Y165_4

Learning to learn: Planning for personal change

About this free course

This free course provides a sample of level 1 study in Education, Childhood & Youth http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/find/education-childhood-and-youth

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You can experience this free course as it was originally designed on OpenLearn, the home of free learning from The Open University:
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/learning-learn-planning-personal-change/content-section-0.

There you’ll also be able to track your progress via your activity record, which you can use to demonstrate your learning.

The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA

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Contents

- Introduction

- Learning outcomes

- How to study this course

- Enrolling onto this course

- How to complete the quizzes

- course forum and Facebook group

- 1 Introduction to online learning communities

- 1.1 Communicating effectively online: Netiquette

- 1.2 Working safely in online learning communities

- 1.3 The Learning to learn forum

- 2 What is an action plan?

- 2.1 Case studies

- 3 Setting yourself goals

- 3.1 Developing a vision

- 3.2 Returning to the case studies

- 3.3 Setting clear goals

- 3.4 Setting SMART goals

- 3.5 Making your own goals SMARTer

- 4 What might help and hinder you?

- 4.1 Thinking about resources

- 4.2 Thinking about knowledge and skills

- 4.3 Another approach …

- 4.4 Continuing to use your Action Planning Journal

- 4.5 Thinking about personal qualities

- 5 Developing your action plan and thinking about evidence

- 6 Working with your action plan

- 7 Conclusion

- Keep on learning

- References

- Acknowledgements

Introduction

This course explores academic ideas about the social aspects of learning. If you are studying this course as part of the Learning to learn course, you will have been thinking about what has happened to you in the past and what is going on in your life at the moment.
You will also have explored the value of other perspectives on your learning – the views of other people and the ideas in
academic theories.

If you are not studying the Learning to learn course, we would recommend that you do this course after working through You and your learning and Exploring learning. In particular, Planning for personal change picks up an issue raised in Exploring learning – that some psychological theories tend to overlook the social aspects of learning.

We hope this will encourage you to find a learning community that will support your learning. This may take the form of a
face-to-face group if you happen to be working with other people; for example, in your workplace. Or you could use the online
course forum or the Learning to learn Facebook group.

This OpenLearn course provides a sample of level 1 study in Education, Childhood & Youth

Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

- explain the advantages and disadvantages of online learning communities and identify good practice in participating in such
communities

- demonstrate choosing at least one goal to work towards, and explain why it has been chosen

- display a plan for achieving this goal

- explain how the ideas presented in this course have been used to identify goals and develop an action plan, and comment on
their usefulness.

How to study this course

This course is slightly different to other OpenLearn Study Units. Although you could study this course on its own, it is also
the fourth course of the free Learning to learn course. This course pilots an exciting new approach that aims to give you more flexibility and a pathway to expand your learning,
so please bear with us if things are not quite right.

Learning to learn is for people who are thinking about making changes in their lives, such as returning to study or taking a different direction
at work. It will help you to build on what you already know; to consider the choices open to you; to use your skills and qualities
to achieve change; and to make plans for the future. To find out more go to the Learning to Learn course page.

The course is designed to be studied in one week, although you can take as long as you like. If you are studying the course
as part of the Learning to learn course you may like to aim to complete each course in a week.

Working through this course

As you work through the course, breaks will be important. You will have to determine how long you can study this material
before you need to stop and relax. Be sure to take advantage of all of your resources – friends, family, the internet.

Learning Journals

As you work through the course it is a good idea to keep a Learning Journal, where you can make notes on activities, key
words and concepts or elements that are particularly relevant for you. Your Learning Journal can either be a notebook or you
may wish to create an electronic journal either by creating a document on your computer or mobile device, or create a personal
blog.

Thinking about how you are getting on with your learning is also very helpful when it comes to improving how you are learning
or simply looking back on your progress so far. You can use your Learning Journal to do this. Think about whether you have
found the best time to study, whether you are taking enough or too many notes, and whether you have understood all the concepts
covered in a course.

How you use your Learning Journal is personal to you. Writing things down in your own words will help your understanding.
It will give you a handy review of the main ideas that you can refer to later. People learn in different ways, and it is important
for you to experiment to find out which methods work best for you.

Support

While there is no officially support on this course, we hope that you, as a community of learners, will support each other
and share ideas. As this is the first time the course has been run, the OpenLearn team will be monitoring the comments and
forums to assist with common issues.

Comments, forums and Facebook group

You can share your ideas and ask questions via the comments function or in the course forum or on the Learning to learn Facebook group. You do not have to use any, or all, of these platforms to share your thoughts and meet other learners. Use the online environment
you feel most comfortable with.

Why do we provide a choice? Everyone has a preference for how they engage on online. Some will want to be actively involved
throughout the course whereas others may just dip in and out without participating. As this is a pilot, we are interested
in finding out if our learners would like the option of using social networking sites like Facebook as a community area.

If you have questions or suggestions on how we could improve the course or course please address them to the OpenLearn team
and post them in the forum discussion - Questions for OpenLearn.

Enrolment

This course is for people who are thinking about making changes in their lives, such as returning to study or taking a different
direction at work. It will help you build on what you already know; consider the choices open to you; use your skills and
qualities to achieve change; and make plans for the future. Although you can view this course without enrolling, in order
to participate in its activities and quizzes, you need to enrol.

Enrolling onto this course

If you already have an OpenLearn account, just sign in and click on the enrol button.

Figure 1 OpenLearn enrol button

If you are new to OpenLearn, you will need to register for a free Open University account. To do this, click on the sign in
button at the top of the screen, which will take you to The Open University sign-in page. Click on the ‘Create a free Open
University account here’ link and fill in the form that will appear. Then return to the OpenLearn website and sign in. The
enrol button will be visible for you to click on to register your interest in this course with us. If the enrol button does
not appear, try signing out and back in again – the button should then be visible.

If you are an existing OU student, you do not need to register with OpenLearn – you can sign in and enrol using your OU computer
user name. Unless you wish to use a separate account we would recommend using your OU student account. It is not necessary
to enrol to view the course materials, only if you wish to participate in the forums.

Once you are enrolled you unfortunately the system currently does not notify you or make it obvious you have successfully
enrolled, however the enrol button will change to ‘Unenrol’.

Figure 2 OpenLearn unenrol button

Please note

By enrolling on the Planning for personal change course you are giving us permission to contact you by email with information about this course and the OpenLearn Learning to learn course for research purposes in relation to this course.

By registering with OpenLearn you are giving us permission to contact you for research purposes in relation to OpenLearn.
If you do not wish to receive emails in relation to this OpenLearn research, please go to your profile page, click on edit
and opt out.

What do you hope to get out of this course

How to complete the quizzes

Before starting the quiz we recommend you read the following hints and tips about how the quiz system works.

How to use the quiz system:

- Quiz questions are presented in sequence. It is possible to skip questions and come back to them later. To move to a different
question, click on the question number on the left-hand side of the screen.

- You are advised not to use the ‘Back’ function on your web browser.

- Quizzes have no time limit. You may take as long as you wish to answer each question.

- If you have problems viewing any part of a quiz, it is likely that an out-of-date web browser is the cause. Make sure that
you are using the most up-to-date version of your web browser when accessing quizzes.

While working through the questions, you will need to do the following:

- The Check button must be pressed after entering or selecting your answer – otherwise your answer is not registered by the system.

- The Try Again button will appear if your answer is partially correct or incorrect. You may press this button to reattempt answering the
question. In most activities you are permitted two attempts per question.

- Once you have finished working on each question, click the Next button, which displays below the feedback to move on to the next question.

When you have completed the quiz, you will be shown a review of your answers. You may go back to any questions you have skipped
and reattempt them. Once you are satisfied with your answers, or once you run out of attempts, remember to return to the review
screen and press the ‘Submit all and finish’ button located at the bottom to register your answers.

If you have worked through the quiz in order, the summary screen will appear automatically upon completion. If you have answered
the questions out of order, you may access the summary screen at any time by selecting ‘End test...’ (on the left of the screen).

Do not get discouraged if your answers are not correct. You may reattempt all of the quizzes as many times as you wish. Take your time, read the questions and refer back to what you have studied if you are not sure.

course forum and Facebook group

Within this course you have the opportunity to contribute to and participate in the course forum and in the Learning to learn Facebook group which are entirely optional to engage with.

Within both you can share your ideas and thoughts about the course and potentially build a support network with other learners
who are studying at the same time as you. In addition, within the course some activities will ask you to post to the forum
and Facebook group.

course forum

Facebook group

Please note you will need a Facebook account to participate in the Facebook group.

