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The Very First Program in Cognitive Education

for Individuals with Little Schooling (see press release)

Learning to Learn, the very first training program aimed at teaching adults with little schooling the methods necessary to learn, was jointly achieved by the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the Centre DÉBAT, a literacy group working in an impoverished district of Montreal. Created with the financial participation of the National Literacy Secretariat, the program was initially published in French in the autumn of 2000, then translated into English and launched in Montreal in April 2006.

The blatant needs

The success of the program – more than 1000 copies sold to integration enterprises, literacy groups and Adult Education Centers in Quebec and Canada - indicates the blatancy of the training needs of individuals with little schooling. In Canada, “close to 50% of adults with low-level literacy live in low-income households, compared with only 8% of those with high-level literacy skills.” 1 Thus, poverty and limited access to employment are added to the social isolation and the injustice of ignorance. For more statistics on illiteracy, visit the Lieracy Foundation website, and those of the Canadian Council on Learning and the Canadian Council on Social Development.

The individual and collective gains

Learning to Learn brings about individual and collective tangible gains: it provides an invaluable tool for the trainers of adults, offers a master-key to individuals in training, and provides a world of strategic interventions for businesses.

AUTHORS

The authors of Learning to Learn have practiced cognitive education for several years with an adult clientele possessing various levels of schooling.

Louise Lemieux

Trainer, psycho-educator and

assistant-lecturer

UQAT

Jean Lemay

Trainer and literate

Nathalie Sevigny

Primary school teacher

CSDM

François Ruph

Professor of educational science

UQAT

STRATEGY

EFFECT

I observe how I learn.

I can change strategies and better actualize my intellectual potential.

I control my impulsivity and use positive self-talk.

I react more wisely.

I observe methodically, completely and

with precision.

I have all the information that I need to succeed in what I am doing.

I methodically approach problems.

I have better chances of finding a good solution.

I organize my information properly.

I see it more clearly and better retain it.

I accurately interpret situations.

My actions are more appropriate.

I memorize well.

I can use it when I need it and make progress.

I clearly communicate my ideas.

I am better understood.

I reflect upon my strategies.

I am more effective and successful in my undertakings.

I take stock of my learning.

I re-evaluate my strategic habits.

I evaluate my change of strategies and the affective and motivational effects.

I get into the habit of taking stock of what I learn.

A Creative and Optimistic View

“Learning is like constructing a new path in the mind.”

We construct it using strategies, which are like employees that work for our mind. These strategies are all the more easily learned and controlled as there are a small number of attitudes and fundamental strategic principles common to most situations. Once learned, they can then be reinvested into various daily activities.

Cease believing that past failures or disappointments are due to an innate lack of aptitudes or intelligence in front of which we are forever powerless. Learning to Learn enables adults with little schooling to understand that their learning difficulties are attributable to strategies that they themselves can learn and control.

A flexible progression

Learning to Learn offers a training process centered on the awareness of ways of learning: learning rate, concentration capacity, memory, work methods, strategies used to solve difficulties encountered, attitudes in the face of failure, motivation to study. The activities, documentation, explanations, discussions and their sequence are all conceived with this orientation in mind.

On the spot and subsequent awareness
In each of the supervised activities, the program always takes into account the cognitive and affective aspects that come into play during the learning, thus supporting the development of a sense of competence. This is one of the program’s strong points: awakening the learner’s awareness of behaviours and erroneous perceptions that are harmful to their learning.

Learning to Learn values self-respect, autonomy, “responsibilization”, capacity to make and assume choices, development of critical thinking, creativity. These attitudes help to forge or even rebuild a sense of self-worth and personal value.

For a more detailed description of a cognitive education workshop for adults, click here.

A Hope for Change…

“The apple never falls far from the tree…”

More than a question of affective and cognitive strategies, the knowledge of their own intellectual functioning and its mastery when facing life’s challenges, represents a veritable HOPE for adults with little schooling who have known exclusion and educational difficulties of all types. HOPE that a change is possible.

