I’m almost finished the certificate program in Adult and Continuing Ed that I’ve been working on at the University of Alberta for the past 18 months. The last class is finished in December and commencement is in Spring of 2006. After this, I’m planning on moving on to the next degree.. Of late, I’ve begun to suffer from “self-directed learning-itis”. I know Knowles believed that most adult learners had a desire for a high degree of self-direction in their learning, but I’m not sure if I’m on the self-directed path due to this, or if it’s just that I can’t find a course that interests me or that I can afford to take.

I suspect it’s all due to a shortness of attention spans. As I’m moving through courses, I’m being briefly exposed to a term or concept that interests me more than the actual topic of the class. Ergo, I’m jumping into the internet, online journals, libraries, and breaking the bank purchasing books from Chapters and Amazon to explore these areas.

The downside of this is that I’m less interested in completing the work for my assigned classes than I am in exploring the work of others in the topics that have grabbed my attention. Since I’m almost finished the program, this isn’t such a big deal at the moment. I am worried that this may carry over to my next jaunt into the classroom – it’s a 3 year (3 semesters a year) program and I can’t afford to continue in this manner and expect to make the Dean’s list.

*ARGH* There’s just not enough time (and $$ for tuition) to do everything I want to do. Can someone spare a winning lottery ticket and rescue me from this horror?

Technorati Tags: continuing education, self directed learning

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