneficial in nursing training for the provision of health service.

In health and social care, behaviorist theory can be used at the time of giving treatment. In spite of thinking about the patient’s mental condition, the service providers should provide them proper treatment according to their physical needs.

Cognitive theory

Cognitive learning theory consider that knowledge is an core procedure in which evidence is combined or adopted into one’s mental or intellectual building. Learning happens over inside dispensation of material. From the cognitive standpoint, how fresh information is obtainable is significant. In the cognitive stage of education, the patient studies the complete image of what the job is and the systems associated. In the next learning step, the student starts to achieve competency in performing the job. Learning of a complete or part by part physical job is rest on its difficulty. For instance, learning in what way to take a blood pressure is a difficult job. The nurse should know how to actually control the manometer, learn in what way blood pressure sounds should be heard, and recognize the meaning of the resonances. All of these tasks can be trained as a single action, and then collective. In the concluding automatic stage of learning, the nurse increase self-confidence and skill in conducting the job.

Different ways of learning in health and social care

• Self-directed learning (SDL):

It has been recognized as a significant talent for health graduates to encounter the challenges of nowadays healthcare situation. In this process students take the challenge in creating usage of assets rather than only respond to conductions from resources, therefore it aid learners to study more and better. The key intention of this is to advance the abilities of analysis, and more essentially to obtain new understanding easily and competently. Some sources of self-directed learning are:

• Reading
• Investigation
• Action research
• Observation
• Work-based learning
• Professional qualifications

• Employer directed learning:

Another way of learning in health and social care is the employer directed learning. In this method the learner learns things from a teacher or under one’s direct supervision. Techniques of learning in this method are listed below:

• Training
• Mentoring
• Instruction program
• Work-based/in house teaching

Task 2

Combination of Honey and Mumford’s learning style and VARK model

Honey and Mumford (1992) recommend that maximum people have a combination of four types of learning:

Activists: Fully absorb themselves without any prejudice in new practices. They love to be controlled by instantaneous skills. They are broad minded and excited about something new. They perform first and consider the results later.

Reflectors: Prefer to consider their understandings and analyze them from several diverse viewpoints. By collecting thorough information on knowledge they try to delay getting conclusive decisions. They sit in a back chair in conferences and discussion and get the meaning from others before building their own opinions.

Theorists: Familiarize and incorporate interpretations into multifaceted but rationally comprehensive concepts. They integrate dissimilar facts into coherent theories. They act as perfectionists and won’t take easy unless things are organized and suit into a logical system. Pragmatists: They are interested on carrying out thoughts, concepts and techniques to understand if they work actually. They confidently explore new thoughts and receive the first chance to test with applications.

In a survey it has been identified that, majority of nurses in training session are reflector (45%) or activist (37%) types. nurses in the first year had a principal reflector style (60%) and this changed through exercise to an equivalent spreading of activist and reflector types by the third year that is 44% each.

VARK model:

VARK is not an education questionnaire, as it delivers opinion only on chosen styles of interconnecting. Precisely, Philosophers would consider these styles to be just a part of whatever might be involved in an examination of learning mode. Still, the four features of learning styles used in VARK can be easily recognized by students, and are comparatively constant. These elements permit students to analytically react on their research understandings to improve future knowledge as clarified below.

Visual is preferable for utilizing visual means such as drawings, images and videotapes. Here people like to watch in act.

Auditory emphasizes to discuss about circumstances and thoughts with a variety of people who like hearing stories from others.

Reader/writer are productive note-taker; course book are essential; widespread use of newsletters to inscribe the details and stories.

Kinesthetic is preferable for hands on understanding inside a ‘real’ situation and for worldwide knowledge.

Among all of the above styles, I prefer the activist types of learning because it involves an overall understanding of the situation. To do so, the VARK model can be applied here. Examples of these are described below:

Watching a patient’s physical condition visually helps to understand what of problems he is facing and what treatment may be needed for him.

By analyzing the audio sounds of a patient’s clinical test like blood pressure manometer helps to accurately identify his condition.

Moreover, to give appropriate treatment to the patient it is necessary to have a clear knowledge of the disease. For this purpose, reading is a must. Writing is essential in keeping record of a patient’s physical condition so that if he comes later, the doctor can easily identify his previous state from records.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in learning

Physiological needs: These needs refer to the basic necessities of a person’s life like food, cloth, education, health etc. in this stage, people take learning very seriously as it is vital for their livelihood.

Safety needs: It involves safe environment, resources, employment etc. in this phase of learning people’s interest in learning reduce than the previous phase as they already fulfill their basic needs. Yet people learn more for better achievement in life like secured job.

