Improve Your Study Skills for Work based Learning
- Holly S
- Mar 21
- 8 min read
The leader in adult care is a very busy person. Every care workers has a fast paced life full of long and busy shifts, often in a full-time job, as well as their personal family commitments. Time is a premium resource and must be used in a smart way.
To improve their chances of successful work based learning, all workers must develop their learning and study skills to enhance their self-development of the required knowledge, skills, and behaviours.
Understanding Learning
Learning involves gaining over time, knowledge and understanding, skills and competence, experience, and new attitudes and behaviours.
Work based Learning is an active process
Work based Learning is actively driven forward and self-directed by the learner, while being supported and facilitated on learning programmes by tutors, trainers and/or assessors, and also supported in their workplace by their manager, supervisor and experienced colleagues.
Difference between active work based learning and passive attending lectures
Active Learning is different from the passive learning via traditional old-fashioned teaching or lecturing, which are driven forward by lecturers and teachers, with the student playing a more passive role of "being fed" information while sitting in class.
Anyone studying by work based learning, or distance learning or online learning must be aware of the modern way of adult learning, as active learning enables the adult learner to learn better, embed their learning at work for long-term memory recall, acquire more skills, develop much better knowledge than with passive learning, and be able to competently pass on their knowledge and skills to their junior colleagues at work.
Learning occurs in stages
Learning takes place in a sequence involving at least four inter-related stages and activities which are, thinking, acting, experiencing, and reflecting.
Successful learners use the four inter-related stages to improve the building blocks for their learning and incorporate their existing experience of different situations in which they have found themselves, and the behaviour of different people which they have observed.
Learning and Thinking of new knowledge, skills, activities, behaviours, or situations.
The learner must improve their thinking skills and learn about the required subject or situation while developing higher level intellectual skills required for dealing with complex situations often encountered in care settings.
Review the article titled "Thinking and Intellectual Skills for Leaders in Adult Care" published in this blog by clicking through the link below:
Acting on and Applying new knowledge, skills, activities, behaviours, and/or situations.
This involves real life application in a real activity, usually at work. Note that the real life activity could be either in paid or voluntary work, or in extra-curricular activities such as a club official, a helper at church, etc.
Experience of new knowledge, skills, activities, behaviours, and/or situations.
After application of learning in a real activity, the learner gains experience of the tasks, their own abilities, their own strengths and weaknesses for improving their knowledge, skills and behaviours.
Reflecting on new knowledge, skills, activities, behaviours, and/or situations. This includes both self-evaluation, peer evaluation, and formal evaluation.
Four common types of learning for the workplace
Learners must successfully take advantage of different types of learning activities and learning initiatives including the four common types of learning
There are a number of different types of learning, but the most common four types of learning are:
Learning to understand something. This means comprehending something, whether it is a concept, a policy, underlying principles, a statement, or an object. When you understand something, you can accurately explain it.
Learning to do something. This could be learning how to execute tasks such as how to write a report, how to give an oral presentation in public, how to conduct a meeting, and more.
Learning to memorise something. Memorising something involves the process of acquiring information, retaining it in your brain, and then at a later time being able to accurately recall it exactly as it was scheduled or written. This is useful in recalling the steps in resuscitation, or recalling the relevant laws and regulations that guide care delivery.
Learning a skill. All skills can be learnt, no matter what they are. Dividing the skill into its constituent parts enables the skill to be mastered in stages by learning lower order or basic skills before progressing to high order skills.
To become a successful learner in the modern digital age (the 21st century), a learner must update or even change their mindset from passive to active learning. `
Learning is a life-long process.
Every time you meet a new situation, whether in your personal or social life, or in your working or business life, you are presented with an opportunity to develop and try out new knowledge, skills and behaviours, reflect on them and evaluate what you have learnt.
To successfully manage your own programme of self-development, you need to be aware of how you learn. This will enable you to improve how you successfully learn.
Study skills help you to learn, both in the classroom and during private study in your own time.
Life-long learning is a continuous active process.
In order to successfully manage your own self-development, you need to understand how you learn. You also need to understand how study skills will help you learn during private study in our own time, and also during a group setting, either at work or in the classroom.
Every time you come across a new situation in your work, business or personal life, you will be provided an opportunity to gain new knowledge and understanding, try out new behaviours, reflect on and evaluate them, and learn something new.
By learning using the process of thinking, acting, experiencing, and reflecting, a person can change their practice and behaviour, so that they are able to learn to perform a task or do something they were unable to do before the learning took place.
After you have learnt something, you should be able to appraise and measure the change in your performance and behaviour, and this will enable you to determine how successful you have been during your learning activity (activities).
