The Learning Way

Lifelong learning requires the ability to learn from life experiences. This chapter describes the theory of experiential learning, whereby knowledge is generated from experience through a cycle of learning driven by the resolution of dual dialectics of action/reflection and experience/abstraction. The chapter provides an overview of stylistic preferences that arise from patterns of choosing among these modes of learning, as well as the spaces in which learning occurs. Movement through these modes and spaces links one experience to the next, creating a learning spiral that guides growth and development through a lifetime. Lifelong learning is also shaped by an individual’s learning identity, the extent to which one believes he or she can learn, and learning relationships, connections that promote movement through the learning spiral. Strategies for enhancing the learning process are provided for each of these topics.

Adult Attachment for Reconstructing Adolescents’ Learning Identity and Awareness

This study explored how adolescents reconstructed their roles as learners through learning identity and awareness by adult involvement in Sukma Bangsa Pidie (SBP) School. In order to monitor students’ attitudes and learning aspects’ progress, this research employed several observations and interviews (groups and individuals) either by videotaping or voice recording, also students’ database records from school information system (called SISTO). The previous findings advocated that there were variations in the way adolescents performed their learning identity that might encourage them to achieve different degrees of motivation, self-perceptions (self-efficacy, self-concept, and self-esteem), autonomy, and self-development towards their identity as learners. In the other study, the authors also found that students in SBP School were in various categories regarding their levels of learning awareness. It was exhibited by how students dealt with their own learning approaches and how high their existing willingness to learn was. The different levels of learning awareness were survival, establishing stability, approval, and loving to learn. Both learner identity and learner awareness level were almost similar in the way that adolescents experienced. As argued by previous well-known researchers, the child would grow as a good learner with positive improvement of self-concept and self-esteem. Also, the formation of positive self-esteem in adolescence became a bridge towards their success as demanding learners. Furthermore, adult (in this case teachers and parents) involvement with adolescents’ learning approaches may embolden the learners to become less or more autonomous people. Positive adult attachment therefore is pivotal to moderate students who have either low willingness to study or low self-conception. This study ultimately confirmed that there was a reciprocal relationship between learner identity (motivation, self-perceptions, autonomy, self-development) and learner awareness (survival, establishing stability, approval, loving to learn), then further will support the integrated effects on learner autonomy.

Learning Identity, Flexibility, and Lifelong Experiential Learning

The world is changing faster than ever before. Recent advances in technology are constantly making old knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) obsolete while also creating new KSAs and increasing the demand for jobs that have never existed before. These advances place tremendous pressure on people to learn, adapt, and innovate in order to keep up with these changes. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) has been widely and effectively applied in various settings in the last four decades. This theory posits that learning is a proactive process, coming from the holistic integration of all learning modes in the human being: experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Learners must own and drive this process, because ownership of their own experiential learning process empowers learners to do far more than an external person—whether a parent, a teacher, or a friend—can accomplish. More than just a way to learn, experiential learning is a way of being and living that permeates all aspects of a person’s life. Given the demands of the fast-changing world we live in, what do individuals need to do to make sure they stay ahead of the change curve, remain fit with the changing environment, survive, and thrive? At the individual level, a number of important competencies need to be developed, including learning identity and learning flexibility. At the system level, learning and education as a whole must be treated differently. Education should be an abductive process in which learners are taught to ask different types of questions and then connect new knowledge with their own personal experiences. The outcome of education, likewise, should be adaptive and developmental. Instead of promoting global learning outcomes that every student needs to achieve, educators need to hold each student individually responsible for incrementally knowing more than he or she previously knew, and teach students not only how to answer questions but also how to ask good questions to extract knowledge from future unknown circumstances. Helping students foster a learning identity and become lifelong learners are among the most important tasks of educators in today’s fast-changing world.