Acronym

Funny, we ask ourselves and our members that question about CMEs a lot - because it's such a pain to administer. Turns out, it's about 50-50 for us whether people need the CMEs or not. This is also evidenced by the fact that 50% or less of attendees fill out the required evaluations in order to get their "credit letter". Which means we can't stop providing CME's, but it also means our activities are interesting enough that people attend regardless of the CME aspect.

Lisa, I totally understand your point, but I would have preferred a phrase other than "learning for learning's sake." It's just a hot button for me, because it implies that learning only matters when it is done in exchange for extrinsic rewards or recognition. For all knowledge workers, learning is a professional imperative, whether or not it happens to have credits attached to it. We need to challenge our members to develop both their intrinsic motivation for learning and their learning capabilities so they can remain successful in a rapidly-shifting environment. Credentials certainly matter, but only if they serve the larger purpose. To put it another way, learning is not about credits for credits' sake.

That was what I was getting at, Jeff--my apologies if it didn't come through that clearly. In many associations, we do specifically tie learning to extrinsic awards and recognition, whether it's a certificate or CME credit or recertification points. As Maddie's experience shows (at least a little bit), quite a few members aren't in the learning for the credits. But quite a few are in it for the credits, and we'd have to do some re-education to convince them that they should spend time on a course/self-study that didn't offer such a reward.

Just to use my own experience as an example, at my last association, I used to regularly get calls from members arguing that X activity was useless because it gave them no recertification credits. In their minds, they had a limited amount of time to divide up among work, family, learning, and other things; because they needed recertification credits to main their certification, they felt that learning without credits attached was a waste of their limited time.

Not every member had that mindset. But for those that did, you probably wouldn't get a lot of buy-in for a self-study option that provided no recertification credits unless you also planned to spend some time selling them on the intrinsic value of the learning involved.

As someone who has responsibility for leadership development and learning one of my greatest frustrations is the fact that people are so driven by the extrinsic rewards associated with their learning activities. Maybe it's tough for me to comprehend because I am, and will always be, a life-long learner. Put another way, I enjoy learning because it helps me grow and develop personally and professionally.

I think the comments here, rather unintentionally, point out a larger issue that we are facing as educators or those involved in education in one way or another: many people have been conditioned to equate learning with extrinsic rewards. It's indicative of a larger problem with our educational system as a whole, not necessarily a failure of our learning programs themselves. That's not to say that we should avoid taking a good look at what we are doing, why we are doing it and how, but rather we need to determine a way that we can demonstrate the intrinsic value of learning.

As Jeff pointed out we are in the knowledge economy and have made a pretty radical shift in the past 20-30 years, from employment based on what you do and how you do it and almost guaranteed based on the possession of a college degree to a time where a college degree may or may not equate to a job and what you know and how much you are willing to learn to stay current are requisite for success.

I really like the idea of a personal MBA and have probably earned or have come close to earning one already based on my voluminous multi-dimensional reading and professional development activities. But for me, and, probably many others, it's not a mean to an end, it's an end in itself.

My only minor concern is that for some the self-paced, self-regulated approach could prove to be a challenge. Some people need a physical location to go to, professors/instructors to hold them accountable, and an actual degree/diploma/certificate to hold in their hands marking their successful completion of their work. However, for those that don't need these things, this is a pretty great concept.

Dave, I think what you say above is absolutely true: "Many people have been conditioned to equate learning with extrinsic rewards. It's indicative of a larger problem with our educational system as a whole, not necessarily a failure of our learning programs themselves." I agree that it is a larger problem with the educational system as a whole ... but at the same time, I think it is something that we as associations buy into and support, in many ways. Tying education directly into a certification is a nice way to ensure that folks will keep coming back to you for points whenever that certification needs to be re-upped. Members complain if they can't earn points at a particular event, so we give them points. It can be a hard cycle to break out of.

So I suppose the bigger question is (and you pretty much state this in your comment): What can we as association professionals do to help our members become devoted to lifelong learning? And how can we help them overcome the challenges that may stand in their way--for instance, help individuals who may have a hard time with self-paced study, or help individuals who may feel they just don't have time for additional learning activities?

Very interesting concept.