The Goal of Learning ?!

Jay Cross, writing in CLO Magazine writes:

"adapting to one’s surroundings is still the goal of learning"


or to add more context:

"Traditional learning is bursting at the seams because there is always more to learn and unlearn. The amount of knowledge in the world doubles every three years. New discoveries invalidate former truths.

What is learning when knowledge is liquid and any curriculum dies in infancy? We used to learn in order to get along in the environments we take part in. Familiarity with how things worked enabled us to adapt, and adapting to one’s surroundings is still the goal of learning"



thought-provoking stuff (as usual !)

Reflection - a vital part of learning ?!

A comment I posted on another blog recently generated a reaction to the passing mention of Kolb (which I was using to illustrate my view that blogging supports reflection, which in turn is a critical part of consolidating learning).
link to blog

[as an aside - I really like the concept that was generated in the comments of Blogging as 'Knowledge Fusion' ]


Hence .... from the book 'Informal Learning' by Jay Cross - I found this analogy relevant to the positioning of reflection in the learning process (or cycle):

'Reflection is a vital part of learning. Its like editing is to professional writing. If your writing is going to be the best that it can be, you must revisit your work to tighten up, squeeze out the awkward parts, fix the grammar, and otherwise polish it. If you want to retain and use what you learn, you must revisit it. .....'

page 106-107