Foundations and Assessment of Education/Edition 1/Foundations Table of Contents/Chapter 10/10.7.2

Life Long Learning

Heather Campbell

Continuing Educating Educators to Educate Better

Learning Targets and Goals

Through reading this article, the student or teacher should be able to :

• identify and define life long learning,
• identify the importance of life long learning,
• identify and locate opportunities offered in life long learning.

Defining Life Long Learning

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. ~Henry L. Doherty.

Attending a seminar, taking a night class, and passing a test are all ways that people easily identify as lifelong learning. Lifelong learning is more than just attending organized seminars and classes, it's taking opportunities to enrich life and increase knowledge daily. The definitions of lifelong learning vary a bit depending upon who is asked to define it.

In Philosophical Perspectives on Lifelong Learning, lifelong learning is described as a slippery word being compared to terms such as 'democracy' and 'religion' and having no true way to quantify it. Overall the idea agreed upon is continual education starting directly after being slapped by a doctor and continuing until six feet under, with a strong focus on the times after leaving the structured school environment. (Aspin, 2007)

'Lifelong learning is a continuous engagement in acquiring and applying knowledge and skills in the context of authentic, self-directed problems.' (Fischer, 1996)

Life long learning is something that educators and students may achieve alike. Life long learning is a way for teachers to enrich their lives and their classrooms. By planting the seeds of a love of learning, teachers are able to encourage students to continue searching for knowledge through their lives.

Impacts and Importance

Importance

Teaching today is a constantly changing and increasingly more important role in students' lives. An article in Science Daily, looking at new science teachers explains how more and more teachers are being placed into classrooms feeling overwhelmed and undertrained. A suggestion that is made is to pair new teachers with retired teachers to help further their learning and mentor them in the classroom (GMU, 2008). Having a mentor helping the teacher is a way to continue that instructor's education while active in the classroom environment. The mentor helps the new teacher teach by sharing their experiences and it will show in how the students learn.

The traditional teaching of books, chalk and blackboards are still present in the education; however, there are many new things that are now involved in the classroom environment.

'A global economy hungry for customized, portable and on-demand educational platforms coupled with the Internet’s rise to dominance as the ubiquitous medium of information delivery means that e-learning is increasingly gaining respect as an innovative and viable pedagogical tool, especially for subjects that require multimedia, collaboration tools (wikis, blogs and course-management systems, for example), and other bandwidth-hungry applications prevalent today'(University of Illonois, 2008).

Knapper also touched on that topic of how many of the developed nations are using technology to learn and share information. Going so far as to suggest that if students are unable to navigate the technology they will be incapable of continuing their education in the real world. A large part of today's work force requires using the newer technology.(Knapper, Cropley, 2000)

Impact

Teachers continuing their education can have an impact on students' education as they learn to use technology in the classrooms and learn more on the subject that will be reflected in how students learn to face the new education age and continue their learning. It is impossible for a teacher who does not know how to use technology to teach it. Science Daily pointed out that with today's decreasing economy and more accessible e-learning many of the businesses today are using internet classes. (ICWE, 2009) Face to Face teaching uses a lot of time and money as well as limiting a class size, where as a broadcasted e-class can reach hundreds of employees with no need to pay travel or boarding costs, while being viewed on the students schedule. In today's internet phase of daily needs for new information in some fields students need to be better prepared to surf the net, find credible sources and use technology. Just the students need to learn so do the educators to help facilitate.

Flipping through the pages of a dusty old book, feeling the corse pages turn in your hands is still a valuable way to learn. Technology is not the only way to continue to learn through out life and by instilling a love of reading into students when they are not surfing the internet for ideas they can be curled up with a good book that might teach them a thing or two not only about facts and figures but also about social and culture factors in the world around them. By promoting reading of books instead of passages with questions after them students will be more apt to continue to read later in life, reading is an adventure and after you've taken a few it draws you back for more.

Today's Opportunities

In today's day and age there are countless possibilities to further learning. There are structured classes offered at almost every university, as well as seminars and conventions. Almost any subject possible to think about you can find a place on the internet to take a class on or listen to a speech on in a hundred different languages. Type "lifelong learning" into google and you get over a thousand pages most of them places of higher education. There are also thousands of physical and online libraries that almost anyone can access for free or next to nothing. There are also a highly overlooked daily ways to learn. Local, state, and national parks, zoos and museums are all ways to find more information most fairly inexpensive but full of information. There are cooking exposes, college plays, high school concerts everywhere there are opportunities for further learning one only needs to look and search. Teachers have a responsibility not only to learn for themselves to better their teaching but also to help foster and teach their students so they too can continue to learn through life. It's important to remember as well that many of the newer students will be better educated on computers and there is no shame in using students as a resource as well.