Posting online guidance

In a forum there are a number of limitations that you do not always encounter when talking to someone face-to-face because
other people will not be able to see your facial expression or hear the tone of your voice, so what and how you write become
important. Some useful tips are:

- Keep to the subject, and pick the right discussion thread for your contribution.

- Before you write a message, take time to see what is being discussed and think about your reply.

- Try to keep messages short.

- Write a good subject line (title) for your message – people often haven’t time to read messages unless the subject line looks
relevant.

- Keep to one subject (one topic of discussion) per message.

- When replying to a message, only quote part of the earlier message if you need to. Don’t include everything, or messages get
longer and longer.

- Don’t be discourage if you receive no acknowledgement of your message. We would encourage you to thank and acknowledge those
who have commented, in order to encourage them and other to participate.

- If you disagree with a point that has been made, acknowledge the point before stating why you disagree.

- Make your perspective clear, but try to avoid speaking impersonally, to encourage debate.

- Clearly show your emotions, people can’t see faces and body language, so the use of smileys or emoticons such as :- ) or :-
( can be a useful way to get your emotion across.

- If you read something that offends or upsets you, while it might be tempting to fire back a hurried response, don’t, take
time to think about your response before replying, or if you feel it is appropriate report the comment to the OpenLearn team.

- AND FINALLY, DON’T WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS – IT WILL LOOK LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING!

1 Introduction to online learning communities

The internet offers a wealth of opportunities for social learning, which range from informal social media tools, such as Facebook,
where people can connect with each other to learn about a shared interest, through to online communities that are an element
of formal education.

Communication in online learning communities is one of the following:

- ‘Synchronous’, taking place in ‘real time’; for example, via instant messaging or a ‘chat’ facility

- ‘Asynchronous’, where participants communicate in their own time; for example, by responding to messages that have been posted
in an online forum.

Online learning communities offer a number of advantages:

- they allow people to communicate with each other and work together wherever they are in the world, allowing people with shared
interests to connect with each other irrespective of their location

- there’s no travel involved in getting to an online learning community, so these communities are equally accessible to people
in cities, towns and isolated rural areas.

Like most things, online learning communities also have some disadvantages:

- communicating online is quite different from communicating in person, and special care must be taken to avoid misunderstandings

- online learning communities are not accessible to people without a computer or an internet connection.

One of the ways to accommodate the differences between face-to-face communication and online communication is to practise
good ‘netiquette’.

Online learning communities are a form of social learning. If you want to find out more about this topic we recommend you
study Exploring learning if you have not already done so. It introduces several influential theories of social learning:

- the psychological theory of Bandura

- Vygotsky’s social-development theory

- communities of practice.

1.1 Communicating effectively online: Netiquette

Figure 3 Online you are still talking to people

The word ‘netiquette’ (short for ‘net etiquette’) refers to the rules of good online behaviour. Although the principles of
online communication are similar to those for face-to-face conversation, there are differences. For example, other people
can’t see the expression on your face or hear your voice, so what you write sets the tone of the conversation.

Good netiquette involves:

1. Thanking, acknowledging and supporting people. People can’t see you nod, smile or frown as you read their messages. So, if they get no acknowledgement, they may feel ignored
and be discouraged from contributing further.

Why not send a short reply to keep the conversation going? If the online group is small, this can make a big difference.

But bear in mind that in a large, busy forum too many messages like this can be a nuisance.

2. Acknowledging before differing. Before you disagree with someone, try to summarise the other person’s point in your own words. Then they know you are trying
to understand them and will be more likely to take your view seriously.

Otherwise, you risk talking at each other rather than to each other.

Figure 4 Online communication can be misunderstood

3. Making your perspective clear. Try to avoid speaking in an impersonal way, using phrases like:

- ‘This is the way it is …’

- ‘It is a fact that …’

That will sound dogmatic and leaves no room for anyone else’s perspective.
Why not start ‘I think …’?

A common abbreviation is IMHO (in my humble opinion) – or even IMNSHO (in my not so humble opinion). If you are presenting
someone else’s views, say so, perhaps by a quote and acknowledgement.

4. Clearly showing your emotions. Emotions can be easily misunderstood when you can’t see faces or body language. People may not realise you are joking. And
one person’s joke can seem offensive to someone else

Smileys or emoticons such as :-) and :-( can be used to express your feelings (look at these sideways). Other possibilities are punctuation (?! #@*!), <grin< or <joke>.
Many online forum systems allow you to use graphic emoticons to express a variety of emotions.

You should also be aware of your audience as people from widely differing cultures and backgrounds may read what you write
online. What you find funny may be offensive to them.

Figure 5 There’s no need to shout

AND FINALLY, DON’T WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS – IT WILL LOOK LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING!

5. Avoiding flaming. If you read something that offends or upsets you, it is very tempting to dash off a reply and hit 'Send' – but don’t! Online
discussions seem to be particularly prone to such ‘flames’, often an unwitting breach of netiquette will escalate in a flaming
spiral of angry messages. So, if you feel your temperature rising as you write, save your message, take a break or sleep on
it – don’t hit 'Send'.

Some final advice …

- Keep to the subject, and pick the right forum for your contribution

- Before you write a message, take time to see what is being discussed and how. Lurking (reading messages without posting anything)
is quite acceptable online

- Keep messages short. People don’t want to read large chunks of text onscreen

- Write a good subject line (title) for your message – people often haven’t time to read messages unless the subject line looks
relevant

- Keep to one subject (one topic of discussion) per message

- When replying to a message, only quote part of the earlier message, if you need to. Don’t include everything, or messages
get longer and longer.

Activity 1: Principles of netiquette

Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

Take a netiquette quiz that will allow you to check your understanding of good practice when participating in online learning communities.

View comment - Activity 1: Principles of netiquette

1.2 Working safely in online learning communities

Throughout this course, we will encourage you to work with other people who share your interest in learning and that the experience
will be enjoyable. You can do this via the Learning to learn Facebook group and the course forum.

However, it is important though that you keep some safety guidelines in mind when using any online forum or a social-media
site such as Facebook or Twitter.

Do not give out:

- your address

- your telephone number

- your favourite meeting places

- any personal information that you would not usually share with people you do not know.

Do not let these points worry you or prevent you from taking part in online forums. They are just sensible precautions that
you should take whenever you are online for study, work or leisure.

1.3 The Learning to learn forum

Some of the Social Learning activities involve participating in an online forum or Facebook group. This course has its own
course forum, or you can use the Learning to learn Facebook group or you can contribute to another online forum. If you are not familiar with forums, they are an online area where people
have conversation online by posting a message and leaving replies to other people’s comments.

- To post a new message, click on the ‘Start a new discussion’ button that appears when you first access the forum.

- To reply to a message, open the message and click on the ‘Reply’ link in the bottom right-hand corner of the message.

- To edit a message that you have posted or to delete it altogether, use the ‘Edit’ and ‘Delete’ links that appear underneath
your message when it has been posted (shown in Figure 6).

Figure 6 Forum message links

- Use the ‘Subscribe’ button with caution as it sends a copy of every message posted in the forum to your email account!

In the next activity you will post your first message to the forum.

Activity 2: Posting an introduction in the forum

Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

1. Access the Planning for personal change forum. You should see a message with the title ‘Activity 2: Introductions’.

2. Post a reply to this message introducing yourself. In addition to giving your name, you might say something about your reasons
for studying this course and/or Learning to learn, the part of the course or course you’ve enjoyed most (or least), your leisure interests or your future study plans.

Remember not to give your address or telephone number.

View comment - Activity 2: Posting an introduction in the forum

2 What is an action plan?

Figure 7 There’s more to an action plan than buying a colourful diary

An action plan combines two elements:

- a list of all the steps to take to reach a particular goal

- a timetable for achieving each step.

There are different ways to develop a plan. A plan for a complex goal will be different from a plan for a simple goal.

Plan for a long-term and for short-term goals will also differ. It is usually fairly easy to identify the steps for a short-term
goal. For a long-term goal, you may need to spend more time and effort at the beginning working out what the steps might be,
what might get in your way and how you can overcome the obstacles.

Figure 8 Steps to reaching a goal

Completing this course of Learning to learn is an example of a short-term goal. These are some of the steps this might include:

- deciding where you are going to study

- finding the time to study

- getting your family members on your side.

Before you started on this course, there may have been a much longer period of working out what you wanted to do with your
life, what options were open to you and making decisions about which to pursue.

What we want to do with our lives is the ‘big project’ for all of us. But not enough people take charge of this big project
– as you are doing now.

