What is the “Improve Own Learning Key Skill”?
You will often see key words in job advertisements asking for staff who are “self motivated”, “able to work to deadlines” “adaptable” “Able to readily acquire new skills. Achieving the Improve Own Learning Key Skill proves to an employer that you can do these things!
Employers look for staff who are independent and self-motivated. There are several reasons for this:
- Staff need to be able to set themselves targets and plan how they tackle certain tasks within a given timescale.
- In order to apply what they have learned to new situations, staff need to be able to look at their own performance with a critical eye.
- The ability to learn new things and adapt to new situations is vital in today’s world – most people can expect at least two or three changes of job during their working lives. Even within the relative security of employment, staff need to keep up to date, whether it be with changes in procedure or the latest developments in technology. In order to do this, we all need a good understanding of the full range of learning methods available – and we need to know which methods suit us best.
- Improving one’s own learning and performance can contribute to the overall performance of the organisations in which we work.
How is the Key Skills Assessed?
Like all the Key Skills, Improve Own Learning is assessed through a “portfolio” of evidence which you will produce, with help, over the duration of your course. Your posts and comments on this blog will contribute to this.
This will show that you made a plan, carried it out and reflected on your learning.
You may also be asked some questions about what you learned from going through the IOLP process.
The sort of thing you will include will be:
- Development plans
- Examples of your work
- Written accounts of what you’ve done and how it went
- Review forms
- Answers to written or verbal questions
The handouts and worksheets posted here will also be used as evidence and your trainer will help you with them either in a group or independently.
here is a link to my personal profile:
http://ourlearning.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/jamie-aldronpersonal-profilejamie-aldronpersonal-profile/