DEVELOPING SELF-DIRECTED LEARNERS

In this section you will ...
1. become familiar with the various types of self-direction. There are at least 13!
2. begin breaking self-direction into smaller, more manageable & identifiable parts.
3. list the activities that occur in your classroom day or in a particular learning environment.
4. identify  the skills of self-direction that students should have/acquire in order to successfully tackle specific tasks or activities.
5. think about the relationship between self-direction & classroom management.
6. reflect on ways to create conditions in the classroom environment that will motivate & engage students. 

 According to Costa & Kallick...

There's a life-force within all of us driving them to become self-managing, self-monitoring, & self-modifying. However, promoting self direction doesn't just happen! It must become an integral component of

• curriculum
• instruction
• assessment
• the culture of the organization

The teacher is the force that can make this happen!!

According to Metiri...

Self-direction is the ability to set goals, plan for achievement, independently manage time & effort, independently assess the quality of one's learning and any resulting product.

When approaching a task, one way to make sense of the it is to break it into three parts

• Self-Managing  (The Planning & Goal-Setting Stage...Things done BEFORE learning takes place)
• Self-Monitoring (The Performance Stage...Things done DURING the task or activity)
• Self-Modifying (The Evaluation & Reflection Stage...Things done AFTER the task or activity has been completed.)

 Each of the parts can be subdivided even further:
 into various skills that occur during that phase of the work.

Research and literature, related to what can be done to promote self-directed learning, strongly reinforce a central theme: A student cannot become a self-directed learner without becoming engaged in a curriculum that allows it to happen. 

What helps foster self-directed learners and learning?

  Student Choice/Responsibility

• Students should be given a chance to interact with the curriculum through investigation & demonstration. Students should be able to have some choice in  "showing  what they know"...showing they have met the state standards.
• Teachers should shift some of the responsibility for learning from themselves to the learner. This is not to suggest that the teacher should not teach, make lesson plans, or facilitate activities. However, the teacher can instruct the class in those features over which students have control: amount of effort, note-taking, perseverance, locus of control, self-efficacy, and self-regulation.
• Teachers should encourage study skills, inquiry, questioning, and an atmosphere where errors are considered a normal part of arriving at the correct answer. Teachers should avoid taking the shortest path to correct answers and help students determine correct answers through authentic learning, disciplined inquiry,critical questioning; & expressing differing and conflicting views.
• Teachers should provide opportunities for students to self-monitor, revise work, and reflect on their own thinking and learning processes. Journals, study groups, and critical friends' groups are just a few of the ways to achieve this in classrooms.

Project Learning/Collaboration/Rewards

• The curriculum should have a strong strand of problem-based and project-based learning. Students need to have opportunities to explore solutions to real-world problems ( with a focus on innovation). Students also also have opportunities to transfer concepts that have been learned to new situations.
• Collaboration and cooperation are critical. Interestingly, self-directed learners are not nurtured in isolation but where there are ample opportunities to collaborate and interact with their peers.
• Rewards should be used sparingly and when they are used, reward: achievement, perseverance, risk taking, and collaboration. Rewards do nothing more than reinforces extrinsic motivation.
• Teachers should model the behaviors they wish students to exhibit, including: critical questioning, risk taking, self-reflection and the such. Teachers need to model any skills being explicitly addressed.

Adapted from NWREL