4.1.1    Action plans

An action plan is simply a written list of things to do. A trainee painter could draw up an action plan for the sequence of tasks and decisions which need to be made in decorating a room. This could be done by:

1. reviewing notes from a classroom session concerned with general rules concerning how to undertake decorations (e.g. the order in which wallpaper should be hung) and
2. applying these general principles to the job in hand. Such a list could be kept at hand in order to keep a check on the experience of undertaking the decoration task.

4.1.2    Setting objectives

Although it is common for teachers to set objectives for learners, learners can also set objectives for themselves. Before embarking upon an experience of some kind, learners can sit down and write out: "After this experience I will be able to " and specify what will have been learnt. This can be an excellent way of focussing attention on important aspects the experience by providing a reminder of what function the experience is supposed to have. Such a set of objectives (it may only need to be a few to be useful) can also provide a valuable aid to reflection and self- assessment after the experience.

4.1.3    Designing experiments

In many practically based scientific and technical subjects, learners undertake experimental work in the laboratory or workshop . It is common for the teacher to design the experiments for the learners to execute, sometimes giving learners little to do except follow instructions. For learners to be more involved in experimental work and more alive to their experience of it, it is important for them to be involved in at least some aspects of the experimental design. It may be possible simply to pose a problem, ask "How are you going to be able to measure X or find a value for Y ?" and leave the learners to design their own experiments. It may be that you have to provide most of the experimental design, but can leave some details unresolved, to be discussed and agreed before work begins. It may be that for practical reasons you have to have prepared equipment and facilities in advance and there is little scope for variation. Nevertheless there is still scope for students to speculate about possible experimental designs beforehand so that the actual experimental design is seen as one of a range of possibilities instead of simply taken for granted as the design . As outlined in Section 2, scientific method is fundamentally the same as the experiential learning cycle, and learners should not miss out stages merely for the sake of convenience or saving time.

4.1.4    Observation checklists

Much experience is gained through seeing how others do things, or what goes on in situations. However, if you are new to a situation, you may not know what to look for and it can be very easy to lose attention and to notice very little. This problem can be eased with the use of a simple observation checklist which lists things to look out for and perhaps asks for the recording of events and how often they happened.

Ready-made observation checklists of some sophistication are available for example for observing school teachers in action. Simple checklists can be devised by the learners themselves. For example, prior to a small group of trainee nurses seeing a Staff Nurse administering medication on a ward, there could be a short discussion of what to look out for, and a brief checklist drawn up. After the round, this could be used to structure a short discussion which encourages reflection on what had been seen, and what significance these observations had.

The example of an observation sheet below is for use in observing and giving feedback on group leaders or committee chairpersons. The sheet identifies categories of leadership behaviour, gives examples or definitions of each, and has space for recording the number of occasions on which each type of behaviour was observed and for comments. The use of this observation checklist would be likely to lead to much more being noticed and so more being able to be reported back to the person being observed. What is reported back could also be backed up by evidence rather than being purely subjective.

4.1.5    Devising criteria

It can be difficult to undertake a task well if you don't have much idea what would count as doing it well . If you didn't know what a good weld should look like, for example, it would be unlikely that you would notice what you were doing wrong while you were undertaking the weld: your experience would be largely wasted. It can often make an enormous difference to how attentive and careful and 'self-conscious' a learner is when undertaking a practical task if the learner has a clear idea of the criteria which will be used to judge the outcome of the work. A discussion of the criteria to be used in marking a project report will focus learners' attention on important aspects of the project work. An example of devising criteria and using them for subsequent self-assessment can be found in Section 5.1.

4.1.6    Learning contracts

Learning contracts combine several elements of planning described above, especially setting objectives, devising criteria and formulating action plans. A learning contract is an agreement to undertake some action leading to learning. The agreement could be with a trainer, teacher or a group of fellow learners. A trainee learning about word processing could devise a contract which read:

"I contract to use the MAILMERGE facility to address letters to members of my child's school's PTA. between now and the next session, and to report to the group on how difficult I found it "

The learner would normally report back on the completion of learning contracts. The completion of such a contract, agreed with the teacher, can be used in assessment. An example of this can be found in Section 5.4.

