Essay - HNC Business Management Level 4

Personal and Professional Development

1.1

Cunningham1 has defined self-managed learning as “…idealised adult action learning”. Therefore, self learning is a process where the learner develops their learning goals, decides on strategies to make it happen, identifies resources needed to achieve it and adopts the process to evaluate their achievement.

Self managed learning can only be effective if a person has the ability to independently decide about their learning and can manage this without much institutional support. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that most people, though understanding the need for such learning approach, are unable to identify and manage their learning without guidance and support from an institution. Hence, people go to an institution to learn.

However, It is the responsibility of the learner to take charge of their learning. In an adult learning environment, where most learners have been out of touch with learning for a while, it is important that the tutors initially provide hands on approach to guide the learners. Gradually, ‘tutor dependency’ reduces and the learner becomes more self dependent, starting to manage their learning more effectively. Self learning process can be facilitated through research, using online tools such as web logs, wikis, search engine facilities, use of social software and other multimedia tools such as audio and video equipment.

1.2

Lifelong learning is a process that takes place throughout an individual’s life based on their life experiences, interaction with others and range of different circumstances which are used to acquire knowledge. It is, defined as the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons’’[2).

There are various methods of