Figure 9 Take control

The main action-planning process for reaching a goal always involves:

- setting yourself a goal

- working out what you need to do to achieve your goal – breaking the goal down into smaller chunks until you get to a point
where you think, ‘Yes, that’s manageable. I feel I could tackle that.’

- putting the steps in a logical order – some will have to be done in a set order, while others will be more flexible and can
be completed at any time

- starting work on the small and early steps, checking things off as you go

- reviewing the action plan regularly and adjusting it if need be – if you are taking longer over some steps, or, as a result
of some of the early steps, you find more interesting and achievable goals or more effective ways of achieving the goals you
initially set.

2.1 Case studies

This course guides you through the process of developing an action plan. If you go on to Reflecting backwards, reflecting forwards you will find that this helps you implement, monitor and evaluate your action plan.

To help you work through the course, we are introducing two new case studies – Mike and Charity.

Mike’s story

If you have done Exploring learning you have already ‘met’ Mike in the animated films.

Mike has been working for a long time in a job that he hates. During a well-earned holiday with a group of friends, he ends
up cooking all the meals and getting lots of compliments, along with questions about why he is not a chef.

These responses really get him thinking about how much he loves cooking. It is something he learned from his mother, but he
has been developing his own ideas for some time. Mike begins to ask himself whether he could be a chef. It may not pay any
more money than his current job and the hours can be difficult, but at least he would be happy doing it; he would not be constantly
watching the clock like he does now – waiting for work to end and real life to begin.

Figure 10 Mike

Charity’s story

Charity has recently moved to a new area and spent her first six months getting her two older children settled into school
and after-school activities. Her youngest has just started nursery school and Charity is eager to have some time to herself.

She is beginning to realise that devoting time to her children has enabled her to avoid making decisions about her own life.
She recently joined the local-history society in her new town, as history was her favourite subject at school, but was so
shy at the first meeting that she felt overwhelmed. She has decided it is time she did something positive toward developing
her self-image and self-confidence.

Figure 11 Charity

3 Setting yourself goals

All the units in Learning to learn share a common goal of encouraging you to believe in yourself as a learner. In the same way that many of us don’t see ourselves
as learners, many of us don’t see ourselves as people who make plans.

Does the idea of having a plan sound a little mechanical?

Do you prefer to just go along with whatever life brings?

However, for big, important decisions, it is useful to balance being spontaneous with more considered planning. And planning
for change is another way to use your imagination and creativity.

The other point about planning is that (actually) we all do it. We have to – if only to balance the competing demands that
there are on us that we have to deal with.

You probably have some idea about how you are going to manage all the things that are happening over the next few days. Well,
that is a plan!

It may not be written down; it is likely to be in your head. But once you start thinking about how you manage time, you’ll
realise that you do a great deal of planning just to get through each and every day.

In a quiet moment, you might find yourself thinking about what you would like to be doing in ten years’ time. You probably
carry around lots of other plans too, such as what to do with the children during the next school holiday or budgeting for
some new furniture next year.

You might already write down some parts of your plans. For example, you might put together a list of all the things you need
to do and work through them, checking them off day by day or week by week.

But fewer people develop plans for achieving long-term goals, especially if these goals focus on your needs for change and
development. However, it is this sort of goal that most benefit from having a good action plan.

Longer-term goals can be different from many short-term goals, which are often about surviving the next few days, weeks or
months. The goals we want you to develop in this course are not just about getting through a period of your life. They are
about changing your life, giving you the confidence to explore different options. This means a much higher level of time and
effort.

So, having a vision of where you want to be may help inspire you, but it can also seem so daunting that you never get started.

An important part of action planning is to break down your long-term goals into manageable tasks that you can check off on
a regular basis. These small achievements can quickly become a substantial step towards your goal.

We encourage you first, therefore, to think big and to develop a vision that inspires you – and then to think in smaller chunks
as you develop more specific goals to aim for.

3.1 Developing a vision

Figure 12 Developing a vision

Some people find talk of visions daunting; others find it liberating and exciting. Whatever your feelings, a vision can provide
you with the guiding principles for putting your short-term goals into perspective.

Having a vision reminds you to ask yourself, ‘Will what I am doing now help me achieve my ideal life in the future?’ This
does not mean you cannot change your mind about where you really want to be in the longer term, but as the old saying goes:
‘If you don’t know where you are going, how are you ever going to get there?’

If are uncomfortable with the idea of expecting an ‘ideal life’, pause to think about why this may be the case. You could
also use this time to check out whether you think that all human beings – including you – have the right to explore their
talents in order to live as fulfilled a life as possible.

Study tip: Your Action Planning Journal

You may like to create an ‘Action Planning Journal’. An Action Planning journal is similar to a Learning Journal. You can
record the various steps in the development of your action plan either electronically in a blog or Word document or on paper.

The next activities will prompt you to use your Action Planning Journal. You might like to share some of your thoughts with
other learners via the course forum.

Activity 3: What do I want my life to be like in ten years’ time?

Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

Imagine your life as a video. Now fast-forward ten years. If you could have a fairy godmother waving her magic wand, what
would your life be like? What would you be doing, with whom and where? How would you be feeling?

Make an entry in your Action Planning Journal with the heading ‘Activity 3: My life in ten years’ time’ and add your response
to the questions you have just been asked.

View comment - Activity 3: What do I want my life to be like in ten years’ time?

So, if you were not bold and positive, try the activity again and tell your internal ‘censor’ to be quiet, while you think
freely without the usual ‘if only’ and ‘but’ interruptions! You could add to your original Action Planning Journal entry,
or make a new entry to record your bolder, more positive answer.

Activity 4: No regrets

Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

By thinking about what you would really like to be doing and feeling in the future, you are less likely to end up with regrets
and thoughts about what might have been.

Figure 13 No regrets

Another perspective on the previous activity is to imagine yourself in ten years’ time, reviewing your life and achievements.
What do you think you might most regret never having tried?

Make an entry in your Action Planning Journal with the heading ‘Activity 4: No regrets’ and list possible regrets you might
have in the future.

View comment - Activity 4: No regrets

3.2 Returning to the case studies

Mike

Mike’s ten-year vision focused on the type of restaurant he would like to work in – whether it will be big or small, the type
of cuisine, which kind of clientele, urban or rural, and so on.

He has always been an outgoing, sociable person, so he does not foresee any need to focus on the other elements; if he has
to move away from his current circle of friends, he is sure he will make new ones and that the old ones will still visit.

Charity

Charity knows that eventually she will need to get a job to boost the family finances, but she cannot focus on that now. Her
main vision at this stage is being a self-confident person, able to hold her own in conversation; to hold opinions about things
that are important to her but not afraid to debate other points of view; and to have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances
with whom she feels comfortable to engage in such discussions.

A real fairy-godmother gift would be to have the nerve to stand up in front of an audience to give a talk. She knows this
is important in a lot of jobs these days.

Shehnaz, one of the original Learning to learn case studies, seems to have had similar life experiences to Charity, mentioned in this video clip.

Video content is not available in this format.

Shehnaz

View transcript - Shehnaz

In the next activity you will move away from your computer and use your mind-mapping skills to further explore your vision
for the future.

Activity 5: A mind map of your vision

Allow about 40 minutes for this activity.

Use your Action Planning Journal entries from the last two activities to produce a mind map for your life in ten years’ time.

Write ‘Me in ten years’ in the central circle on the paper and put your key ideas along the branches coming out of the centre.
Build up your mind map. Remember that you can be as artistic and creative as you like.

Figure 14 gives an example of the way in which an action-planning mind map could be structured, but you should feel free to
express your vision in whatever way you like. Enjoy this opportunity to include some wonderful ideas about your future.

Figure 14 Mind mapping your future

View comment - Activity 5: A mind map of your vision

3.3 Setting clear goals

We mentioned earlier how big visions can be quite daunting, so now we encourage you to break down your vision into short-term
goals – and then to write them clearly.

Activity 6: Choosing some goals

Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

Go back to your mind map and the key ingredients of your vision as recorded in your Action Planning Journal entries. Give
each main area of your mind map a priority rating based on how interesting/useful/desirable you find it.

If you are going to make changes to your life, it helps to start with things that are really important to you – goals that
make you feel excited about getting started and provide you with the motivation to keep going.

Now make a new entry in your Action Planning Journal with the heading ‘Activity 6: Choosing some goals’ and write down three
key goals that you are eager to start working on:

- one that you think is achievable right now

- one that might take a few months

- one that may take you a year or two.

