Life Long Learning

Picture taken from Flickr on 10/04/09 - sattchi gallery - young and old. Posted by vintagedept

While studying for my Bachelor of Teaching degree, I have come across the terminology lifelong learning (LLL) - as if it was something new! As if it was one of the concepts which came packaged up with the EL's, straight out of the constructivist theory.

Now that I have been learning for myself how to be a teacher and educational professional and observing what other do and have done so in the past (through many theory of learning transitions) many would argue that as a result of their pedagogy - this is what they do anyway...but is it? and is the question or direction really about expert teaching and developing expert practice which understands the theory of life long learning to it's deepest level.

I think life long learning, hinges on the educational professional valuing the concept of lifelong learning. While also understanding due to the very nature of the social environment of education/teaching, that they can and will, more than likely have an impact on the learners and that impact may go beyond the classroom and probably beyond the subject matter (lack of a better word). This may not necessarily be a good thing, especially if the experience was horrible (an experience on what not to do) none the less a valuable experience because you can learn from it...provided the learner can synthesise the experience, reflect and apply (So what could be said about resilience and reflection? maybe tackle this one and how it relates in another post.)

Ok now im confused! um I guess this means that understanding life long learning is not so simple and it actually combines the knowledge of brain development, how we learn (retain knowledge/apply knowledge and dare I say it meta-cognition), social construction, resilience, self concept, culture, environment and learned behaviours.

I smell a thesis coming on :D

P.S - To answer your week 1 question Peter - I learn best through visual and kinaesthetic. I understand diagrams and patters of data much more that when it is written in text format and I generally have to do it to understand it - to embed the learning I reflect and create strategies and to remember I make meaning of the information by linking the new knowledge to prior knowledge...just for your interest a lecturer at uni made us memorise a shopping list and we used a strategy similar to mnemonics...lets see if I can remember the 10 items on the grocery list.

1 - ?
2 - Blue - Potatoes
3 - Tree - Yoghurt
4 - Shore - Chocolate
5 - Hive - Mangos
6 - Bricks - Beer
7 - Heaven -Pastries
8 - Plate - ?
9 - Wine - magazines
10 - ?

7/10 - this shopping list was memorised in 10 minutes, using a memory strategy, five (5) years ago when I was at UNI!

We started by tagging rhyme words to each number, then visualised the item. E.G

4 - Shore - I pictured pieces of chocolate, like sea shells scattered on the sand on a beach