• Question: Have you heard of the ELLI skills? if so why are these so important not just to science but to everyday life?

    Asked by mrdiamond to Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Do you mean the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory as described in this link? http://www.ellionline.co.uk/

      I haven’t come across this before but a lot of the skills they list are things that most people would recognise:

      changing and learning – a sense of oneself as someone who learns and changes over time; the opposite is being ‘stuck and static’

      critical curiosity – an orientation to want to ‘get beneath the surface’; the opposite is being ‘passive’

      meaning making – making connections and seeing that learning ‘matters to me’; the opposite is simply ‘accumulating data’

      creativity– risk-taking, playfulness, imagination and intuition; the opposite is being ‘rule-bound’

      learning relationships , or interdependence – learning with and from others and also being able to learn alone; the opposite is either being ‘isolated’ or ‘over-dependent’

      strategic awareness – being aware of one’s thoughts, feelings and actions as a learner and able to use that awareness to plan and manage learning processes; the opposite is being ‘robotic’

      resilience – the orientation to persevere in the development of one’s own learning power and relish challenge; the opposite is being ‘fragile and dependent’.

      I think most scientists would use these skills everyday – particularly curiosity, creativity, meaning making and interdependence. However, I can see how all these skills would be important for many jobs and also everyday life. I think the key thing is that people should continue to learn (about themselves, other people, and the rest of the world) every day. Otherwise we can’t adapt to a changing world – imagine if you never learnt anything once you left school – you’d be stuck in the past for ever and miss out on any new developments!

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hi mrdiamond!

      Before today, no – I hadn’t heard of them. When I did a google, the first thing that came up was a story about an elephant but I’m guessing that’s not what you were referring to… 😉 although I hear elephants have good memory skills which are always useful in everyday life!

      A bit more searching and I found the “Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory” that Edd posted the link to. I’m intrigued; do your teachers use it?

      I’m going to have a read and get back to you once I’ve had a proper grasp of what it is!

      —

      OK, I’ve had a proper look now! I tried to fill out the questionnaire but unfortunately you need a login, boo! Have you taken it? What did it tell you? I think it’s a great idea. When I was at school we had a similar scheme, in which we answered questions about our personality and the subjects we enjoyed, and then results would recommend a list of careers. It was useful for getting us thinking about what we wanted to do (although I can’t remember what was recommended to me, I think some jobs were slightly bizarre!).

      ELLI sounds even more useful in that it tells you what skills you need to work on (the results from the questionnaire I did were only based on my strengths, not weaknesses). I always find negative (or constructive!) feedback more useful than positive feedback! If I give work to my supervisor and he says “That’s fine” – then that doesn’t tell me very much. If he says “You should try writing a bit more about this” or “Use more formal language” or “Have you thought about this?” then I learn how to improve my work. That seems to be what ELLI is about – being aware of how you learn, and how to improve your learning.

      Edd has already listed the seven types of learning power from the website and I can see how they would be useful in everyday life. “Critical curiosity”, for example, drives science but is important in other things too e.g. being curious enough to have an active interest in politics or the news. It’s essential to be aware of what’s going on politically if you want to make a well-informed choice when you vote. “Changing and learning” – I think most people change as they get older. Since school, I have grown more confident and my views on some things may have changed too (e.g. in politics or science). Being ‘stuck in your ways’ will prevent you from growing as a person (and you’ll miss out on a lot!), so I think ‘changing and learning’ is definitely a useful skill to have in every day life.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      I had an assessment this morning so quite behind on questions but I can see that there’s good answers from Edd and Zara already so no point in me repeating!

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