A4BairdCunninghamSmith

A4BairdCunninghamSmith

To Do

• please work as a group (minimum: 2 members; max: 6 members) and submit one answer as a group (clearly identifying the members of your group)
• read Fischer, G: "Lifelong Learning - More Than Training", Special Issue on Intelligent Systems/Tools In Training and Life-Long Learning (eds.: Riichiro Mizoguchi and Piet A.M. Kommers), Journal of Interactive Learning Research, Vol. 11, No 3/4, 2000, pp. 265-294. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/lll99.pdf
• reflect on the following statement about Lifelong Learning:
  • "If the world of working and living relies on collaboration, creativity, definition and framing of problems and if it requires dealing with uncertainty, change, and intelligence that is distributed across cultures, disciplines, and tools-then education should foster transdisciplinary competencies that prepare students for having meaningful and productive lives in such a world."
• in your statement, address the following issues:
  We are asking "YOU" questions - use this as an opportunity to discuss your individual experiences among the members of your group → you can answer individually or find the largest common denominator

Part 1

• do you agree with this statement?
• what does the statement mean for YOU?
• do you prepare yourself to be a lifelong learner? what are your most important activities you undertake?
• does your education at CU prepare you for being a lifelong learner?
  • which activities are most important for this objective?
  • which activities are "in the way" to achieve this objective?

Part 2:

• which support from Information and Communication technologies (or: which Digital and Social Systems) are most important for lifelong learning?
  • describe requirements for them
  • describe your personal experience with them

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Will Baird, Dara Cunningham, and Matt Smith

2. Statement Part1

Very nice work!

Part 1 - Dara

I agree with this statement. As someone with a Master's degree in adult education (Information and Learning Technologies) and having spent the past eight years teaching and managing in career education colleges (and the past 20+ years involved with career and corporate training), I know that the education world has not reached this ideal.

To me, this statement ties in to the type of education experience I try to offer my students every day. I have taught and developed online courses since 2000 and currently teach online classes for Kaplan University in their Web and Multimedia program. This is a program meant to prepare students for a career in Web and Multimedia. Part of my job is to offer a meaningful learning environment for adult learners. Adult learners need "just-in-time" education and they need it tailored to their experience and current learning requirements. Every class I teach, I ask try to act as a facilitator and allow the students to construct their learning based on interactions with other students, letting me know where they need additional assistance.

I am a lifelong learner. I have spent the past 13 years in school (with short breaks between degrees), getting my Bachelor's and Master's degrees (while working full-time). I am now working on my PhD. The transition from Master's degree to PhD program has been a difficult adjustment. My Master's degree was a lockstep program with a well-defined sequential set of classes and expectations. My PhD program is not particularly defined and there does not seem to be any clear set of expectations. I have learned to set my own agenda and to try to structure my learning around my research, regardless of the goals of the courses I take. I expect to be continuously learning even after I complete my PhD program.

My education at CU has prepared me to be a lifelong learner and continues to do so. I am currently in the process of trying to find work that more closely matches with my PhD research. In both my Bachelor's and Master's degree programs, I worked in the field I was studying. This allowed me to incorporate my course work into my career and vice versa, which made for a rich and meaningful learning environment. I am still in the profession my Master's degree prepared me for. This, to me, seems to be "in the way" of achieving an optimum learning environment as I move further into my PhD program. I am unable to apply my learning to the real world without that connection between work and school.

Part 1 - Matt

Ideally I agree with this statement, but I do not see the system adapting to the new type of learning in the very near future. I believe it will take time for society to adapt to the way of thinking about life-long learning. #bubblec("As a person I want to take classes in different disciplines to better prepare myself for different areas of life, but as a undergrad student I want to get my degree requirements and not spend time on extra things that will prolong my graduation by a year because of time and expenses.", "Good point. I am sure many students feel that way.")

To me this statement ties in the ideal state of learning I would like to achieve so I could learn about all the things hat interest me. I am very interested in other cultures as well as other disciplines, but it is hard for me to balance learning about the other areas I am curious about when I have so many requirements that I must fulfill.

