Bad Habits of LifeLong Learning
The other day I stumbled onto the PLCM's Learning 2.0 "23 things" course and clipped it into my Google Notebook. Today I returned to see what I could learn from the 23 online lessons designed to introduce librarians to new web technologies for collaborative learning and work. Creating this blog is "thing" #3 out of 23. Thing #2 was listening to a slideshow about lifelong learning called 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners . The first habit was:
"Begin with the end in mind: GOALS"
Geez, now that's a habit I'm pretty good at when I want to be, at least in my head, but if I followed it all the time I probably would never have found the Learning 2.0 website in the first place. It may be "effective" but I doubt it has much to do with making anyone a *lifelong* learner. Seems like just the opposite might be true. When I think about my own learning habits, I'm reminded of Gene's post How Mack Ended Up in Skinny Jeans (aka Gene's post about Mack's post about Jill's post about Steve's post about Stephanie's post--or something like that!).
The goal oriented stuff sounds like descriptions of "adult learners" that college faculty have been taught to take into account, but not without some concern that it might achieve "effectiveness" at the cost of depth and breadth of exploration, and instrumentality at the cost of genuine love of learning. Lifelong learners obviously keep on learning throughout adulthood, but are adult learners, by definition, lifelong learners? I dunno. I'm thinking of a guy I know who was picking up trash on the UIC campus one day and settling into his own faculty office at Harold Washington College the next--he's my archetype for both the "adult learner" and the "lifelong learner"--and I think I'll ask him what he thinks of "begining with the end in mind."
"Begin with the end in mind: GOALS"
Geez, now that's a habit I'm pretty good at when I want to be, at least in my head, but if I followed it all the time I probably would never have found the Learning 2.0 website in the first place. It may be "effective" but I doubt it has much to do with making anyone a *lifelong* learner. Seems like just the opposite might be true. When I think about my own learning habits, I'm reminded of Gene's post How Mack Ended Up in Skinny Jeans (aka Gene's post about Mack's post about Jill's post about Steve's post about Stephanie's post--or something like that!).
The goal oriented stuff sounds like descriptions of "adult learners" that college faculty have been taught to take into account, but not without some concern that it might achieve "effectiveness" at the cost of depth and breadth of exploration, and instrumentality at the cost of genuine love of learning. Lifelong learners obviously keep on learning throughout adulthood, but are adult learners, by definition, lifelong learners? I dunno. I'm thinking of a guy I know who was picking up trash on the UIC campus one day and settling into his own faculty office at Harold Washington College the next--he's my archetype for both the "adult learner" and the "lifelong learner"--and I think I'll ask him what he thinks of "begining with the end in mind."
posted by Charlotte at 2:09 PM
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