Ideally, the short-term goal will be something that contributes to the long-term goals.

View comment - Activity 6: Choosing some goals

Case studies

Mike has no experience or qualifications for the restaurant business, so short-term goals include finding out what is involved
– identifying what qualifications he needs and how he could acquire them, preferably in his home town so that he has the support
of friends and family while he does it – and working out the finances. Even his short-term goals include getting some work
experience to help decide whether being a chef would be as fulfilling as he hopes.

Figure 15 Mike

Charity decides she would like to set herself a medium-term challenge – to confront her shyness by preparing and delivering
a presentation to the local-history society. Before she had children, she had been researching her family tree, so this might
be something she could talk about. In the short term, she decides she is going to work on her social skills by speaking to
people she meets in the school playground while waiting for the children, rather than waiting for others to make the first
move.

Figure 16 Charity

3.4 Setting SMART goals

Having thought about the goals that you are interested in, it is time to be more specific. A popular mnemonic (a pattern of
letters or words intended to help you remember something) for writing goals is SMART, with the letters standing for:

- Specific

- Measurable

- Agreed

- Realistic

- Time limited

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Specific

You need to be clear what you are setting out to do. If you are not clear, your goal may be too vague and you may become unsure
of what you intended.

For example, suppose you chose a goal like ‘to get better at giving people feedback’. This could be interpreted in at least
two ways:

1. To improve your self-confidence about giving feedback so that you no longer get nervous about having to do it

2. To improve your success rate in giving feedback so that the people on the receiving end do what you ask of them without getting
angry, resentful or fearful – or so that you feel able to enter into a rational discussion of alternatives with them if they
do not agree it needs doing.

The important thing is to be as clear as possible, so you might want to make a couple of attempts at writing a goal to check
that it can be interpreted in only one way. Rather than just saying ‘get better at giving feedback’, you might write down
something such as ‘provide feedback to two people without feeling nervous while doing it’.

This would mean that you look for different things in monitoring your progress, which leads us into the next element.

Measurable

It is also useful to word your goal in a way that allows you to monitor progress toward your goal. Sometimes this is straightforward;
you can ‘measure’ achievement directly. For example, you may be trying to get a job and you can easily tell whether or not
you have achieved this.

Sometimes, though, with the real-world skills we have talked about in earlier units, it is not so straightforward. How can
you measure, for example, developments in your communication skills or in your ability to solve problems? Here you need to
write down some of the indicators of progress that you will be looking for. For example, your goal might read like the following.

Being able to:

- maintain eye contact when speaking with people

- stop blushing when people notice me

- contribute to any group conversation that I find myself a part of

- work out what has gone well and not so well in a conversation, and work out how to do better next time rather than worrying
about the mistakes

- get the kids to behave, without ending in a fight or tears.

Agreed

You are more likely to achieve your goal if you have people on your side. If you want to make a change at work, for example,
it makes sense to consult your manager about the wording. If you want to make changes in your personal life, you may need
to discuss this with family and friends.

Realistic

This reminds you to take into account, for example, your current qualities, knowledge and skills; the qualities, knowledge
and skills you are working towards; the help and hindrances you are likely to encounter along the way; and the time you have
available.

Setting realistic goals can help to foster a positive attitude – success helps to breed success, while failure can breed further
failure as you become more discouraged. So, reach for something that challenges you, but which will not overwhelm you. A little
pressure can be energising, but too much of it leads to stress, which is unhealthy both physically and mentally.

Time limited

Setting yourself a time frame for achieving your goal helps you concentrate. If you say, for example, ‘By the end of the year
I will have …’ or ‘In three years’ time, I will be …’, it may prompt you to set things in motion. Again, be realistic about
how long it will take so that you do not set yourself up for failure.

3.5 Making your own goals SMARTer

Writing SMART goals can help you to clarify ideas and, with a little practice, you should soon find that thinking SMART comes
automatically.

Activity 7: Recognising SMART goals

Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Below are two goals that are not very SMART. How might you rewrite them more SMARTly?

- I want to get my life in balance

- I want to be working with people more by the time I am 40.

View comment - Activity 7: Recognising SMART goals

Writing SMART goals not only helps you to clarify ideas. It also continues the process of breaking down goals into smaller
steps. The person intending to get their life in balance noted a number of contributory activities that would allow them to
get there, as did the person intending to work in some capacity with people.

When you get to a stage where you think, ‘Yes, I can manage that right now’, you are ready to move towards your goal.

In the following examples, Mike and Charity have made their goals SMARTer. You may like to double-check whether their goals
meet the SMART criteria.

Figure 17 Case study: Possible SMART goals for Mike

Figure 18 Case study: Possible SMART goals for Charity

Activity 8: Writing your own goals in a SMART way

Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Make a new entry in your Action Planning Journal with the title ‘Activity 8: My SMART goals’.

Now rewrite the goals that you identified in Activity 6 in a SMART format, i.e.:

‘By [insert date], I will have done/I will be able to …’.

View comment - Activity 8: Writing your own goals in a SMART way

Activity 9: Sharing your SMART goals with fellow students online

Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

If you would like some feedback on your SMART goals and are planning to complete the social learning activities, you should:

1. Choose at least one goal you are entirely comfortable about sharing with people you do not know (i.e. other Learning to learn students participating in the Planning for personal change online forum).

2. Access the Planning for personal change forum and post a message with the subject ‘Activity 9: SMART goals’. Include information about your chosen SMART goal(s) and a
request for feedback on your chosen goal(s).

3. Look through any messages that have already been posted for this activity and reply to at least one message with some helpful
feedback on your fellow student’s SMART goals. For example, you might notice a way in which the goal could be further broken
down, you may share the same goal, or you may be able to offer some advice about how a fellow student’s goal(s) could be achieved.
Whatever your feedback, don’t forget to be supportive and kind.

View comment - Activity 9: Sharing your SMART goals with fellow students online

4 What might help and hinder you?

Figure 19 Kurt Lewin

Earlier in this course we mentioned that action planning involves considering the possible obstacles to your goals.

In the mid-twentieth century Kurt Lewin (1947) developed a theory called force-field analysis to think about the way in which changes made at work succeed or fail. You can also use this concept to think about changes
that you are trying to make in your life as part of the action-planning process.

Lewin suggests that whenever we are trying to change things, there will be forces in favour of change and forces against.
For change to occur, the forces in favour must be stronger.

It is like a tug of war (or more strictly – in this context – a push of war), as indicated in the case study below (Figures
21 and 22). If the forces on the left side are stronger than those on the right, then the change can go ahead.

Figure 20 Forces in favour of change, forces against change

It might not seem much different from the familiar ‘pros and cons sheet’, but pictures often express ideas more clearly than
words. The diagram lends itself to thinking about how you can weaken the team on the right, or bring in heavyweights to add
to the one on the left.

There will almost always be forces in favour and forces against the changes that you are thinking about. For example, your
dream job might feature a higher salary, but also involve more travel to work; or you might really enjoy doing the work, but
you might not really trust the babysitter to care for your child as well as you do yourself; and so on.

Some forces will be quite significant; others might not have much effect. It is useful, once you have thought about what the
main factors are, to estimate how much impact they might have on you. In a diagram like Figure 21, you can make the arrows
representing each factor fatter to indicate this. The thin arrows indicate fairly minor hazards; the fatter ones indicate
potential change stoppers (like hulks on the ‘tug-of-war’ rope).

Case-study illustration

Mike came up with the following force-field analysis for his goal of becoming a chef.

Figure 21 Mike’s force-field analysis

Charity made the following list of helping and hindering factors.

Figure 22 Charity’s list of helping and hindering factors

Activity 10: What might help and hinder you?

Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

Think about one of the goals that you are aiming for and the changes it will bring to your life.

1. Make an entry in your Action Planning Journal with the title ‘Activity 4.10: What might help and hinder me’.

2. Make a subheading, ‘Things that could help me’, and then list the things that might help you to achieve your goal.

3. Make another subheading, ‘Things that could hinder me’, and list the things that might get in the way of your goal.

Now get a pen and paper and draw a force-field analysis diagram like Mike’s diagram in Figure 21, using different-sized arrows
to show the likely impact of the things that might help and hinder you.

View comment - Activity 10: What might help and hinder you?

We now will look at each of these categories in turn.

Before we do, it is worth pointing out that both the Learning to learn units, You and your learning and Exploring learning highlight the importance of social factors that can affect learning. They suggest that social factors can affect all aspects
of our lives, as these factors include racism, sexism, ageism and other forms of oppression that lead to some people having
more opportunities in life than others.

