Thursday, February 3, 2011

Walking the Talk

There has been a lot of chatter on the Twitter about life-long learning and how we embody that as professionals and instill the same into our students. It is very easy to say you are a life-long learner and perhaps just as easy to extol the virtues of it to your students. However, I find when trying to instill new habits, a little bit of modeling can go a long way.

If you want your students to become life-long learners you need to not only talk about it - you need to demonstrate it. Start the class with a comment like "I just found this yesterday ..." or "I just learned about this and wanted to share it ...". Show students that knowledge is not something that can be amassed and then ignored.

So, to ensure that I walk my talk I have decided to add a weekly post summarizing the best design and coding resources I have stumbled upon during that week. I normally post them to my class wiki site however things have a way of becoming buried in there.

So what do you think? Is this an idea you could adapt to your classroom? How else can you show your students the benefits of life-long learning through not just your talk but also through your actions?

2 comments:

  1. I like this challenge. It is very easy for us to fall into the habit of "do as I say, not as I do". I invite my students to get involved in Twitter themselves, and I encourage them to read my blog posts which often reflect the things I learn through my Twitter PLN, of which you are a member. Good work on this post, sir.

    Sincerely,
    @nlogle

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  2. What a great idea. I do learn new things all the time, but do not always think to share that with my students. I will have to figure out the best way to be consistent about it.

    Thanks for sharing. :)

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