Last week, I started the Quest. The Quest for the School Library Media Endorsement. I have embarked on a difficult journey, but the reward in the end will be worth its weight in gold.
To start out this Quest, I viewed a slide show by Lori Reed called Seven and ½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners.
The Seven and 1/2 Habits are listed as follows:
1. Begin with the end in mind.
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.
3. View problems as challenges.
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.
5. Create your own learning toolbox.
6. Use technology to your advantage.
7. Teach/mentor others.
1/2 Play!
After looking and thinking about these habits, I have decide that some of them do come to me naturally, but I can improve in all of these areas. I think that habits #2 and #4 are the easiest for me. I have accepted responsibility for my own learning in that I am paying my own way through school, and I want to continue to learn new things. I also have confidence in myself as a competent and effective learner. I feel very lucky to have this habit come naturally to me. I know that I can learn anything that I want to, as long as I put forth enough effort to do so.
Habits #1, #5, #7, and #7 1/2 have become habits over time, but could still use some improvement and experience. I try to start my goals with the end in mind, so that I know where I want to take my learning experience. Sometimes I get excited though, and dive into the work without thinking about where I want to end up. I have created a learning toolbox as I have continued to go to school. Nevertheless, I think more tools can always be added to the toolbox, and I don't think that I have discovered all the right tools just yet. I have taught and mentored other people in the things that I know how to do well; however, I think I need some more practice in this area, especially if I want to become a teacher. Lastly, I love to play, but I often have a difficult time finding a happy medium. I normally study more than I play.
I think that I need to work on habits #3 and #6 the most. I view problems as problems. I view challenges as challenges. They are not necessarily the same thing to me. Yet, I do think that problems can be challenging to overcome. I guess I just need to work on combining the two concepts together. Using technology to my advantage is a habit that I hope to start forming in this class, and to add to my toolbox. When researching, I feel much more comfortable with an encyclopedia in my hand than a computer mouse. I hope that I can learn to find good resources on the Internet during this class.
14 years ago