While not wanting to dismiss these social factors, in this course we are going to concentrate on things that are in your immediate
power.

4.1 Thinking about resources

Modern-day life often means we have so many commitments that it is hard to find the time to do all the things that we would
like to do. However, instead of listing ‘Not having the time’ as one of your obstacles, an alternative decision might be to
‘Make time’ by temporarily dropping another activity so that you can make room for the new one.

This is a question of working out your priorities, how motivated you are to achieve one goal rather than another. As we said
earlier, the more exciting your goal, the more likely you will find the time to pursue it. So, if you are still saying that
you do not have the time, perhaps you need to think again about what your real goal in life might be. In this way, goal setting
uses problem-solving and organisational skills.

You may also have listed a lack of money as one of the hindering factors. Again, this can be an obstacle, but there are also
ways around it. For example, rather than acquiring knowledge and skills through taking formal academic courses, you could
find other open educational resource (OER) like Learning to learn, or you might acquire them through voluntary work, by visiting the library on a regular basis, or by learning from others
or by trial-and-error learning – like Madhur Jaffrey in the early stages of what turned out to be a career in cooking.

One of the biggest resources we can have is people on our side. Hear how Karen values the support she has had.

Video content is not available in this format.

Karen

View transcript - Karen

So, it is really useful to have other people who:

- have the knowledge and skills that we need and are willing to spend some time to share them with us

- have the equipment we need – or know somebody else who does – and are prepared to arrange a loan or to make a mutually acceptable
swap of resources

- inspire us and can act as our role models

- cheer us up when we are feeling down

- have the networks and the know-how to open up opportunities to us

- are not afraid to prod us when we need it, or give us constructive criticism when they notice that we are not doing things
quite right

- have similar values and interests to keep our own enthusiasm going

- concentrate on what can be done rather than dwelling on the problems and help us to develop a can-do approach to life

- we feel comfortable with and bolster our sense of self-worth.

Activity 11: Building your sources of support

Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

In this activity we ask you to think about how other people can help you by giving feedback. This is just one way that other
people can help out. Here we are interested in who might act as a support for you in the future.

Look at the list of support roles in Building your sources of support. Now think about who might provide such support for you; for example, family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, people in
organisations that you belong to and people that you might be able to find through your community.

View comment - Activity 11: Building your sources of support

4.2 Thinking about knowledge and skills

This course encourages you to think first about informal approaches to learning, and then looks at some formal routes to learning
the knowledge and skills you might need.

Informal approaches to learning

Workplaces are useful informal routes to learning – although, in this case, it is a question of learning from colleagues.
You share ideas and experiences and find shortcuts to what is expected of you, rather than the more formal work-based learning
and training programmes that teach you what management wants you to know and do.

Exploring learning introduces the idea of different communities of practice, and you could find further opportunities for learning in this way
by:

- expanding the number and variety of groups that you belong to – for example, joining different social groups or community
organisations

- trying out new roles or activities within organisations to which you currently belong – for example, becoming treasurer of
a club you belong to or offering to stand in for one of the leaders at your local playgroup when they are on holiday.

Either way, you can become acquainted with a wider range of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that you can observe, ‘try on
for size’ or discuss. You can open your mind to challenging your stereotypes and opinions – and those of others – and learn
to value the debate and discussion that arises. You can sharpen your communication skills while also acquiring new knowledge
and information about the topic under discussion.

Formal routes to learning

Formal routes to learning include educational institutions like colleges and universities, and work-based learning such as
internships, cooperative education and prior-learning assessment.

Hand in hand with the emphasis on lifelong learning, there has been a growth in flexibility and in the idea of personalised
learning. It is now possible to take advantage of modular units, credit accumulation and the accreditation of prior learning
in order to fit study time around other commitments, the resources you have available, the time frame that suits you and the
work situation in which you find yourself (Jeffs and Smith, 1999).

You can transfer from one institution to another and mix distance learning with more traditional coursework.

We hope that you experience on Learning to learn will inspire you to explore some of these options and to move on to more formal learning.

4.2.1 Recording information about learning opportunities

Activity 12: Recording information about learning opportunities

Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Make an entry in your Action Planning Journal with the heading ‘Activity 12: Learning opportunities’. You should use this
entry as a place to record any information you gain, either now or in the future, about formal or informal learning opportunities
that might help you to achieve your goals.

View comment - Activity 12: Recording information about learning opportunities

As you’ve already learned, the web offers great potential for gaining information from others, allowing you to connect with
people who have the information you need, but who may live many hundreds of miles from you. If you are planning to complete
the social learning activities, the following activity will prompt you to use an online learning forum to ask other people
if they know where you might find informal and formal learning opportunities to help you to achieve your goals. (Of course,
you are very welcome to do this activity even if you are not planning to complete the social learning activities!)

Activity 13: Using a forum to get information about learning opportunities

Allow about 15 minutes for this activity.

1. Choose at least one goal you are entirely comfortable about sharing with people you do not know. If you are studying as a
part of a group, then this might be other Learning to learn students. If you are studying by yourself, this might be a forum for people with an interest in learning, perhaps one with
a special interest in learning using OERs. This could be the same goal you shared for Activity 9.

2. Access the forum or Learning to learn Facebook group and post a message about learning opportunities. Give it the title ‘Activity 13: Learning opportunities’. If you are using
a forum you have found, then your title will need to make it clear that you are looking for information about learning opportunities.
Give some information about your chosen goal(s), and ask for suggestions about where you might find informal and formal learning
opportunities. You could perhaps give information about your local area as this might get you some focused advice, but remember:
do not give your home address or give information that is more specific than the name of your home town.

3. If you are using the Learning to learn forum, look through some of the Activity 13 messages that have already been posted. Leave a comment for one of two other
learners about their post and share any learning opportunities that might be relevant to them and the wider community. Return
in a day or so to see if you have any replies.

After you have completed the Social Learning activities, you are required to record your actions and thoughts in the Using social learning quiz.

View comment - Activity 13: Using a forum to get information about learning opportunities

4.2.2 Free online courses

Learning opportunities are also available through the growing number of free online courses. These materials range from full
online courses, such as this one, to interactive activities and videos. The materials have often been produced by colleges
and universities and can be found by searching collections such as:

- OpenLearn

- OpenCourseWare Consortium

- YouTube EDU

- Merlot

- Khan Academy

4.3 Another approach …

Neil Thompson (2005) suggests knowledge and skills can be developed in six ways:

- reading

- asking

- watching

- feeling

- talking

- thinking.

Reading

The many different sorts of book and other written materials that can:

- help us expand our horizons

- provide new insights and ideas

- help us learn techniques that will save us time.

All types of writing can have these effects, including novels and poetry, as well as non-fiction, including self-help manuals,
documentaries and biographies.

Asking

Some books, especially those with professional or academic readers in mind, are written in a style that is sometimes hard
to understand or appreciate, so it is good to ask other people what they think about the ideas we come across in our reading.
Just talking about ideas can help make sense of them.

We all learn a lot by asking other people – inside and outside the workplace – how they tackle things and why they do things
a certain way; what they have learned about what works and what does not.

Watching

Figure 23 Watching someone work

There are at least two aspects: watching other people in order to learn different approaches to things, and watching carefully
what happens when you do something new and then thinking about why it happened that way.

Often we work on automatic pilot, not really thinking about what we are doing. Opening our attention and taking notice of
what happens creates useful learning opportunities.

Feeling

Thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours are all linked. We can use our thoughts to make sense of our feelings and our
intuition to guide our thinking. We will be coming back to this topic shortly.

Talking

Sharing ideas with colleagues, friends, family or members of an organisation you belong to is a good way of learning to understand
a range of perspectives on a situation and to challenge your instinctive responses. Regular conversations can also help sharpen
our communication and problem-solving skills.

Thinking

Figure 24 Think ahead

Sometimes there does not seem to be enough time to really think about our lives and learning, but Thompson points out that
thinking time is an essential, rather than a luxury, for times when you are not busy.

If you put some effort into thinking about crises and planning to avoid them, you can save time on fighting problems in the
future. You can be more in charge of what is happening to you rather than feeling at the mercy of unforeseen events.

Using the range of these six approaches helps to build a more rounded picture of a topic or of a skill that you are trying
to acquire or develop. For example, reading an article in a magazine might lead to talking through the ideas with friends,
asking how they might do things differently and why. This in turn might encourage you to think about the way you normally
approach similar situations, and then to try a different approach. Further reflection on whether or not it works for you and
why (or why not) can be a valuable source of learning.

Activity 14: Informal routes to learning

Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

Make a new entry in your Action Planning Journal with the heading ‘Activity 14: Informal routes to learning’. Then write down
one of your SMART goals and add some notes about:

- groups you could join or roles and activities that you could take on to extend your current knowledge and skills, and challenge
your ideas and opinions, in order to move towards achieving your goal

- what you might read in order to help you achieve your goal

- who you know that you could ask questions and discuss ideas with

- how you might observe people and make sense of your observations, perhaps in discussion with others, in order to help you
achieve your goal.

If you like, you could repeat the steps above for a further goal.

View comment - Activity 14: Informal routes to learning

Activity 15: Using a forum to get more information

Allow about 15 minutes for this activity

1. Choose at least one goal you are entirely comfortable about sharing with people you do not know. This could be the same goal
you shared for Activity 9 or Activity 13. If you are studying as a part of a group, then this might be other Learning to learn students. If you are studying by yourself, this might be a forum for people with an interest in learning, perhaps one with
a special interest in learning using OERs. This could be the same goal you shared for Activity 9 or Activity 13.

2. Access the forum and post a message asking for more information. If you are using a specially designated Learning to learn course forum or Learning to learn Facebook group, give it the title ‘Activity 15: More information please’. If you are using a forum you have found, then your title will
need to make it clear that you are looking for more suggestions about these informal learning opportunities:

- what you might read

- who you might talk to

- where you might watch other people in order to learn from them.

Give some information about your chosen goal(s), and ask for suggestions about where you might find informal and formal learning
opportunities. You could perhaps give information about your local area as this might get you some focused advice, but remember:
do not give your home address or give information that is more specific than the name of your home town.

3. If you are using a Learning to learn forum, look through some of the Activity 15 messages that have already been posted and if you have any ideas about how a
fellow student might learn through reading, talking or watching, reply to their message.

View comment - Activity 15: Using a forum to get more information

The next suggestion about keeping a Learning Journal for a short time should also help you with your action plan.

4.4 Continuing to use your Action Planning Journal

You should continue to use your Action Planning Journal for ongoing reflection as you work on developing your action plan.
Like your Learning Journal, your Action Planning Journal can help you look forward by developing your ideas and plans for
new learning experiences, and backward, by reflecting on your thoughts, feelings and actions about new activities you have
tried.

Thinking in terms of Thompson’s six elements, you might write down:

- your thoughts about articles you have read

- questions you would like to raise with people who might have more information or experience

- your observations of other people in action so that you get new ideas for trying particular techniques or different responses
to people’s demands

- new ideas that you would like to test in practice or discuss with people whose opinions you value

- reflections on the results of trying new things – did it work and why? Whether there were problems and, if so, what might
be the causes of them?

- how confident you are feeling about your learning and why

- how you might build on your strengths and address your weaknesses.

The act of writing down your thoughts and feelings about your learning is valuable in itself – helping you to get things off
your chest, to remind yourself to look for solutions to any problems and to celebrate successes.

Sometimes just the act of writing things down can clarify your ideas about what you would like to do about something. For
example, making separate lists of the pros and the cons of a particular action can help you make a decision on whether or
not to go ahead.

While there may be some very real and practical obstacles to learning and development – in the form of resources, knowledge
and skills – there may also be times when our biggest obstacle is our own feelings and mindset, which leads us to our third
set of helping and hindering factors.

4.5 Thinking about personal qualities

Some people are much more open than others to making changes in their lives that lead to (or result from) learning and personal
growth. Sometimes, it may feel easier to stay within our comfort zone, even though we are not satisfied with our life, than
to venture into new territory. Fiona Harrold suggests that we have to:

… get used to feeling comfortable with a little discomfort and a little uncertainty alongside a great deal of positive expectancy.
Turn anxiety into anticipation, fear into energy and worry into action.

(Harrold, 2001, p. 281)

Figure 25 Need to move out of your comfort zone?

She explains that excitement and fear produce similar hormones: when the adrenalin surges, you can decide whether what you
are feeling is excitement or fear.

The more you live within your comfort zone, she adds, the harder it is to distinguish between the two because you have not
had enough practice:

To live your best life you have to move out of your comfort zone and learn to manage your feelings.

(Harrold, 2001, p. 281)

This leads us into the topic of emotional literacy.

4.5.1 Developing emotional literacy

Whenever you are make decisions, there are rational and emotional elements that you need to take into account. Traditionally,
the emphasis has been on rational, logical thinking for decision making, but emotions can also provide you with useful ‘data’.
Sometimes a decision may appear rational, but you are uncomfortable with it. Working out exactly what you are feeling – and
what lies behind those feelings – can be a useful step towards deciding what to do next.

Susie Orbach (1999) has summarised emotional literacy neatly into a ‘three Rs’ mnemonic involving the ability to:

- Register the emotional dimension in any situation – to recognise, for example, that there is an ‘atmosphere’ and use it to work out
what is going on

- Recognise feelings of your own and their effects on other people, and to read other people’s emotions accurately by interpreting their
body language

- Respond appropriately to your own emotions and to those of other people. Recognise that sometimes it is appropriate to express your
emotions and sometimes it is not; that sometimes it is appropriate to simply sit back and listen when other people lose their
tempers, burst into tears or whoop with joy, while at other times it is appropriate to challenge their interpretation of events.
Some people know this intuitively, but it is also a skill you can develop.

Activity 16: Emotional literacy – The three Rs

Allow about 30 minutes for this activity.

As a first step in practising emotional literacy you should work on the three Rs. First, make an entry in your Learning Journal
with the title ‘Activity 4.16: Emotional literacy – The three Rs’. Now, work through the following three steps and record
your response in your Learning Journal:

1. Think back to a recent time when you felt a particularly strong emotion. Record (or register) that emotion in your Learning Journal.

2. Now write as much about the feeling as you can (recognising the feeling).

3. Next, work out how you could respond appropriately, and record your thoughts in your Learning Journal. You might ask yourself the following questions:

- Why did I feel this way?

- Was this feeling helpful to me or not?

- Was this feeling logical? Note the thoughts that accompanied the feelings (for example, ‘I felt so useless’, ‘I will never
be able to do this’, ‘I always do this wrong’).

- Is there any evidence to support these thoughts or beliefs?

- Is there any evidence that these thoughts are inaccurate?

- How can I get a balanced view of this? (You might remind yourself of a time when you handled something really well, or you
might imagine what you could do next time you feel this emotion.)

- What options are open to me?

View comment - Activity 16: Emotional literacy – The three Rs

4.5.2 Emotional literacy techniques

Thoughts, feelings and actions are interrelated – you can learn new emotional responses, just as you can learn new knowledge
and skills. There are various tools and techniques you can use in developing emotional literacy:

- Keeping a ‘mood journal’. You might practise recognising your own emotions – and what leads to them – by keeping a ‘mood journal’. You could include
this as a part of the Learning Journal activity.

This involves noting how you feel at different times of the day, with different people and in different situations, to see
if you can identify any patterns. When are you at your most and least anxious, happiest, annoyed, and so on?

This kind of activity can help you recognise the way in which circumstances influence your emotions and how your feelings
can influence a situation. You can learn how your feelings can interfere with your thinking and how they can enhance it.

Figure 26 Learn to identify different emotions

- Practising emotion recognition. You might practise recognising other people’s emotions by making a conscious effort to interpret their body language and
check it out with them – watching their gestures and saying: ‘You’re looking [insert feeling], today’, with an enquiring tone
that invites a response. Even if you are wrong in your interpretation, people are usually glad to be noticed, and the following
discussion might add to your knowledge of them and to your interpretation skills.

Caruso and Salovey (2004) point out that emotions usually build up gradually, so if you can learn to recognise the early warning
signals of negative emotions, you might be able to avert a difficult situation. For example, if you can spot someone feeling
irritated, you may be able to find out what the problem is and discuss it before the feeling turns into anger or rage, which
may be so strong that it interferes with the ability to think rationally about the solution.

- Build your emotional vocabulary. Are you a little bit annoyed, cross, angry or absolutely furious? Are you calm, pleased, happy, delighted or ecstatic? Having
more words to think about how you feel can also help you to work out what to do with those feelings.

- Understand yourself. If you can spot your own feelings of apprehension, you can question why you are feeling that way and what you can do about
it before you get to the terrified state in which you cannot think straight.

- Know your options. Recognising that you have options is another element of emotional literacy. We can allow fear to paralyse us so that, for
example, we always avoid giving presentations and ask other people to do them instead. Alternatively, we can note the feeling,
but then use our thinking to work out exactly why we are afraid of doing presentations and to do something about it. We can
practise making presentations until we have no need to be afraid.

