Reflective Post (Week 1)

Reflective Post

Week 1 Academic Skills

Today we learnt Conscious Competence, which teaches us the steps we take in order to learn a new skill. I don’t normally think about the way in which I learn something but I can see how this would be helpful. There are 4 stages to the Conscious Competence Learning Matrix; the first stage is that “We don’t know we don’t know”, meaning that we don’t realize that we don’t know how to do something. I might look at someone else using a skateboard and assume that I know how to use one competently. The second stage is “We know we don’t know” for example if I had the chance to use a skateboard I would realize that I have no idea how to use one and probably fall off, therefore I now “know that I don’t know”. The third stage is “We know we know”, I have learnt this new skill but I am not completely competent, I still need to practice as I am mentally aware of how much effort I am putting into doing this. The fourth step is “We don’t know we know”, so if I had been using the skateboard for several months and was completely competent I wouldn't think about doing it or learning how to do it because I already know and it comes naturally, basically our mind and body goes into auto-pilot. These steps make sense and have made me realize that there is always going to be new things that I need to learn, things that I didn't know I didn't know, and this gives me direction in how to go about learning new skills. I can relate this to everyday things and use this on a daily basis to teach myself that I need to learn by taking one step at a time.

The next thing I did was a quick activity where I had to answer five questions which determined the style of learning that an individual uses. This frustrated me a little as the quiz was brief and in my opinion wasn't enough to determine what kind of learning style I use. Once I actually sat down read through each description and did the questionnaire again I realized that it did actually come out with the learning style that I thought suited me best. It had confirmed that I am a “Diverger”, a person who looks at things from a different perspective, is sensitive, will watch rather than do and use imagination to solve problems. Diverger's are information gatherers and prefer to work in groups and like to brainstorm their ideas. I feel like this is definitely me and I can relate to all of these things. It was really good to have these put into perspective and know that I’m not the only one that works in the same method.

I have been asked to go home and fill out a table which shows the amount of time I spend each day doing each different exercise for example; how much time I spend sleeping, working, meal preparation and even personal care (showering, makeup etc.). For me I know that I prioritize my time extremely well, I do all of my homework on the day that I was given it, I make sure I get to course on time, I have a good amount of sleep. but to see this all on paper is going to be strange. I am a mum, student, wife, cook, cleaner, I work part time and I still manage to put my makeup on every morning, I have to! You get so used to being on auto-pilot everyday doing the same necessary things to keep yourself and your family functioning that you don’t even realize how much time you have spent doing each individual thing. To see this in numbers is going to be an eye opener and probably make me think twice about what I spend my time doing.