I am trying to prepare myself as a lifelong learner while at CU and in life outside of school. At work I take eLearnings to better learn product knowledge as well as management skills and social skills. In school, I have joined in part of the disaster informatics lab which gives me hands on learning experiences with different projects as well as gives me a chance to be a part of a study of not only computers (which is my major) but also the social communities which have evolved from the use of the internet and how to study people in general as well as the human mind (which is my second major psychology).

So far at CU I have only taken a few courses that try to prepare me for life-long learning and the one that sticks out the most in my head is the ATLAS class. It is a much more open group environment and self-initialized learning with projects that are open to how they should be completed. It actually requires you to think, design, and do by yourself rather than do a set of math problems like in the math classes I have taken, where you may or may not grasp the concept behind the function but can still do it just by following certain steps. Honestly the only classes I see as "in the way" to achieve my goal as a life-long learner are the classes that are required that are not related to my majors, but still required in hopes of making students well rounded where I could be spending that time in a different subject area what is of more interest to me that I may benefit from later in life.

Part 1 - Will

I absolutely agree with this statement. Thomas Friedman presented a thorough analysis of this evolution of societal and economic trends in his book "The World is Flat". If a person is open to embracing this new paradigm of dynamic collaboration and learning then the near future is quite exciting. However persons that long for the static loyal company and employee relationships with be disappointed and threatened. Personally this statement embodies my quest for meaningful engagement and marketable skills. I don't believe that a #bubblec("college", "Do you mean the institution, the place, or college education?") directly correlates to prosperity and happiness. Therefore some persons would be better served to enter the marketplace to determine what competencies will prepare them for their individual manifestation of a meaningful life.

Thankfully I will find it natural to be a lifelong learner for two reasons. First I enjoy exploring new technologies and innovative prospectives. I am comfortable with changing my career. In fact I am preparing for my fourth post baccalaureate career change.

Because CU is an #bubblec("epicenter for research, collaboration, and repository for knowledge dissemination", "CU or universities in general?"); it is preparing students and community for lifelong learning. It is tricky to balance conveniences afforded by standardized degree requirements (accreditation) with the freedom to guide a students learning based on their individual interests and strengths. Additionally I am interested to observe the evolution of assessment in the information age.

3. Statement Part2

Part 2 - Dara

Instructor-led online learning seems to be the current best practice. I have extensive experience with developing, testing, facilitating, and administering computer based training, including self-paced (both online and offline), asynchronous facilitation (online), and synchronous facilitation (online and offline). In my experience, the best learning environment incorporates a combination of these information and communication technologies. Unlike other online colleges I've worked for, the Kaplan University online courses I teach combine self-paced online and offline learning each week, combined with asynchronous discussions that allow students to provide feedback to each other (including reviewing each other's assignments), synchronous seminars (I lecture and students contribute, ask questions, etc., in a real-time setting), and additional assistance via instant messenger. Kaplan is rated first in the U.S. for student satisfaction with online learning in a college setting.

Part 2 - Matt

I believe online learning systems and even things like google have become a big part of life-long learning. If you have something you don't know and would like to learn about I would say a majority of people would first turn to google for the answer. From there you can usually find information about how to do something or what things are about. The online courses allow people to take the courses either at their own pace or in a given time and also receive instructor feedback about items. The open lectures offered by MIT is also a good source for life-long learning but is not as good of a source as instructor led online courses because they lack feedback on mistakes or guidance through the subject area. As far as google I've used it a few times when i had a question to find the answer and even post to forums that i found on google about the subject to get feedback which has helped grow my knowledge of the subject.

Part 2 - Will

I believe data integration (limitless connections between data sources) will be vital to lifelong learning. This will mean entities cooperating and collaborating to connect their respective data in a manner that is seamless to the user. This can be as simple as hyper links. Technologies that consistently provide quality and engaging information will be most important to the lifelong learners. Sustaining the users enthusiasm will be vital to fully realizing the potential of the lifelong learner.