Designing & Implementing Personal Learning Projects

Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash

What is a Personal Learning Project?

At some point in your life you will need to learn something new. Any time you identify a knowledge gap and intentionally take action to close it, you are embarking on a personal learning project.

A personal learning project is an intentional effort to address an identified knowledge gap.

What are some examples of Personal Learning Projects that you’ve undertaken?

• When I started my business, I had to learn when and how to file quarterly taxes.
• In college, way back at the beginning of the Internet, I decided to learn how to build webpages. I found out what language webpages were written in and how to build pages using HTML.
• Today, I am working on a learning project to identify and apply principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) that would be beneficial to my coaching clients.

How do I start my own Personal Learning Project?

The first step in a personal learning project is to identify a gap in knowledge that you want to close.

You may already know what you want to learn. If so, great. Write it down. We’ll talk about how to design your project soon.

If not, in tomorrow’s essay, I’ll give you an easy exercise to help you identify what gap in knowledge you want to close.

This post is the first in a series of essays. Here is an index to the full series:

• Identify your personal learning project with this simple exercise
• Clarify your learning goal before buying that course
• Five ways to clarify your learning goal
• Five more ways to clarify your learning goal
• Plan for success in your learning project
• Use the time you have to meet your learning goal
• Manage what you get for your budget to meet your learning goal
• Three tips for building a support system for meeting your learning goal
• Rally the team. Building your own support system for meeting your learning goal
• Gather the resources you need to meet your learning goal
• Resource #1 — Your Local Library
• Resource #2 — College Libraries
• Resource #3 — Online Communities

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog