I personally am a big fan of the concept of Active Learning, this idea of taking a mature approach to engage with your learning. I have always felt that sitting in class whether it was at school or in a lecture now at University is clearly not enough. I have to take in what is being taught and then go home and put in the extra work to get down to the bottom of the subject in hand and why we are learning about it. I have always been told that I question everything or I am known as the one that always asks why. This is because I like to know why we have to do something and the purpose of it in order to stay motivated and therefore focused on completing the task in hand.

Staying active in your learning by carrying out related activities is vital to stay positive in your line of work, and in the long run develop on your ability at a skill or promote attainment. As mentioned above staying active with my learning keeps me focused and also gives me a sense of worth as I am stepping up and taking control of my own work/learning.This control requires me to be very disciplined with my time away from lectures and workshops in the form of managing my time carefully.

Such tasks which help me engage with my learning at University include:

• Colour coordinating my work so that I know exactly what lectures relate to each other so I can see a development in them and stay motivated to where the learning is going.
• I like to come away from lectures and type up the notes along with getting on with the reading required straight away whilst it is all still fresh in my mind and I can completely relate to what is being discussed.
• I am a very visual person so I make word clouds at every opportunity to get my head around the new lingo that we are learning about and which i may need to engage with one day in my chosen profession.
• I also use my favourite coloured pens to record some of the topics that I am either struggling with or becoming a bit disheartened with to almost act as a positive mental stimulus to try and change this negative opinion on.

Overall I think that active learning occurs in some shape or form in everybody’s day to day life and I am a firm believer in the thought process of ‘you get out what you put in.’