A tangible hope, as each of the 10 program sessions addresses specific strategies applied to the actual lives of the learners. Thus, we support the transfer of what is learned to daily life, and the combined effect of the procured strategies in turn results in learners having a better control of their own lives.

The most evidential results of the Learning to Learn program manifest themselves in the areas of autonomy, communication, perseverance, notably by an awareness of their capacities and potential, a new appreciation of self, an improved esteem, a rediscovery of their desires that are now considered possible, feasible, real.

… and the Road to Autonomy

Succeeding in developing a more extensive and better managed repertoire of efficient strategies, enriches the knowledge necessary to their application in personal and professional life, it really changes the world.

The benefits reaped by those who experience such an accomplishment are extremely motivating and valorizing. In many cases, it is often the very first time that they experience a taste of this sense of autonomy, control, power over their life, and this manifests itself in the following gains.

Direct benefits – The anticipated and measured direct benefits are expressed in terms of:

greater control of impulsivity;
better stress management;
more effective planning and management of concentration, memory, organization of time and work environment;
better observation, reading and problem solving strategies;
easier and more efficient communication.

Indirect benefits – The indirect benefits of these strategy changes result in:

decreased anxiety;
greater self-confidence;
development of a sense of competence;
increased learning capacity;
superior quality of learning associated with deeper understanding;
maintenance of gains;
improved educational results;
increased results/effort ratio;
greater motivation with regard to challenges and learning in general.

This is why this program proves to be an invaluable tool for trainers of adults, a strategic intervention mode for businesses, and a master-key for those in training.

An Invaluable Tool to All Trainers of Adults

“It is up to each of us to guide our thinking, whether it is to learn better and more easily,
to solve our problems with efficiency or to live life with more happiness.”

Until now, educational programs of the mind were reserved for individuals already possessing a mastery of a large number of essential abilities. However, with the program Learning to Learn, we can finally ensure the transmission of fundamental learning know-how to adults with little schooling. Coupled with learning French and basic mathematics, the learning strategies produce remarkable results.

Learning to Learn provides an invaluable tool to all trainers of adults, whether they work in literacy or educational centers, integration enterprises or community organizations. The program targets and does wonders for:

individuals who are impoverished and have little schooling, who know about job dismissals or repeated school-related failures and who have often experienced difficult family situations;
individuals who are in the process of job integration, who have decided to learn a first or new trade. Men and women who go forth with courage and put themselves in learning situations in order to satisfy, on one hand, their need to eat, clothe and house themselves, raise their family, and on the other hand to integrate into society, to feel that they can wholly take part;
individuals who need to know how to learn, problem solve, make changes or correct mistakes in their life’s journey; recognize their self-worth and value, guide their mind and their life with more happiness, develop their autonomy, and dare to become who they really are.

AUTHORS

The authors of Learning to Learn have practiced cognitive education for several years with an adult clientele possessing various levels of schooling.

Louise Lemieux

Trainer, psycho-educator and

assistant-lecturer

UQAT

Jean Lemay

Trainer and literate

Nathalie Sevigny

Primary school teacher

CSDM

François Ruph

Professor of educational science

UQAT

Once Upon a Time in the Life of Some Learners

“Now I know that I can learn and solve my problems.”

The key to the process, its power, is the transfer of skills, whether the participants apply their workshop learnings in their workplace, their family, at home, with their friends, at school or to their personal projects. And these learning strategies are a key factor of this transfer because, once acquired, applying them to their own life experiences in order to understand and learn from them, is a dynamic that continues to evolve. And to realize that each person can become the captain of their own ship, is a huge discovery for some, a discovery that is empowering.

For some examples of behaviour changes that were observed by the trainers in one integration enterprise in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, click here.

1 TheValue of Words: Literacy and Economic Security in Canada, Vivian Shalla and Grant Schellenberg, The Centre for International Statistics, Canadian Council on Social Development, page 1