Unforgettable Education: Remember what you learned?
Unforgettable – it’s not a term you hear with any educational institution. You paid a significant amount of money, made considerable personal sacrifices, and spent a tremendous amount of time to obtain your educational degree(s). Sometimes, all that investment leads you to believe it was worth it in your mind. But was it really? Famous author and speaker, Sir Ken Robinson, illustrated a scary reality with many fundamental challenges occurring in education; one of them being that education kills creativity. When we look at the business world, some businesses are requiring more education; while others, like Global publishing group Penguin Random House, are dropping the requirement of a degree for hiring; but the message is the same – they want more from employees and they are not getting it. What is missing?
To have a full understanding of the value of education, it’s helpful to explore the historical journey of formal education. Before the industrial revolution, apprenticeship was the most common form of education. When the industrial revolution took hold with its massive need for labor on the assembly line, the formal educational system was born to create assembly-line workers who perform repetitive tasks. As we moved into the knowledge economy and the digital age, however, many systemic characteristics in our higher educational system remained stagnant.
Behaviorism is one characteristic that greatly limits one’s development as an intelligent innovator/leader. Within behaviorism, people are expected to change their visible behavior based on a given stimulus. Behaviorism does not consider the cognitive thought process that drives behaviors; therefore, if the desired changed behavior is accomplished, the educational goal is complete. In today’s higher education, the desired behavior is attending class, passing a test, and writing a good paper and countless universities still use grades as the major determinant of success. The is a limiting factor in learning and the comprehensive development of the human being is being ignored.
So ask yourself this –
- How much do I remember from what I learned in college/university?
Most people we surveyed around the world responded between 20-35%. This is a rather sad reality when you consider all the time you’ve spent in the classroom and studying outside of class. This is what we call – forgettable education.
- Can I practice what I learned effectively when needed?
In many instances, to apply something “learned” effectively, one must have the knowledge of the skill and have had ample practice time. If the recall is between 20-35%, how appalling is the ability to apply? In adult learning studies, most of our skills that attribute to success are NOT gained from formal education. This provides a clear rationale why business employers are wanting more from their employees, but not getting it. To be competitive in the global environment, employers want employees who are innovative.
Higher education stands in front of a major revolution. Whether it’s in the US, EU, Asia, Africa or anywhere in remote parts of the world, the system of education has some fundamental challenges – one of them is students being able to not forget what they supposed learned. While these are major systemic issues confronting universities, you do not have to be trapped in an old system designed to create laborers. Here are some strategies to empower you:
- Integration: the real world is very much integrated. When you’re learning topics like accounting, ask your professors to show a clear connection between accounting and other topics like marketing, human resource and operations. Integration in the real world happens with multiple subjects. These intricacies and dependencies among topics are crucial to making wise decisions. You need to see the interconnections among topics to lead effectively.
- Application: for you to remember information, you must apply it in a meaningful way. Doing case studies in itself is not necessarily meaningful. Find real world situations to apply on a personal level. This will greatly enhance your ability to remember and to develop your courage and creativity.
- Measurements: as you apply knowledge, measure the outcomes. These measurements help you determine the value of new information as you apply them in your life and creates an emotion that solidifies knowledge in your brain. It also helps you develop skills while creating a learning loop.
The above strategies take courage, conscious effort, and commitment. The value you get from any form of education is drastically increased when you apply these learning processes. This is just one of many systems necessary to create Unforgettable Education Model.
At Transcontinental Institute, we consciously redesigned higher education to include these processes. As you progress in our powerful integrated learning system, you will not only earn an accredited degree, you will evolve into a fully capable leader with courage and wisdom.