Vark Questionaire

I completed the Vark questionnaire. My results were:
V = 1
A = 4
R = 4
K = 4

These results are shown on the questionnaire. The purpose of these results are to show the way I prefer to work with information and the way that I learn. From the results you can see that I deal with information well in all areas apart from visually. I learn well when dealing with information aurally, through reading/writing and through a kinesthetic way. The only way that I don't learn well is visually this could be either through a presentation or watching someone carry out a task. I feel that this questionnaire is correct I do learn well when reading/writing or listening to a subject. I also deal with information well in a kinesthetic way this is by carrying out a task practically. I feel that this is the best way that I learn from previous experience and previous research that you can also see in my blog.

Learning Styles

From reading through the learning styles worksheets that I was given it helped me explore and look into the different types of learning styles. It also helped me reflect on the type of learning style that I use and how I could use different techniques to develop other learning styles.
The four different learning styles are activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist. After reading through I have decided that I am a Pragmatist learner. This means that I am a practical learner and do not work well when discussing a subject or reading through a theory. I prefer to apply things in practice during practical work and develop my ideas from there. Trying out ideas and getting on with things works much better for me and I learn much easier this way.
From this sheet I have also learned that there are ways that I can improve myself in the future by trying to improve on the other ways of learning. I will try in the future to develop some of the other aspects of learning such as a theoretical side to my learning.

Personal Mentor

I have decided to choose my mum as my personal mentor or significant other for the course. This is because I feel that she is the best person to talk to when it comes to my education and course to help me with my studies as she has done higher education herself. With this in mind I hope that when I get stuck or find something difficult she will provide me with the guidance or advice to help me and guide me in the right way.

Level 1 Study Skills Exercise

I completed the level 1 study skills exercise. This was a questionnaire to help me review what study skills I may already have or may not have that will be useful for this course. I found out that I have most of the study skills needed but that I do not use the library or other resources to the full extent to help me with my course. Therefore I am going to use the library and these other resources in future when I get stuck on any work that I may be doing. The library may be a useful tool when it comes to research that I can not find over the Internet, therefore I will need to look in books and magazines that the college library may provide me with. The other resources that I might be able to use are the learning support system. To enable myself to use the learning support system in college I am going to speak to my tutor or other students and find out how to access this system. This may then help me with research or parts of work that I may find complicated.

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT Analysis was a helpful worksheet to help me review myself, it gave me a chance to think about my strengths, weaknesses, worries and what I thought university life might offer me in the long term. From the analysis I can see that the opportunities from doing this course will benefit me a lot in the future. I can also see that I have many strengths that I didn't think about before so it was a good way of making me see the positive things about myself and helping me use these in the future to get the most out of myself and do well on my course.

Reflection on Deep vs Surface Learning

After completing the deep vs surface learning reflection sheet I learnt about my own learning styles and ways to improve them. The sheet showed me that when I was interested in a task or subject I would use the deep learning style and look at the subject in depth and relate the subject or topic to past experiences and previous knowledge. However when i was not as interested in the subject or not concentrating correctly I would use the surface learning technique and not look at it in depth. So to correct this in the future I will try and use the Deep surface learning technique for everything and try to understand the subject/topic that I am studying.

Learning Line

I have posted an image of my learning line on the blog. As you can see from my learning line there has been many ups and downs in the interest line throughout the years starting at primary school where I was happy and ready to learn new skills. As you can see the main point where interest was lost was during the years at secondary school where I really didn't try very hard at school and was not very interested in any of my subjects. I feel this could have been for many reasons but mainly the fact that I was going through the stages of growing up and was not mature enough to realise that my school work and results mattered. This all changed during my second year at college where i realised that if I wanted to do something with my life and get a decent job I would need to try hard and get some good results. So during my second year of my OND national diploma in electrical engineering I began to try harder and managed to gain a MERIT, MERIT, MERIT overall as you can see on the learning line. I hope to carry on with my positive way of learning during my HNC and get some more good results.