P1

Kolb helps us identify how adults learn. He states that we follow a learning style to us make sense information. The four stages are:

• concrete experience: this is when we carry out an activity
• reflective observations: this is reflecting how we think the activity went.
• abstract conceptualisation: this is when you begin to start making sense of the experience.
• activity experimentation: this is when you begin to plan the activity again by using the feedback and reflection.

honey and Mumford, devised a learning style theory. They state that there are four different learners:

1. Activist theory -  this is when the person is involved in the situation, they like their ideas to be spoken, they don't like to listen to others, they like to take the lead and they don't like to listen to other people or lectures.
2. Reflectors - these learners like to make observations, they stand on the edge and watch other people, they don't like talking in front of others or putting their views out there.
3. Theorists - these learners think logically and prefer things to be in order, they prefer to apply their skills and knowledge to situations. however, they don't like to work with others emotions.
4. Pragmatist - they like to experiment and try things out, they are more practical and prefer to learn from role models.

honey and Mumford also conducted a VAKs learning style questionnaire to determine whether learners are visual, auditory, or kineasthetic learners

Our learning can also be influenced by many different factors. These factors include things such as health, study space and access to resources. These factors can start influencing our learning from childhood throughout life.

Study space can influence our learning because it’s the atmosphere that we are in that affects you the most. This could affect someone’s learning because if the area was cluttered it could distract them from learning. They might be unable to do their work because they might have lost something in the area that is in the cluttered space. The study space may also be filled with people, which could be distracting to the person. For example, if they shared a room with someone at home, it could be very distracting when they are trying to do their work.

Health can influence our learning because it is our mental and physical ability to carry out task therefore our health can also affect the learning process. However, if we have an illness then we may not be able to learn. Furthermore, some people will have learning disabilities such as dyslexia which makes it harder to read and write, therefore will be slower at learning than others.

Lifestyle can influence our learning because it is our way to socialise with people. If someone had a very active lifestyle, it could get in the way of doing work. For example, if someone was the type to go out all the time, this could distract them from learning the next day and doing work after. However, if you have a very healthy lifestyle, it could increase your chances of doing well with your learning. For example, if you were to exercise, this will keep your brain active and ready for the tasks ahead.

Access to resources can influence our earning because its the things we need to learn. For example in our everyday learning lives we need different types of recources to do our studies such as textbooks. If someone doesn't have access to their certain textbooks that they need for that subject, it could restrict them from learning to their best ability. Money might be involved when it comes to access to resources because someone might not have enough to buy all of their resources, however there are alternative ways to getting access, such as the library.

Functional skills can also influence our learning process. Literacy skills are an important skills that helps our learning. We need literacy skills in order to be able to read and write which is very important for anyone. We need numeracy skills as well so that we can count. It's the maths skills we learn as a child. We need these skills so that we know how to manage money in life, for example, going shopping requires numeracy skills so that you know how much something cost and so that you can budget your savings. ICT skills influence our learning as well because it's the knowledge if using computers and their technology. We need ICT skills to help you do research for work assignments and carrying out research for something.