Agility, in the context of studying, is a valuable skill for students to develop. It enables you to find innovative approaches to problems you may encounter and prepares you for your future career.
Agile Learning; also known as Learning Agility, is the ability to learn in situations that may be challenging or unclear. Agile learners can quickly pick up new skills, seek challenging experiences, try unusual ways of doing things, are comfortable with uncertainty and are flexible in situations. They experiment, ask for feedback, reflect on what they have learned and adjust their approach instead of waiting for a perfect solution.
Mental Agility is the ability to think flexibly and to adapt to changing or uncertain situations. Agility helps you to adjust your thinking when current decisions or actions are not working as planned which allows you to break away from routine though patterns, improvise when faced with challenges and reconsider different perspectives to find new and innovative solutions.
Agile Learning and Mental Agility may seem very similar to one another, yet the key differences between the two are as follows:
Department Army (2006). Army Leadership Competent, Confident, and Agile (Field Manual No. 6-22).
US ARMY (2006). Army Leadership - Leader Intelligence. [online] Available at: https://www.uakron.edu/armyrotc/MS1/21.pdf.