
What is it? Lifelong learning is the educational path that every one of us individually and voluntarily decides to pursue “in order to broaden our knowledge and develop our own personal, civic, social, and employability skills” Lifelong learning is a comprehensive term that refers to our formal classes at schools and training centers, as well as to the informal kind of learning that takes place among colleagues and coworkers, and also to everything we learn as a result of interacting with our social circle.
Why is it important? By creating a continuing learning culture, people begin to lead their own way, thus becoming agents of change. Especially in contexts marked by uncertainty such as the current Covid-19 emergency situation, the gap between individuals is larger. In the face of the lack of equal opportunities, as well as the uneven access to devices and to connectivity, inequality has become quite visible in terms of the development of skills related to personal efficiency, our own time management, and the concept of “learning to learn.”
What can we do? Fortunately, it is possible to train these abilities to optimize our ongoing learning, which begins in childhood and youth, and continues all along our adult life and senior years. According to OECD, in order to develop a continuing learning mindset, it is necessary to “train” skills such as reading, the motivation to accomplish goals and tasks, and those related to personal efficiency.
Tips to develop continuing learning skills
Reinventing yourself by experimenting and becoming a learner once and over again.
Being aware of what we need in order to manage our own learning processes and needs.
Being curious, exploring, doing research, thinking reflecting, analyzing. It’s all about keep learning all through our lives (for example, about a new app, a new programming language, etc.)
Identifying learning opportunities and overcoming the obstacles we might encounter in order to keep on learning.
Learning to do new or various things, or doing the same things but differently
Building on top of our gained knowledge and past experience to acquire new skills, more and more efficiently.
Exploring different contexts, cultures, abilities, education channels, etc.
Now that you have begun exploring the world of continuous learning, how would you implement it in your work team? Do you think organizations usually foster this kind of learning culture?
Tell us your experience!