Ruminations on Continuing Education

Some people think that good ideas just pop into my head. I'm here to say that this is a fallacy: good ideas come to you with hard work, and there are ways for you to build your own ideas. My recommendation is continuing education. I have just finished my graduate certificate in Distance Learning and Administration through the university that I work for, East Carolina University. I was previously the Instructional Design Librarian and this was a related certificate that I could take in order to beef up my theoretical knowledge on the instructional concepts that I was applying already in my work on library tutorials. To make the deal even sweeter, my work pays for 2-3 free classes a year, so no student debt! I have enjoyed the classes for a number of reasons, including the fact that they required writing projects.

Wait, what?

You may be thinking that I have started drinking at my post, Dear Reader, or you may be thinking, "she is just one of those people who loves to write." True that may be, but an unintended positive outcome of taking classes has been that I have had to write annotated bibliographies and papers that have led to concrete, developed ideas for scholarly writing projects and presentations. By studying the concepts of distance education, instructional design, and assessment and then applying these concepts to my experience in libraries, I have had to think intentionally about my own practice of librarianship in a way that I am not sure if I would have made time for otherwise. Even writing discussion forum posts on certain topics have led to some Aha! moments. Having these guided writing projects have forced me to stretch myself, gain new knowledge, and do the research for potential future projects.

Photo Credit: Tsahi Levent-Levi

This is not the first time that I have taken advantage of workplace-sponsored education. I also learned how to speak Spanish when I worked at Sony Creative Software. At Sony, you had to pay out of pocket for classes and then you were paid back based on a percentage that corresponded to your grade. For instance, getting an A led to 100% payback, a B was 80%, and so on. But what should you do if your institution does not offer a free education? I have a suggestion for how to make this work in your favor without paying a dime.

Create an annual SMART goal for yourself that includes self-learning. I do this with the product Lynda.com, which is a tutorial video database to which the university subscribes. You can also do this with webinars or other free tutorial videos. Do some research before you get started and identify information that you want to learn about or skills you wish to hone. Do you want to learn to use Adobe Illustrator? Do you want to master assessment skills? Are you a new manager? There are many webinars, YouTube tutorials, MOOCs, and other learning opportunities out there. Plan out your own syllabus. Plan in time for yourself to write reflectively about each step of the process. If you are able to and your manager approves, do it on work time, because this is important work-related stuff.

Here is an example of my self-learning goal for 2016:

·         Using the product Lynda.com, complete 100% of the courses “Project Management Fundamentals” (2 hours, 7 minutes) and “Foundations of Graphic Design History” (2 hours, 16 minutes) by December 15, 2016. Continue to watch “Weekly Management Tips” video once per week by December 31, 2016. Report on progress in personal monthly report.

As it stands, my goal does not include reflection. As I am writing this post, I just had another Aha! moment: I think I should amend it to include a reflection piece. If your institution does not have Lynda.com, consider looking at your State Library or through your state's Library Association for free webinars. Many times, the webinars can be viewed after the fact, or the slides are archived. The North Carolina State Library has a listing of free webinars that you can view here.

Good luck, and keep learning!