Learning Future

How can I continue to forge my professional and academic development? How might I inquire (research) into my learning in an ongoing manner? How might my professional and academic development and practice be informed by my ongoing research? How do I respond to opportunities for inquiry (research)? How do I meet my own learning needs?

"Geez," I wonder silently, "who wrote these prompts?"

It is always instructive for me to participate in the responding...and this is really a good one for me to sit and think about. At the outset I want to say that one of these days I intend to pursue another degree, but I'm not clear on when that is going to be and not quite certain which degree it might be. Until then, however, there's much for me to do. One of the things I realized earlier this evening, as I was mentally preparing a response to this prompt, was the fact that when students are in the midst of their more concentrated learning periods, I'm in a low-learning cycle. When students are in their lower-learning cycles, I'm in a high learning cycle. That is to say, that during the regular school year, when students are packed up with classes, reading, and writing, I'm doing the least amount of reading and writing because my time is consumed with the business of teaching. On the other hand, during the summer when students typically take low class loads (or no class loads), I shift into high gear, doing massive amounts of reading and writing and learning. Now, don't get me wrong, I do some learning during the regular school year, but because my time is so limited, I have to be quite choosy about what I do...and generally what I do is become a researcher of my classes. I observe everything I can and make notes about what I observe. I think about those notes periodically, and try to do some writing about what is happening in my classes. Because of these cycles, I try to ensure that the learning I do in my high learning cycle is complementary to the work I do in my low learning cycles. Conversely, I want the work I do in my low learning cycles to contribute to the work I do in my high learning cycles. I think this relationship between my learning in both the high and low learning cycles defines how my practice is influenced by my research (my practice being that of teaching).

My own learning needs? I'm a bit selfish at times about it, especially during my high learning cycles. I work for hours on end sometimes to the exclusion of those little daily chores that somehow fall to me. But I know that I work better in a concentrated manner. I wish I wasn't that way, but it's the way I've worked for years and years and years. Attempts to change that working style have been unsuccessful if not downright disruptive. I love research and always respond positively to opportunities (do I respond to too many opportunities?). I tend to see questions in a variety of situations and stories, in fact, I tend to create questions as way for me to enter into thinking about something.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me, with each discussion prompt that I respond to that I am aboslutely, positively, 100% a geek.