We are all familiar with the new challenge facing high school and university students: what are future jobs? What specialisation will be in demand for the next couple of decades? What careers will disappear in the age of Artificial Intelligence?
Research suggests that many of the traditional jobs that continue to be popular today may not even exist in the next decade.
The speed at which businesses like travel agencies, photo studios, and even physical stores have decreased points to a rapidly changing business environment. It is not only those changes are happening in today’s world, but also that the rate at which these changes are happening is faster than at any other time in history.
This has implications for educational institutions and everybody involved in academics, including students, parents and instructors. If the content being studied today is going to become irrelevant by the time a student actually joins the workforce, what exactly should be taught? More importantly, how can we train students to keep up with their education long after they have left school and college?
Learning to learn is a concept that addresses these emerging concerns in education.
The European Parliament and Education Council defined the concept in 2006 as “gaining, processing and assimilating new knowledge and skill as well as seeking and making use of guidance. Learning to learn engages learners to build on prior learning and life experiences to use and apply knowledge and skills in a variety of contexts”.
There are a number of reasons why emerging educational curricula should focus on this strategy of teaching and learning: it focuses on learning styles rather than imposing one specific format, it allows learners to adjust their learning processes, and it also ensures sustainable learning that is in-tune with the times, thus ensuring productivity while ensuring mental health.
Acknowledging one’s learning style is important as it will impact future action. Whether one is a visual or auditory learner, or one who learns by doing, will determine future efficiency. It will help a person to understand and fine tune the best strategies of learning a new skill or content in their own, personalised manner.
Learning to learn in a metacognitive activity. It is not enough to know a content area. It is more important to reflect on the learning process – what a lesson meant, how it connects to prior knowledge, what was new, and how it can be localised in the learner’s own world.
Outside of schools, learning to learn requires self-awareness that schools should promote. This includes six important steps, according to researchers: find one’s unique interest, establish personalised learning strategies, exchange information with others with similar interests, apply new concepts and ideas to everyday activities, reflect on what was learnt and disseminate this information to the community.
Learning to Learn is another form of independent learning. While the latter can be done without training, the former is an acquired, lifelong skill that needs nurture and practice.
If the future unfolding before us is uncertain in terms of knowledge and career options, the only possible solution is to equip youngsters with the skills necessary to negotiate this new world. This does not mean that learning content is unnecessary as it may soon become redundant – it means that students should be made to reflect on how they are learning in addition to what they are leaning. This will increase their confidence in dealing with the challenges of the day after, whatever it may bring.
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