Rough Draft Of Self Education

Before reading Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education by Matthew Sanders, I saw my personal role as a student in higher education to obtain an education degree so that I can start my career. I was frustrated with all the time and money that I had to take this summer semester to relearn unneeded formulas in Beginning Algebra, write numerous unnecessary essays in English Composition and memorize useless information in General Psychology as they are required core classes in the Education Assistant Program. I just wanted to be able to get into the classes that really mattered. Classes with interesting titles like: Individual Education Programs, Effective Teaching, Develop & Adapt the Curriculum, Behavioral Intervention & Classroom and similar ones that will prepare me to do my job as a teacher's assistant upon graduation.

Aristotle said, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” What does it really mean to be educated? Many people thought that they knew what education meant, even I felt confident in myself to define education. However, the ideas discussed in class really made me question my definition of education. My definition has changed within the past few weeks as I discovered more about education. I am here to present my definition of education; with the lack of resources, one can still become educated by learning the unknown and putting your knowledge to good use.

Continual Self-Development is the approach where an individual takes prime responsibility and ownership for their own learning and development. This approach requires motivation and commitment in order to exploit learning opportunities and minimise the impact of weakness. A continuing self-development should be undertaken in partnership with the organisation and self-development should enhance the role held within the organisation. There are many benefits to be derived from continual self-development: improve performance and self-confidence; identify and develop specific skills and qualities; increase learning capacity; help achieve potential.

One of the most powerful excerpts I read from The Self and Education section was “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato. This excerpt defines the process every human being goes through when they become educated. The process is not easy or fun at times, but in the end it is worth it. Plato uses an allegory of people in a cave to explain how a person becomes educated. He starts off describing people chained in a dark cave, prisoners, in front of them they see

• Reflect upon the role of learning and its importance to your personal growth and development.

Learning is an ongoing process; it starts at birth and continues till ones death. New life experiences aid the learning process. Individuals learn something new almost every single day and therefore learning is on of the most essential and important processes. Learning involves acquiring and modifying knowledge, skills, strategies, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors (Schunk, 1996). Learning takes place in many forms, such as cognitive, linguistic, motor and social skills as well. It is a basic concept that must be learnt by every individual in order to be able to function daily.

Teaching and Learning consists of various different theories that educators may or may not feel applicable to their individual philosophy. There are bits and pieces of a variety of theories that many educators feel are important in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to explain the personal learning theory and how it is applied in a classroom. After an educator takes the time to research and do further learning by reading a variety of written books, the educator may or maynot change things in the classroom or focus on a different topic that they had not previously focused on in the past.

I want to gain knowledge from academics, life, and personal assessment. Therefore, I must understand the materials to be studied, different circumstances in life, and can learn from my achievements and mistakes. Understanding is only one part of the process, remembering and utilizing my strengths will help to reinforce my learning goals.

On the other hand, Printich (2000) integrated motivational constructs and developed a general framework of self-regulated learning. There were four phases to this framework, forethought, monitoring, control and reflection phase. Under each of the phases, different self-regulatory activities from contextual, behavioral, motivational, affective and cognitive areas were listed. Boekearts (1997), described self-regulation as the parallel process of purposeful action used by students to meet their two priorities, growth goals and emotional wellbeing goals (Boekearts & Corno, 2005; Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2010). Finally, Zimmerman (1989), described self-regulated learning through the lens of Bandura socio-cognitive theory. Zimmerman (2002) described self-regulated learning as a cyclic process which consists of three phases: forethought, performance, and reflection. For the purpose of this paper, the focus is on examining forethought process of self-regulated learning described by Zimmerman

In order to gain knowledge, one must study him or herself. By learning about oneself, one ultimately learns about others and the world around him or her.

At the same time in order for the learning to be effective it needs to engage with the goals of the individual learner in terms of personal development or career development.

As we discussed in class, motivation plays an intrinsic role in creating successful self-directed learning. Those who practice this form of learning, in various ways, are driven by personal or external incentives, such as the desire to learn something, or simply for curiosity 's sake, self-esteem and self-efficiency. Because of this self-directed learners are known to take initiative, view issues as challenges to overcome, become confident, have a desire to evolve, and appreciate and seek out learning opportunities (Taylor, 1995).

"Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century." (Alfred Perlman). As he said, there is no doubt that learning is a very important skill especially in modern society because of the knowledge explosion and rapid developing of information technology. However, there are different results with different learning methods. Good learning method can lead to success easier, on the contrary, poor learning method means wasting time and energy. Therefor, self-regulated learning is presented by numerous eminent scholars as a excellent learning method. "Self-regulated learning is not a mental ability or an academic performance skill; rather it is the self-directive process by which learners

Many learning theories can be used to motivate learning and improve people’s ability, knowledge, skills, and many other important factors. Social learning theory and Goal setting I consider very important. Social learning theory emphasizes that people learn by observing others, like role models who are credible and knowledgeable. The doctrine recognizes that behavior that is reinforced or rewarded tends to be repeated. For example, employees can learn new skills or adapt different behavior from experiencing the consequences of using a practice or professional qualifications. They also can observe others and identify the consequences of their actions. During the process of social learning theory attention, retention, motor production, motivational processes, and matching model performances represent essential elements. This theory recognizes that behavior that is reinforced or rewarded tends to be repeated. People can learn by observing others and seeing the consequence of their actions. For example, when I lived in Japan, I couldn’t speak the language and learned through observation of other people. You learn with no additional performance by using cognitive process and modeling. Self-regulation techniques are a great tool that people can use to improve their abilities. In fact, by observing other employees’ performance, some individuals can increase appropriate behavior and decrease the inappropriate one. For example, people can use logical verification and observation of

We all learn differently through out life. People learn different things in life then other. Sometimes we learn the same things just different ways. We learn though school. We learn from work. We learn by just reading things. We learn by the elders in our families. We all learn every day weather we know it or not. Some of us just learn by doing things, while others are self-directed learners. We are actively participating in the life we live and learning. As an adult you become more of a life long learner when you decide to go back to school. The government uses the word "holistic" approach to describe skill we need to learn in each of our own working life. Well to me its just a normal everyday thing to learn. We never stop learning no matter what we do. We always learn things by just being alive. So we will always be life long learners in this world till the day we