Learning College Portfolio: Midpoint Report

Denise Parrott

Learning College Portfolio: Midpoint Report

April 27, 2017

Narrative Summary of Progress

In the banner for the WordPress site I developed to track my LCP progress, I have a picture of my wall organizer, and in the center, around the middle of July (2015), is the sticky note that says “Start LCP”. It was almost two years ago that I started to formulate my plan, and as I prepared for my midpoint reflectionby reviewing my learning goals and activities, I realised how much learning I have accomplished in the last year and a half.

I started my LCP because I wanted to see myself as a learner again, and I have accomplished this beyond my expectations. I have completed a number of courses offered through Coursera, which offers free online courses from reputable instructors at colleges around the world. These include a course on creativity, how to learn, metaliteracy, how to teach Gen Z and the importance of exercise. The theme I saw in all these courses is the importance of being a mindful, creative learner, which was one of the goals of my LCP. It turns out that it is important for everyone in our 21st century world to strive for these characteristics. I have also developed (with varying degrees of success and failure) a basic conversational knowledge of both French and ASL! I am a learner again, and I now think every day of what I will learn and how I will apply it to my work.

I also set out to discover how I could, in my current job as a librarian who is chiefly responsible for library resources, contribute to workplace literacy of our students. I am pleased with how closely to plan I have been able to work, and in fact I have no changes to make to my timeline activities. Given the amount of work I put into developing my plan, it has been fulfilling to work through it as anticipated. I have learned about students and student services at NSCC, about labour market analysis of workplace soft skills, about strategies for library instruction for 21st century students, and I am currently working on how to develop effective library collections for these students. I was pleased to see a new course offering for instructors on Supporting Learners in the 21st Century, and I look forward to being able to apply my learning to help in the development of this course. Just today, I was asked to provide some relevant context documents for the course – which I was readily able to pull out from my WordPress site.

I have also had a number of opportunities already to share my learning about what I have learned and about the LCP process, at the Festival of Learning, a student services conference (AACUSS) and an NSCC Librarians’ meeting. I have also been taking every opportunity to counsel and encourage others to consider embarking upon LCP.

It has been extremely satisfying to pull together a body of knowledge and learn to share parts of it, and at this, the half-way point, I feel like I never want my learning journey to end.