Saturday, August 22, 2015

How Do You Continue Learning?

Today's learning landscape is vastly different than learning landscapes of the past. The choices for learning are almost limitless, and the key is to identify where you're at on your professional learning curve, the questions you'd like to learn about, and the venues that help you learn the most.

As an adjunct professor at a local university this year, I'll prompt students to think about their lifelong learning habits and practice. We'll brainstorm a large list of ways to learn and discuss our learning experiences.

Then for one assignment students will be asked to engage in a lifelong learning endeavor from the following list:
  • Book Study*
  • Attend an online or real time conference, reflect in writing, and share. 
  • Attend an edcamp, reflect in writing, and share.
  • Engage in three or more Twitter Chats
  • Research a question using education journals, books, and articles.
  • Identify and follow three top education blogs and reflect upon the learning.
  • Children's book survey
  • Create and present a learning video
  • Join a professional organization, research their resources, and create an advertisement for the organization to share with classmates.
  • Study an educational resource online or off with depth. Introduce this resource to classmates in writing and with a hands-on activity. 
  • Design a personal learning project and complete
Students will complete their projects in the first part of the semester and then share those projects with the class.

It's important that we introduce teacher candidates to the many ways available to stay current with educational thought, research, and practice. 

What would you add to this lifelong learning list?  What are your preferred paths to keeping current with regard to the world of teaching and learning?

*For the book study, I'm going to list the books that I've read which have been most influential in my teaching and learning. Some of the books included will be:
This is Not a Test by Vilson +Jose Vilson 
Thrive by Rami +Meenoo Rami 
Visible Learning for Teachers by 
Intentional Interruption by Katz and Dack
Outliers by Gladwell 
Drive by Pink 
Brain Rules by Medina
Mindset by Dweck 
Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury
Guided Math in Action by Newton 
Why Don't Students Like School by Willingham
Teaching Children to Care by Charney