Learning experience
Learning experience
First, let us take you on a little journey about Learning and why we think it is so important.
Expectations:
We will do our best to support you on your journey and provide relevant material and background to facilitate your learning. Learning is very much a two-way process, so we have decided to set up a learning contract between our clients and us. This clearly defines what you can expect from us and in return what we expect from you. You will be asked to agree to this before your course starts:
Example of a learning contract from the Global Equine Nutrition Course - Level 3:
1. What we offer you:
- We have designed this course to give you an in-depth understanding of Equine Nutrition from a global perspective.
- We want to invite you on a journey through the equine digestive system, up to date understanding of its biological functions and how they link into physiological health and psychological wellbeing - together these two concepts can be summed up as the Welfare of an animal.
- We will introduce key concepts of feed chemistry and analysis as well as scientific methods to gain an understanding of feed tables and their interpretation.
- We aim to make you familiar with global nutrient requirement systems for horses and how to apply them in basic ration calculations and through applied feeding management.
- This course will prepare you for further advanced Level 4 courses in relation to Equine and Animal Nutrition.
- We understand that this course will reach a breadth of students with different levels of previous experience and we aim to offer you all a new and diverse learning experience.
- We have done our best to provide you with correct and precise knowledge at all times, but we are by no means infallible.
2. What we expect from you:
- You are invited to follow all the units and to immerse yourself in the material. We recommend that you work at a rate of 1-2 Weeks per Module.
- You are expected to carry out all the additional readings we point you to at the end of each Unit and in the supporting materials.
- At levels 3-4, you are encouraged to read at least one full scientific paper per Module and write out your own key notes and evaluations in relation to these.
- Your critical thinking and evaluation skills will be stimulated within the scope of the Units - explore these opportunities!
- Your knowledge and experience around the world are valuable to us and therefore we encourage constructive feedback and additional information. Share your knowledge with us.
Discussion Forums
Not all courses have Discussion Forums - If there is a Discussion Forum you will also get the following instructions:
- We want our discussion forums to be a happy and constructive cyberspace for 'thinkers'!!
- The forum is a basis for constructive discussion and feedback which focuses on the subject matter of the related Module.
- Please respect each other at all times, avoid being judgmental and be aware of jumping to conclusions when information is incomplete.
- Avoid using capital letters as it is seen as 'shouting' in some cultures.
- The written word can be very direct at times
- the use of smileys can help in softening and clarifying intentions of written text.
- Do not use this forum for requesting nutritional advise or giving consultations, although case studies may be discussed to a certain extent within the Module context.
- For technical difficulties and corrections please contact us directly and do not post on the Discussion forum.
- Please do not post or upload copyright or private material on the forums - a url link to open access material will be welcome.
- As this is an open forum, ANIVADO cannot be held responsible for the content posted on this forum.
We hope you enjoy your learning experience in our course. You have to accept the 'I have read and agree to the 'ANIVADO Learning Deal' when following an ANIVADO course.
Some final thoughts...
- Learning is not automatic or easy - it can be risky & painful
- Fear of failure prevents learning
- Learning requires energy, thought, courage and support
- Learning requires motivation, self-awareness and self-organisation
- There is a need to develop intellectual confidence
- People must take responsibility for their own learning
- Everyone learns differently and not always very effectively - explore different learning styles
- Past experience gets in the way of new learning - we need to unlearn & be open-minded
- People tend to develop fixed habits, beliefs and prejudices which limit learning
- Learning becomes a habit-learn to learn continuously for lifelong learning
- Humans have an infinite capacity to learn
- The more you learn, the more you realise that you need to learn more...
...For those of you teaching - try reading these statements again but replacing learning with teaching.
Enjoy!