Belongingness: It comprises of love and affection from friends and family. As in this step necessities of people are decrease as a result their concentration in learning is also reduced.

Esteem: Achievement, confidence and respect are the elements of this need. After accomplished all the above three phase people reach here. So they are already in the top level in the society as a result their thirst for learning new things from others has declined.

Self-actualization: It is the highest level of needs. After achieving all the needs through learning people come into this phase. So they are no more interested in learning new things.

In conclusion, it can be said that while reaching at the top level of Maslow’s hierarchy needs step by step, people gradually lose their interest in learning that means learning and needs hierarchy are negatively related.

Influencing factors in learning

Task direction: Dealing with elderly patients is quite challenging for a service provider in health care system. They must be dedicated to serve those old people otherwise it won’t be possible to provide proper treatment to them. The service providers should clearly know what their task is and how to perform that.

Delivery style: Delivery of health service to the aged people is quite different from others because these people are weak both in mental and health condition. So treatment should be delivered carefully according to their condition.

Environment: It affects a lot in the treatment process of an aged person. A healthy and friendly environment helps a patient to recover quickly specially an old person. So the clinic staffs should be friendly and helpful.

Role of Motivation

Motivation is must for a person who has suffered bad experiences in life. In this case, the type of motivation is to encourage him to contact with more people. It will help him to understand that people can live with more severe problems than him. By observing so, he can achieve confidence that he will be able to overcome his problem. Moreover, motivation encourage the person to be more attentive on learning the rules and regulations because through the motivation process he is able to recognize the importance of rules and understand that by implementing the rules one can avoid the adverse situation in workplace. In addition, motivation directs the person’s behavior toward a definite goal. Motivation helps to identify his goals and the how in which it can be achieved. Motivation supports a learner to be more effective and energetic in his workplace by makes him able to know the importance of his job in his workplace.

Task 3

Stress Management

Stress is a multifaceted term that means diverse things to different persons. The term is used to define physical and emotional feelings. Stress management starts with the identification of the sources of stress such as argument with boss, pressure of an upcoming exam etc. Then, the person should identify what are the sources that he can control. For an example lose temper may be a reason for stress. So he should work on having control over his temper. Stress can be caused for doing a work unwillingly as it can create mental pressure. Therefore people should do whatever he enjoys to do. Stress can be minimized by proper management of time. All the tasks should be performed in time so that one can devote his concentration on doing the tasks. By doing this one can also manage some for himself. But a particular technique may not useful for all. So people should create a variety of techniques that can help not to be stressed in different situations suppose, taking a deep breath in the traffic jam may relief someone from the stress. In the management of time or anything else like this the above steps will be helpful.

Strategies and techniques in learning program

Learning strategies are practiced by learners to recognize information and resolve difficulties. A learning approach is an individual’s method to learn and execute information. An effective learning strategy mainly has three steps. These are:

First element defines how learners obtain information. It comprises approaches for learning the critical evidence in summary including representational material to encourage understanding and memorizing, inquire problems and create forecasts about text material, and classify unidentified words in script.

The second element aids learner’s understanding of material once they obtain it. It includes approaches for improving reminders and other policies to assistance reminder of incidents as well as plans for learning fresh terminology. These approaches support the learners to prepare for assessments.

A third feature support learners to define them. It consists of policies to help learners to observe their performance for mistakes and assertively implement them.

It is assumed that a single strategy may not be adequate for proper learning. So learners should take a course of strategies to make their learning fruitful.

Task 4

Teaching strategies for new employees

First of all it should be understood how capable the employees are perform their tasks and according to this job should be assigned to them. After identifying their capabilities training should be provided to them to enhance their existing capacities that will help them to do their jobs more perfectly. In this case motivation can play a vital role to encourage them to learn about the rules and regularities. Moreover, training should be provided on visual basis that will support them to forecast the situation. In addition, audio learning makes more capable to analyze the situation correctly. Reading and writing can be handful for assessing and reacting in a state accordingly. So, it can be said that VARK model can be an effective mode of learning for a new learner.

Conclusion

It is already said that learning has immense importance in every sector like health and social care. This paper starts with analyzing the different areas of learning along with various theories of learning. Along with several approaches of learning style are also mentioned here with VARK model. Hoe different factors as well as motivation affects a learner is also discussed here. Later on various ways to manage stress and time are also recommended here with techniques of learning. Lastly, it assessment an appropriate way of learning that may help a new learner to make his learning effective. After analyzing the whole paper will be able to understand different aspects that should be consider while taking decision on learning process.