In some educational settings the entire curriculum, including assessment, is based on learning contracts. A more formal and detailed process is then necessary. Structured approaches to learning contracts, such as the one listed below, can also be valuable in making informal learning more rigorous where there is no external check on learning outcomes. The process described here is based on the work of Malcolm Knowles and has eight stages:

1    Diagnose your learning needs

The gap between where you are now and where you want to get to identifies your learning needs. This may involve analysing the skills and knowledge required to perform a particular job (for example what is involved in organising yourself more efficiently) and identifying where you stand at the moment in relation to these skills. You might decide that the organisational skills involved include:

- filing
- work scheduling and deadline setting
- diary keeping
- establishing procedures for routine work
- reviewing your work periodically and adjusting priorities

You might also decide that you already know how to keep an adequate diary, and that you really need to focus on filing, routine procedures and work scheduling.

2    Specify your learning objectives

Learning objectives are what you hope to learn by doing things and/or what you will be able to do once you have learnt. For example, you might want to learn how to become more efficient in your work so that you can accomplish 20% more work in a day. You would probably need to divide your objectives up so that they are sufficiently specific to guide your learning .

3    Specify learning resources and strategies

This involves identifying where you will find out what you need to know, and who can help you, as well as how you intend to use these resources. Strategies might also involve a timetable or intermediate goals and deadlines, identifying steps on the way to achieving your learning goals and the sequence of learning activities involved in achieving them.

4    Specify evidence of accomplishment

How will you (or anyone else?) know that you have achieved your objectives? What would you be able to do, or have to show, which would demonstrate your achievements? What this evidence looks like then becomes the specific focus of your learning.

5    Specify how the evidence will be validated

What criteria are appropriate for judging your learning outcomes? Who should make these judgements and how? In a formal situation this might be a tutor or trainer. In an informal situation this might involve self-assessment.

6    Review your contract

At this point you would be ready to show your proposed learning contract to someone else to review it. In a formal context this might be in order to decide whether the contract, if fulfilled, would meet some specified criteria for a qualification. A teacher, in reviewing such a contract, might suggest that the contract is overambitious or requires a clearer specification of what the outcome should look like. In an informal situation a review might involve a friend reading through it and asking for clarification on points which seem ambiguous or unclear.

7    Carry out the contract

It is often the case that once work to fulfil a learning contract has begun, the goals need to be re-east and alternative learning strategies adopted. There should be an opportunity to re-negotiate aspects of the contract to take account of early experiences of trying to falafel it. In the example in Section 5.4 there is an opportunity for trainee lecturers and their tutor to modify project agreement forms in the light of experience, provided both parties agree to the changes.

8    Evaluate your learning

The specification of the contract, and especially the specification of what evidence of accomplishment should look like and how it should be judged, makes evaluation of learning relatively straightforward. It is crucial that, after the negotiation and completion of a learning contract, new criteria or tests are not introduced. A properly formulated contract embodies the means for its assessment. If the learner is going to go on and devise further learning contracts then this is the time to reflect on the whole process in order to learn how to devise appropriate contracts and means of validating their accomplishment.

Further reading

4.1.7    Action research

Action research is simply the application of the experiential learning cycle to research activities designed to improve practice. It involves four stages:

1. develop a plan of action to improve what is already happening
2. act to carry out the plan
3. observe the effects of the action
4. reflect on these effects as a basis for future planning and action.

This would lead to further planning and action in a continuing cycle of experimentation and improvement. The starting-point of such a cycle of action research might itself be an observation of a problem in your own work. For example, a nurse might notice that some people on a ward are at a loose end while others are rushing around. Some reflection on this problem might lead to the analysis that responsibilities have not been divided up appropriately. An action plan might involve changing some individuals' responsibilities (with due regard to union agreements, relationships and teamwork issues). The ward could then operate for a week with this new division of responsibilities, during which time the effect on workloads and delays in getting jobs done could be monitored. At the end of the week those involved could report on what had actually happened and how they had found the week. This might lead to a new understanding as to how to share the work, new work practices and new experiences .

Action research was developed as a way for teachers to improve their effectiveness in their own classrooms but it can be used in any context where people want to learn how to improve their work.

Further reading