Take responsibility for your own learning
The successful active learner takes responsibility for their own learning.
This requires that the learner should know themselves, know about different types of learning, know about different learning techniques, know how to manage themselves, and finally the learner must know how to organise themselves to achieve their aims and goals.
The learner must be aware of how to make the best use of available learning resources, including online resources, published textbooks, blog articles, their workplace policies and procedures, training and study days organised by their employer, team meetings at work, supervision sessions, discussions with colleagues, and complaints and compliments from customers.
The learner must be able to read effectively and comprehend what they have read, without asking someone else to re-read and interpret what has been written.
The learner must be able to take notes from written or verbal messages.
The learner has to develop their own technique for studying, including making time available, finding the right place and time to study, drawing up a study timetable, organising their learning resources, developing competent reading skills, and having a system of taking notes.
Planning and scheduling all stages of learning
The successful learner plans their learning activities and allocates time to implement each of the four stages which are thinking, acting, experiencing, and reflecting.
The learner must expect and recognise challenges that can occur during the learning process, learn how to cope with those challenges, and how to learn from their mistakes. This involves planning contingency into the schedules.
Tools to structure your learning and study activities
The successful adult learner must be able to independently structure their own learning processes.
Most learning takes place on an individual basis during self-directed learning and development.
Why it is important to plan and structure learning activities
As an adult with a busy life and full time job, the learner will not be able to carve out large amounts of uninterrupted dedicated time for "homework" in the same way they did when they were in school or university.
The old crash course strategies of catching up with neglected coursework will not work, as the style of assessments in work based learning require the learner to demonstrate proof of recall of knowledge and understanding, as well as proof of work based application of knowledge and understanding in the learner's current job role, then analysis and evaluation, and these take time.
To succeed, the learner must be smart in the way they organise and use their time.
Smartphones
The most important tool the learner has is their internet-enabled smartphone. This gives the learner access to free mobile applications (Apps) that can enable the learner access different types of information even while on the move.
Most people have their smartphone with them all the time, often in their hand or in their pocket if they are busy at work, or in their bag. This means that when the learner has a spare 5 to 10 minutes during their break at work, the learner can use that time in a smart way to read or study something which they can then apply when they go back to work after their break.
Apart from being able to access learning resources while on the move, the Apps on smartphone make it easy to plan, schedule, and manage studies and assessments.
For example:
Calendar App on the phone - for planning and scheduling learning activities to undertake during break times, including which resources to read on that day.
Note-taking App - for making notes, creating a personal journal to document events at work, write personal statements and/or reflective accounts based on events at work that can be used as part of evidence during assessments.
Document App for opening assignments and writing the answers to questions.
Tablets, laptops and desktops
Other tools include tablets, laptops and desktops.
Depending on the learner's situation or preferences, any of these may suit the learner.
Although these are not easy to carry around for individuals on the move, learners and managers who have a desk or use one for their work can equally use them for their learning activities.
Summary and Conclusion
Adult care leaders and workers lead busy lives with demanding shifts and personal commitments, making time a valuable resource. To succeed in work-based learning, they must enhance their learning and study skills to develop necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviours.
Learning is a lifelong process, offering opportunities to gain new knowledge and skills in various situations.
Learning involves acquiring knowledge, skills, experience, and new behaviours over time. Learning occurs in stages of thinking, acting, experiencing, and reflecting. Self-directed learning and study skills improve these activities.
Work-based learning is an active, self-directed process supported by tutors, trainers, and workplace mentors, fostering better skill acquisition and knowledge retention. It contrasts with passive learning from traditional lectures. Active learning in the digital age requires a mindset shift from passive learning.
Successful learners use these stages to build on their experiences and improve their skills for different types of learning including understanding concepts, executing tasks, memorising information, and developing skills
Successful learners take responsibility for their learning, utilising resources like online tools, workplace policies, and feedback. They develop effective study techniques and manage their time wisely.
Planning learning activities involves scheduling and anticipating challenges. Smartphones and apps are essential tools for accessing resources, taking notes, and managing studies and assessments on the go.
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Formal learning and development in leadership and management for health and social care organisations
Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Adult Care (RQF) (England) is the Ofqual-recognised qualification that delivers all aspects of the Leader in Adult Care National Occupational Standards.
The Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Adult Care (RQF) (England) is the current qualification that is approved by CQC and Skills For Care as the required qualification for Registered Managers, Directors, Owners, Nominated Individuals, and other types of senior leaders and managers of care services.
For more information and to enrol to study the qualification, click through the link
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