A case for life-long learning
Whether you are 18 or 88, you will be facing changes in your everyday or working life that will require you to learn new things. Despite having copious amounts of information at our fingertips, assimilating knowledge that is meaningful and relevant is not always easy.
There are challenges to learning as adults. We have other demands on our time and we like to make sure that our time is well spent.
Theories of adult learning have been around since the 1980s with the theories of Knowles, who said that adults need to:
- Know why they are learning something
- Draw upon their own experiences
- Be responsible for their own learning
- Be able to apply learning
- Be motivated to learn.
Other theories have added to, or adapted, these core tenets of adult learning. Experiential learning is another theory that is applied to the development of many learning programmes. One famous exponent of experiential learning is David A Kolb who describes experiential learning as a cycle that includes experience and reflection. His original model is:
- Concrete experience
- Observation and reflection
- Formation of abstract concepts
- Testing in new situations.
We have developed our on-line offerings with this type of experiential learning in mind. You come to the learning environment with your concrete experience and a goal that motivates you to learn. We provide scenarios and ideas in the form of short video and text for you to read, giving you the opportunity to reflect on your own practice, either by completing exercises or casting your mind back to relevant situations. The process you will follow with our material will help you to develop concepts about how you might apply that learning to meet your own learning goal, you will then be encouraged test these concepts and ideas in your own workplace or life.
The completion of a quiz for each module provides evidence to others that you have completed and understood a particular programme of learning. A certificate is provided once you have all lesson quizzes complete.
The learning available on-line is wide and varied; from the plethora of websites that provide information through to more complex training modules or MOOCs. We have put together straightforward, cost effect learning modules that will provide learning about a specific topic.