Category Archives: learning

Learning Research II

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More questions . . .

  1. How do adults’ learning experiences influence their daily lives – relationships, work, play, etc.?
  2. When are we aware we’re no longer learning?  What does that feel like?
  3. When are we aware that we’re learning?  What that feel like?
  4. When do we seek out learning experiences?  What causes us to do so?
  5. When do we avoid learning experiences?  What causes us to do so?

Help me add to the list . . .

 

Learning Research

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I want to do some research on learning.  I’m particularly interested in questions that pertain to adults and learning.  For example, I’m curious about the following:

  1. How do adults define learning in relation to their lives?
  2. Are these definitions influenced by adults’ work and personal roles and lives?
  3. In what ways do adults continue to learn?
  4. How do they perceive learning?  In what instances do those perceptions vary, if at all?
  5. In what ways do they most like to learn?
  6. About what are they most eager to learn?
  7. Under what circumstances do they most like to learn (alone, with others, in school, out of school, etc.)?
  8. In what ways does race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation influence the nature of learning?  Do these categories factor in at all?

These are my initial questions.  What are some others I should add to the list?

Learning

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What’s better than learning?  I can’t think of many things.  Seems like the key thing is to be open to learning whether you’re in or out of school – open to everything from poor choices, to failure, to personal challenge.  Hard to do, though.

Hard to stay in the moment and be okay with the uncertainty that comes from the learning experience, isn’t it?  I’m wondering how you get yourself there – how I get myself there – more comfortably or how I get more comfortable with the challenge of being uncomfortable, something that typically happens when you’re learning.

Two learning experiences I’m trying to get comfortable with right now – the brain-contorting  challenge of trying to teach myself microeconomics; and the heartrending challenge of knowing my dad’s sick and that I can’t do anything about it.

Learning . . .

Learning & Leading

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An MIT Professor of International Management, Don Lessard, encouraged us this morning to set goals for ourselves in three areas for the coming year as Sloan Fellows:

  1. where we have gaps
  2. where we want to deepen our current knowledge and skills base
  3. where we want to explore

I think this is great advice throughout our careers as leaders whenever we have opportunities to learn.

The Power of Words

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Out of curiosity, I looked up the words “school” and “education.”  Strange.  In neither of those definitions did I find the words “learn,” or “learning.”  Should I be worried?  Should I blame dictionary.com?  I see a lot about instruction, training, pedagogy, but nothing on students or learning.  Isn’t that a problem?

Worse yet . . . doesn’t that get at why we can’t seem to make the shift into new ways of thinking about teaching and learning that impact all of our students and teachers?

Seems like we may be long overdue for some name changes.  Most schools still fall under the category of “organization” (that’s changing more and more, but bear with me for now . . . ).  Instead of “schools,” why not “learning organizations?”  Instead of “education,” why not “learning experience(s),” with educators as “learning collaborators” or “partners?”

I’m struck by the ways in which these old standbys, education and schools, speak to a time that needs to be long gone.  I wonder if all of the new learning possibilities will make these words irrelevant in my lifetime.

I hope so.