• The picture above is of a hippopotamus. I'd never seen one in real life before last week when I visited the National Zoo, somewhere I've been many times in my life, but those things are huge. I know the stats and I've seen the nature shows but to be not ten feet away from the thing it just awed and amazed me and now I really know and can explain something I've known for years that a hippo really could crush my little Accord with ease. Visiting the zoo is just one way of practicing lifelong learning with out having to attend a class.

Below is a box with just a few websites that are examples of ways to further learning.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/15-steps-to-cultivate-lifelong-learning.html http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/PPI/HOPE/index.html http://www.museumca.org/usa/ http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm

Soap Box

The proverbial soap box

Almost every student has encountered that class where he or she has no idea why he or she are spending his or her precious time learning about rocket science calculus, when he or she wants to be a rock star singer. Likewise almost every teacher has had that student who asked 'Why?', where the teacher could up with no answer, besides 'I had to endure the same kinds of classes during my education'. Mine was history, and I spent most of my early years excelling in history but never understanding why it should mean anything to me. I had absolutely no idea why dead people should be important. They are now dead and gone how can they impact me? I had a teacher in middle school who didn't make us memorize the dates of when things happened as long as we could put them in order and locate them in the right century. It boggled my mind that she was less concerned about the numbers and more concerned about us learning why history was important and how it can affect our lives. I'm a naturally curious kid but if I don't see a need in the subject than it's hard to be curious about it. Her vast knowledge and love of the discipline pored into her teaching and then into us. I developed a love in learning about history, seeing how a choice of one or a few people can affect everyone underneath them.

I am a firm believer that a vast majority of knowledge and wisdom we hold comes from living life, exploring our world and asking WHY a lot, and to the right people.

The bow

• Life long learning is continuing to learn after the cap has been thrown and the yearbooks go dusty. It encompasses taking classes, reading books and in general living life.
• Life long learning is important to educators to help better teach their subjects, for students as continuing education is required in almost any career, and for both to be able to navigate in the java script world of today. Life long learning can impact how teachers teach and students learn.
• Life long learning opportunities are all around us and by simple use of the internet it is possible to find almost any subject, genre, or idea and where and how to learn more about it.

Sample questions

1. The continual acquiring and applying knowledge in life situations can be defined as

• a. cyclical learning.
• b. life long learning.
• c. common sense.
• d. beringer's learning philosophy.

2. Our current economic crisis is leading more businesses to focus education through

• a. electronic means.
• b. federal grants.
• c. personal mentorship.
• d. self help seminars.

3. Janet has worked for a company for twenty years as a secretary and finds it very difficult to navigate the new online scheduling system she is so frustrated at times she thinks she should just quite and let someone younger taker her place who knows more about computers. What is Janet's best option.

• a. Quit the job you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
• b. File a complaint that the new scheduling program is biased against older users.
• c. Ask her son to give her a quick lesson on computers.
• d. Bang her keyboard against a wall.

4. Marcus has wanted to be a teacher his whole life and has worked hard to get his degree in English so he can teach the great bard's work. He applies for jobs in his area and finds there is little need for English teachers, he loves the area and has lived her his whole life. One school is willing to give him a job teaching one English class but only if he will teach two public speaking classes as well. What option should Marcus take?

• a. Don't take the job if he is not qualified to teach public speaking that is an outrage.
• b. Don't take the job he can move to find somewhere that will let him teach what he wants.
• c. Take the job how hard can public speaking be, and he'll have a book.
• d. Take the job but over the summer take a course in public speaking while reading a few books on rhetoric.

Answers

Knowledge

• 1. B
• 2. A

Application

• 3. C asking someone who is well informed on the subject is continuing life long learning
• 4. D teachers have a responsibility to know their subject and try to learn as much as possible on them

References

Aspin, David (2007). Philosophical Perspectives on Lifelong Learning . New York, NY: Springer.

Fischer, Gerhard (1996). Making learning part of life. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from Center for Life Long Learning and Design Web site: http://www.ask.com/barq=Philosophy+of+Long+Life+Learning&page=1&qsrc=6&zoom=Branches+of+%3CKW%3EPhilosophy%3C%2FKW%3E%7C%3CKW%3EPhilosophy%3C%2FKW%3E+Topics%7C%3CKW%3EPhilosophy%3C%2FKW%3E+Dictionary&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fl3d.cs.colorado.edu%2Fphilosophy.html

George Mason University (2008, September 9). Researcher Identify Best Strategies for Supporting New Science Teachers. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080909142318.htm

ICWE Internation Conferences, Workshops and Exhibitions (2008, November 0). Economic Crisis Boosts E-Learning. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081120073128.htm

Knapper, C., & Cropley, A.J. (2000). Lifelong learning in higher education.New York: Routledge.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008, December 9). E-learning Can Have Positive Effect On Classroom Learning, Scholar Says. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/12/081209221713.htm

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