ABSTRACT
In the last chapter you examined what motivated you to consider committing yourself to a foundation degree. You thought about all the necessary steps you needed to confirm it was the right decision and to get accepted onto a course. This is often the place where students begin to experience doubts about the new career path they have chosen. Whether you are experiencing doubt or not, this is the point in your decision-making where it makes a lot of sense to look backwards as well as forwards. This chapter will introduce you to some theory and techniques. These will help you look critically at how you got to where you are now; your previous experiences of learning, including your time at school. This should help you to get to where you want to be. The intention is that you will look at this chapter periodically as there is a lot to take in. In the past, education was, in the main, associated with what was learned at
school. Few adults expected to continue learning after they had left school. However, in the last few years there have been considerable changes of thought. Now most adults recognise the claim that learning is key to achieving our full potential. In fact, the Campaign for Learning (www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk) considers that, ‘human beings are uniquely adapted to learn and we have the ability to do so throughout our lives’.
