Zita Feher WLCB Level3HSC 0060615 27 July 2015

Factors that Impact upon my Learning and Development

In this assignment I will consider how different factors can impact on adult l1earning, including my own learning and development.

INTRODUCTION

Learning is a permanent change in behaviour or knowledge that comes from experience or training. What does this really mean? We all 'know things' and we can all perform a number of different behaviours. But where did all this come from? Some things are born with the individual. E.g the ability to eat or express basic emotions like happiness or sadness. Others must be acquired throughout life. Any knowledge or behaviour that we now possess but we were not born with, was somehow learned from the people and environment around us.

Children are natural learners. They learn by from the way they are spoken to and generally, the way they are treated by the people around them. Imitation is one of the most important ways of acquisiton in childhood, later playing takes over and 'the learners' gather most of the information about the world around them through 'doing' and experiencing.

Adult learning is different from childhood learning. With adult learning personal experience plays a big part in the learning process as new information is instinctively checked against the learners own experience. (This is probably one of the reasons why learning a foreign language as an adult is so different from learning it in childhood.) David Kolb produced his work on experimental learning in 1984. It is known as 'Kolb's experimental learning cycle'. In his work he states that experience plays a central role in the learning process. According to Kolb's theory learning is a four-stage cycle: always starts with Experience (concrete experience), then Reflection (reflective observation), Thinking (abstract conceptualisation) and Acting