The Australian Library and Information Association, states that all library and information science (LIS) professionals “have a personal responsibility to commit to professional development and career-long learning” (Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) 2019, para, 4 as cited in Stephens et al., 2021). As a future librarian, learning experiences will be a lifelong mission and an integral part of my job. Understanding how people learn will be essential to my day-to-day tasks, and this understanding begins with me and how I learn. Afterall, understanding how others learn is something that I must learn. I am calling this process meta-learning, as it involves learning about learning or learning how to learn. I look forward to mapping out a professional learning experience (PLE) for this discussion at the Hyperlinked Library.
For this professional learning experience, I am going to start by discussing the 3 learning personas identified in Stephens et al 2021 research article, The Strategic, Curious & Skeptical Learner: Australian Public Librarians and Professional Learning Experiences. The strategic learner is proactive, searching for learning opportunities to meet goals, the curious ad hoc learner has a natural thirst for knowledge, often preferring to independently research, read and reflect alone before engaging in discussion and the skeptical learner will put the learning experience to the test with a certain degree of doubt to ensure it meets learning needs (Stephens et al., 2021). While I can see all three of these learning personas within myself, I believe that my baseline persona is probably the curious persona. I prefer to start my learning explorations with dependent reading, often first checking social media or the internet to lead me to other sources such as books. Once I become more certain of my passion for a particular topic, I will sometimes adopt a strategic learning style and be more motivated towards proactive goals and networking. Skepticism will come into play for me later as I start to discern my experiences. In this way I can understand that others may also change their learning personas depending on what their current situation is, but perhaps some people stay consistently in one learning persona. As a library and information science professional, it will be helpful to observe learning behavior in order to identify the person’s learning persona and help guide them to their most optimal learning experiences. In the case of a learning community, it is important to consider the presence of all three learning personas in order to guide the individuals as well as the interactions between the individuals in the group.
References:
Michael Stephens, Helen Partridge, Kate Davis & Margaret Snyder (2021): The Strategic, Curious & Skeptical Learner: Australian Public Librarians and Professional Learning Experiences, Public Library Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/01616846.2021.1893114