Our learning and development approach is built around a simple principle:
"meaningful learning happens when people move beyond receiving information and are supported to understand, practise, reflect upon, and embed their learning in real-world contexts."
We use a learning journey to help learners develop knowledge, confidence, skills, behaviours, and leadership capability over time. This approach is informed by the Four Stages of Competence and Bloom's Taxonomy , ensuring that learning is designed not only to increase understanding but also to support application, behavioural change, continuous improvement, and long-term impact.
By combining these models, we create learning experiences that are engaging, practical, learner-centred, and focused on developing both individual and collective capability across the Students' Associations opportunities.
Why we take this approach
At the Students' Association, we believe learning should be transformational rather than transactional. Providing information alone rarely changes behaviour, builds confidence, or develops capability. Our aim is to create learning experiences that enable individuals to understand concepts, apply them in meaningful ways, develop confidence through practice, and ultimately embed learning into their everyday actions.
We recognise that learning is a process rather than a single event. Whether someone is developing leadership capability, communication skills, decision-making confidence, collaboration, or professional practice, meaningful development occurs when knowledge is combined with experience, reflection, and application.
Our approach is therefore designed to help learners progress from simply knowing something, to confidently doing it, and eventually becoming role models who can adapt, influence, and support others. This creates sustainable individual growth while also strengthening the collective capability of the Students' Association community.
To achieve this, our learning design combines principles from the Four Stages of Competence model and Bloom’s Taxonomy, bringing them together through our learning journey of Know It, Experience It, and Live It.
Our Learning Journey
Know It
Build awareness and understanding.
Experience It
Develop confidence through application and practice.
Live It
Embed learning into behaviours, habits, and leadership practice.
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The Four Stages of Competence is a learning theory developed by Noel Burch at Gordon Training International. The model explains how individuals progress as they acquire and develop new skills.
1. Unconscious Incompetence
At this stage, individuals are unaware of what they do not know. There is limited awareness of a skill, behaviour, or area of knowledge and therefore little recognition of a development need.
2. Conscious Incompetence
Learners become aware of the skill or knowledge gap and recognise what they need to develop. Whilst confidence may initially decrease, awareness creates motivation to learn.
3. Conscious Competence
Individuals can perform the skill successfully but must do so deliberately and with concentration. Application requires practice, reflection, and effort.
4. Unconscious Competence
The skill becomes embedded and can be demonstrated consistently with confidence and adaptability. Behaviours become habits and learners can often support the development of others.
This model helps explain why learning cannot stop at awareness. Effective development requires learners to move through each stage of competence until knowledge can be applied naturally and effectively in practice.
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Learning has the greatest impact when it becomes part of how people think, act, and engage with others. The Live It stage focuses on sustained application, ownership, reflection, and continuous improvement.
This supports progression from Conscious Competence to Unconscious Competence. Learners move beyond simply performing a skill and begin integrating it into everyday practice.
Typical methods include:
- Reflective practice
- Action planning
- Coaching and mentoring
- Peer learning
- Continuous improvement projects
- Leadership and facilitation opportunities
Success at this stage is demonstrated through consistent behaviour, adaptability, increased confidence, and the ability to influence or support others.