National Teaching and Learning
Change Programme
Improving teaching and learning in Adult Learning

Themes | Planning learning and reviewing progress | Identifying personal learning goals | What is a personal learning goal?

Themes

• Introduction
• Assessment
• Improving teaching and learning
• Planning learning and reviewing progress
  • Getting personal
  • What the process looks like
  • Identifying personal learning goals
    • What is a personal learning goal?
    • Your questions answered
  • What is a learning plan?
  • Reviewing progress: why it's important
  • Celebrating achievement
• E-learning and e-assessment

What is a personal learning goal?

Think about a personal learning goal in terms of the learner's self-satisfaction or how they would like to be able to apply their learning in the medium to longer term. Statements about learning ambitions might sound like any of the following.

• I want to be able to…
  • …walk along to the barber's without a stick; or
  • …draw life-like portraits of my friends.
• I need to…
  • chair the committee meetings at our community centre; or
  • produce a spread sheet of expenditure for the allotment society.
• I've always wondered about how…
  • …I could get a qualification in child care; or
  • …to take really professional looking photos.
• I've never managed to…
  • get to grips with technology, and now it's time to learn to use the Internet; or
  • make myself understood in another language, and now I need to.

If learners are floundering a bit with this and are just generally interested in the idea of self-improvement, it's a good idea to discuss the situations in which they would like to be more confident and more competent. These might be:

• at home
• when they're relaxing
• at work; or
• in the community.

Using alerting tools can help with this.