- Study other people. By observing other people and noting the ways in which they respond differently to success and to failure and asking them
how they manage their emotions in situations that you always find difficult, you might be able to find more productive ways
of handling your instinctive responses to events.

Activity 17: Emotional literacy

Allow about 20 minutes for writing up this activity.

Commit yourself to undertaking at least one of the above suggested routes to emotional literacy over the next week or so.

Make an entry in your Learning Journal with the heading ‘Activity 17: A week’s work on emotional literacy’ and use this to
make a daily note of your work on your chosen route to emotional literacy.

View comment - Activity 17: Emotional literacy

If you have been completing the activities throughout this course, you should now be in a position to create your action plan
and to work out how you could monitor progress towards your goal or goals – the final topic for this course.

5 Developing your action plan and thinking about evidence

Earlier in this course, we explained that developing an action plan involves the following steps:

- setting yourself a goal to work towards

- working out what you need to do before you can achieve your goal – breaking the goal down into smaller chunks until you get
to a point where you think, ‘Yes, that’s manageable. I feel I could tackle that.’

- putting the steps in a logical order – some will be dependent on others having been completed first, while some will be more
flexible and can be completed at any time

- putting a timetable next to each step to spur you on to achieving that step.

We hope that as you have worked through this course you will have put together much of the information needed to develop an
action plan in the following activity.

Activity 18: Developing an action plan

Allow about 40 minutes for this activity.

For one of your short- to medium-term goals, draw up an action plan by completing the following steps:

1. State your goal. It would be useful to choose a goal that you have already worked on earlier in the course, or for which you
have had feedback from other students.

2. List some initial steps toward your goal. Break your goal down into smaller SMART steps, as you did in Activity 7.

3. List any helping and hindering factors related to your goal, as you did in Activity 10.

4. List any additional steps that could increase the helping factors and reduce the hindering factors.

5. Make a new list, arranging the steps you identified in (2) and (4) above into the order in which you intend to tackle them.
You will be able to complete some of the steps at any time, but some will depend on you having completed other steps first.
For example, Mike would ideally complete his work experience to find out whether being a chef is as attractive as he thinks,
before he enrolls in training courses.

6. For each step in this final list, allocate a time by which you would like to complete the step. There are two key things:

1. Remember to be realistic – do not set yourself up for feelings of having failed by being over optimistic.

2. Try to make sure that there is something you can achieve every week, if not every day, to keep your momentum going. If you
find long gaps between completion dates, try to break the tasks down into even smaller steps.

Complete the Developing an action plan form.

Activity 19: Reflecting on the action plan activities

Allow about 10 minutes for this activity.

Whether or not you completed the action plan activities, now would be a good time to further reflect on your feelings about
this course and the activities within it.

Make an entry in your Learning Journal with the title ‘Reflecting on the action plan activities’. Then make some notes in
response to some/all of the following questions:

- If you completed the action plan activities, how did you feel before and after you completed it? For example, were you anxious
about completing the activities or did you feel you could take it in your stride?

- If you did not complete the action plan activities, why was this? Do you think you will return to the activities later?

View comment - Activity 19: Reflecting on the action plan activities

6 Working with your action plan

You should now have a detailed plan for achieving one of your goals. As you check off each of the steps of your action plan
as ‘completed’, you will be engaging in the process of collecting evidence of your achievements, which can:

- be a real boost to your confidence and your motivation

- help you to develop your resumé/CV when you are applying for paid or voluntary work, showing that you can take an organised
approach to your learning and development, as well as demonstrating the knowledge, skills and attributes that you have acquired
in the process.

As we mentioned earlier, when talking about goals, some of your achievement will be directly measurable and can be checked
off relatively easily – for example, if you have been to a library and identified an appropriate course, if you have found
a job placement or if you have made three new friends.

Some developments may be harder to check off since they are not directly measurable – for example, developments in your confidence
or your ability to influence people. This is where your Learning Journal and your Action Planning Journal can help.

Looking back at entries in your Learning Journal and Action Planning Journal can help you recognise that you are now more
confident and/or more competent in both your academic and real-world skills.

You can also develop your problem-solving skills by thinking about what has worked and what has not when you tried new things.
In addition, you can use your problem-solving skills to help decide what you might do differently in order to increase your
chances of success. Doing this will add evidence about your problem-solving ability, as well as developing your resilience.

Activity 20: Completing the Social Learning Activity

Allow about 20 minutes for this activity.

1. Look back over your responses to the social learning activities in the course forum or the Learning to learn Facebook group (activities 2, 9, 13 and 15), and make some notes about your overall experience of using an online forum to support your
action planning. You might like to think about whether:

- some messages received more replies than others

- any of the replies were particularly useful

- you felt comfortable about sharing your goals with others

- you observed any examples of good (or bad) netiquette

- you would do anything differently if you repeated these activities in the future.

2. The final social learning activity will require you to summarise the notes that you have just made, so you should keep them
handy.

View comment - Activity 20: Completing the Social Learning Activity

7 Conclusion

At the start of this course we said that the action plan is not something that is set in stone, but something that you can
return to again and again – revising your goals, or the way you might reach them, in response to the learning you have done
as you check off the steps you have worked through. As we learn, we change, and as we change, our priorities may also change.

This does not mean that it is not worthwhile to draw up a plan. Having your goals written down reminds you to ask yourself
on a regular basis:

- ‘How am I doing?’

- ‘Is this really where I want to be right now?’

- ‘What other options are open to me?’

- ‘What might happen if I did X instead of Y?’

Asking these sorts of question puts you in a position to update your plan on the basis of informed decision making. This is
very different from drifting aimlessly, which is the danger of not having a plan.

You should now be ready to implement a small part of your action plan, which is one focus of the following course. It would
also be a good idea to begin thinking about how the viewpoints and theories that you have explored in this course have helped
you to develop and think about your plan.

Congratulations you have completed this course!

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References

Caruso, D.R. and Salovey, P. (2004) The Emotionally Intelligent Manager: How to Use and Develop the Four Key Emotional kills of Leadership, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Harrold, F. (2001) Be Your Own Life Coach: How to Take Control of Your Life and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams, London, Hodder and Stoughton.

Jeffs, T. and Smith, M.K. (1999) ‘The problem of “youth” for youth work’, Youth and Policy, vol. 62, pp. 45–66. Available in the informal education archives, http://www.infed.org/archives/youth.htm (Accessed 4 July
2008).

Keep, E. and Mayhew, K. (1988) ‘The assessment: education, training and economic performance’ in Esland, G. (ed.) (1990) Education, Training and Employment: Educated Labour – the Changing Basis of Industrial Demand, Volume 1, Wokingham, Addison-Wesley/The Open University.

Leitch, S. (2006) Prosperity for all in the Global Economy – World Class Skills, London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Lewin, K. (1947) ‘Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method, and reality in social science, social equilibria, and social
change’, Human Relations, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 5–41.

Orbach, S. (1999) Towards Emotional Literacy, London, Virago.

Prochaska, J. and DiClemente, C.C. (1984) The Trans-Theoretical Approach: Crossing Boundaries of Therapy, Homewood, IL, Dow Jones Irvin.

Thompson, N. (2005) Working with Young People, London, Sage Publications.

Acknowledgements

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

Course image: Susanne Nilsson in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence).  Grateful
acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this course

Figures

Figure 3: www.bitsythis.com

Figure 4: www.rovearts.com

Figure 5: iStockphoto.com and photographer

Figure 7: © unknown

Figure 8: www.123rf.com

Figure 9: © unknown

Figures 10/11/18/19: from video developed with Goanimate.com software under licence

Figure 12: www.srseng.com

Figure 13: www.livelifehappy.com

Figure 23: www.beadelltours.com

Figure 24: www.thinkahead.nl

Figure 25: Mike’s Laughline Cartoons, www.motivationalplus.com

Figure 26: www.drurydrama.com

Video featuring Shehnaz, Karen © The Open University (2008)

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers will be
pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

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Activity 1: Principles of netiquette

Comment

Netiquette is an important part of communicating online and while it’s useful to know all the rules in detail, one overall
rule covers pretty much everything else: ‘respect others’. When you’re communicating online, think about how you would make
your meaning clear if you were communicating face to face; for example, by using facial expressions, gestures or a particular
tone of voice. Then think about how you might make up for the lack of these things – perhaps by using an emoticon or by avoiding
a joke that might be misinterpreted.

