I have been involved with several colleagues working on ways to train folks in self-regulation techniques.  This based on an ever-growing body of research (some pretty good, some pretty dubious) which sees the generation which has grown up with social media as having increased problems with many aspects of learning and staying on-task.  Much of this falls under the umbrella of ‘self-regulation’, a set of learned skills such as critical thinking, time management, prioritizing and self-discipline.

Your initial set of materials are a reflection of what we have found to date both as specifying the issues but also providing some initial exposure to self-regulation skills.

I suspect you’ve heard (probably any number of times) that over 60% of the jobs that will be around by 2025 haven’t been invented yet, and that many current jobs will be largely extinct.  The main takeaway from this is that you are need to keep on learning new stuff constantly: <the days of getting a degreeàgetting a jobàhanging on until retirement> are long gone.  Some of what you’re learning now will be useless in less than 10 years—but more importantly, much of what you learn will be useful 10 years in ways you can’t imagine right now—so just going through the motions to get the degree is a stunningly bad idea.

Look over the materials from a very self-centered POV, especially with the assumption that 7 years from now your ‘career’ has just morphed into something very different.  REMEMBER you can still be working in an area that you really like and feel good about, but the nature of the job is likely to be very different.  This online course vs a traditional sit-down course from 10 years ago is a good example.

As you can see from your first assignment, think through the whole idea of Cost-Benefit Analysis from your personal point of view and send in your responses.  As an FYI, we used the same exercise last semester and got some very interesting results, which I will share later in the semester with you.  We are interested in any variation between the two semesters.  If you did the assignment last semester, please do it again—you’ve now a semester older and wiser—but mention in your response that you did it before.