Back

Activity 2: Posting an introduction in the forum

Comment

Hopefully you will get some friendly replies to your introduction. Do feel free to reply to others’ postings with a friendly
‘hello’. If you’re intending to complete the social learning activities, you’ll continue communicating with your fellow Learning to learn students as you work through this course, so it’s a good idea to get a friendly atmosphere developed right from the start.

Back

Activity 3: What do I want my life to be like in ten years’ time?

Comment

While we have no idea what your actual ambitions might be, your thoughts from this activity probably fell into some of the
following categories:

- What you might be doing – at home/at work/in the community/online

- Who you are with – including family, friends, colleagues and fellow enthusiasts (for example, fellow cooks, anglers, crossword-puzzle
addicts, singers)

- Where you are – for example, where you would like to work, to live, to exercise, to go on vacation

- How you are feeling – for example, more confident in yourself; delighted with your dream job, settled with your old friends
and excited about meeting new ones, proud of having achieved academic degrees, relieved at paying off the mortgage.

Did you immediately start to think about all the things that might limit your vision? That’s a common reaction – there is
a natural tendency to limit our visions for the future by thinking about, for example:

- Where we are now and what we ‘deserve’

- What other people might think of us – and what we would rather they thought of us

- How uncomfortable it is moving into new territory

- Our lack of resources – time or money, or access to support. Or perhaps you raised worries about your health.

There will probably be obstacles ahead, so it is important to think about these later in the course. But right now, focus
on the fairy-godmother wishes so that you can really ‘go for it’ and think about what you really want to do, what would excite
you. The promise of exciting goals can spur you through the difficult times.

Back

Activity 4: No regrets

Comment

Every student of Learning to learn who lists their possible regrets will have answered differently. Action planning is a very personal process and is entirely
individual to you, though we can guide you through the steps in that process. You will be given the option of sharing some
of the steps in the process with your fellow students by posting them in the forum.

Back

Activity 5: A mind map of your vision

Comment

Did creating this mind map help you to come up with ideas about where you want to be, what you want to do and with whom?

We hope this reinforced some of your earlier learning about the usefulness of mind mapping. Having a structure in mind is
also useful in other aspects of learning. It has been suggested that mind maps encourage creativity and show that planning
is best when it can build on new and interesting ideas.

Back

Activity 6: Choosing some goals

Comment

This part of the course asks you to work on a demanding sequence of activities. We hope you will find all the activities in
this course helpful, but these are particularly important since they take you through the process of putting together your
plan for change.

This plan is an important outcome of your work on this course. We also hope that you will find that your plan is something
that you can go on using after you have finished Learning to learn. The more thought that you put into your plan at this point, the more useful it will be in the future.

Back

Activity 7: Recognising SMART goals

Comment

Your own answers will have depended on how you interpreted the question, but see how they compare with our suggestions that
follow.

The person looking for more balance in his/her life might have written:

By the end of the summer, I will have:

- mapped how much time I am spending each week on work, family, friends, physical activity and my photography

- encouraged my partner to do the same

- discussed what we have each found out

- agreed what, if anything, we would like to change

- drawn up a plan of how we can help each other out.

The person looking for a career with people might have written:

By the end of the year, I will have talked to a youth worker and a social worker to find out:

- whether or not either of those would be the right job for me (and/or get some other ideas)

- what qualifications and experience I would need to do them

- what sources of funding might be available for training.

Back

Activity 8: Writing your own goals in a SMART way

Comment

We cannot give you direct feedback on your own outcomes, but you could discuss them with friends, family or other people that
you are in touch with.

Back

Activity 9: Sharing your SMART goals with fellow students online

Comment

Hopefully you will get some useful feedback on your goals. Don’t worry, though, if you don’t get any feedback this is quite
common. If you do get some feedback, don’t forget to thank the person who has replied to your posting.

Back

Activity 10: What might help and hinder you?

Comment

We do not know what your actual help and hindrance factors are, but they probably fall into three main categories:

1. The resources you have available – for example, having (or not having) people on your side, money, time, equipment, and so
on. (Having these would lead you to list them under ‘Things that could help me’, while not having them would lead you to place
them under ‘Things that could hinder me’.)

2. Your current level of knowledge and skills in areas you would like to pursue

3. Your personal qualities/attributes – for example, your level of confidence and self-belief; being brave, or how nervous you
are about new challenges; being an extrovert or introvert; how healthy you are; and your resilience to cope when things are
more difficult than expected.

Back

Activity 11: Building your sources of support

Comment

We expect that some of you will have found this last activity to be easy, while some will have found it difficult or even
impossible.

If you found it relatively easy, this suggests that you can identify a number of people and that you can see these people
giving you useful support.

If you found the activity to be difficult, it may be because you do not know many people (you may have moved to a new area).
Or the activity may have been difficult because you would not feel that the people you do know are in a position to give you
support. You might see the outcome of this activity as setting a goal to increase the number of people that you can turn to
for support.

Back

Activity 12: Recording information about learning opportunities

Comment

You can add new information to this Action Planning Journal entry at any point. For example, you might find it useful to do
a web search for courses or groups in your area and then record potentially relevant results in your journal.

Back

Activity 13: Using a forum to get information about learning opportunities

Comment

Hopefully you will get some useful information in response to your message. Again, don’t worry if you don’t get any responses
as the focus of this activity is to post a message – we do hope that learners will take time to reply though.

If you do get some information, don’t forget to thank the person who has replied to your posting. You could also record any
useful suggestions in your Action Planning Journal entry for Activity 12.

Back

Activity 14: Informal routes to learning

Comment

We hope you found this activity interesting and challenging. Your notes for this activity should be useful as you move toward
drawing up your action plan.

Back

Activity 15: Using a forum to get more information

Comment

Hopefully you will get some useful information in response to your message. Again, don’t worry if you don’t get any responses
as the focus of this activity is to post a message – we do hope that learners will take time to reply though.

If you do get some information, don’t forget to thank the person who has replied to your posting. You could also record any
useful suggestions in your Action Planning Journal entry for Activity 14.

Back

Activity 16: Emotional literacy – The three Rs

Comment

We hope that you have found it useful to step back and think more closely about the link between thoughts, feelings and behaviours,
and recognise that you can use your thinking to help you manage your feelings – but also use your feelings to prompt you into
thinking about what you might usefully do next.

If you identified that your automatic thoughts and feelings were not justified, it might be useful to write down your true
qualities on a Post-it note and look at it whenever you want.

If you found that there was some justification for your thoughts and feelings, you might work out how to address any weaknesses
in the knowledge and skills that led to the feelings so that you can avoid them in the future.

Back

Activity 17: Emotional literacy

Comment

We hope that as you work on developing your emotional literacy you find that you have more control over your emotions and
are better able to interact with others who are experiencing strong emotions. Knowing yourself and really thinking about the
reasons why you are experiencing a particular emotion can make a huge difference in managing the impact of your emotions on
your goals.

For example, if you’ve set a goal but feel you won’t have the confidence to complete one of the steps involved, close examination
of the reasons for your lack of confidence could help you to produce a mini action plan for gaining confidence in that particular
area. It could also highlight the fact that what feels like lack of confidence is actually lack of knowledge, fear or some
other emotion.

Whatever the situation, really getting to know your own emotions can help you manage them.

Back

Activity 19: Reflecting on the action plan activities

Comment

It would be difficult to guess your responses to the questions above. If you have decided not to complete the action plan
activities at the moment, you will have your own reasons for this and may have recorded them in your Learning Journal. If
you completed the activities, you may have said something about how you felt afterwards, or whether it was easier or more
difficult than you thought it was going to be.

Back

Activity 20: Completing the Social Learning Activity

Comment

Well done! If you’ve returned to this page having completed Activity 20 and have also completed the other required activities.

Back

Shehnaz

Transcript

When my daughter and son started school I went back to do further studies, it kind of turned me around and made me realise
that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to further my education in order to improve my goals in life, my prospects for
getting a job.

Back

Karen

Transcript

My husband used to proofread because sometimes you get too close to things and you can’t see the wood for the trees. He was
very good at that. My son bought me a memory stick. I'd never used one before he showed me how to use it. My work colleagues
were very supportive throughout. If ever I came back to the office when I was on placement, they would always be very supportive,
‘You can do this. Of course you can.’ The people I was studying with – they were a lifeline. I knew that I could ring them
up and ask them for help, and that they would help me. And exactly the same applied to me, I knew I could contact my lecturer,
and he was only too happy to discuss any problems I had.

Back