SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
DEFINITION:-
“A process in which individuals take the initiative, with or
without the help of others," to diagnose their learning needs, formulate
learning goals, identify resources for learning, select and implement learning strategies,
and evaluate learning outcomes” (Knowles 1975).
Self-directed learning is the method
used when a learner, rather than an institution, controls both the learning
objectives and the means of learning. It is a continuous process, often
informal, and an important factor in lifelong learning. Many adults engage in
self-directed learning to improve their work performance. Others carry on
self-directed learning in recreational arts and hobbies, matters of health,
family and community, or simply to increase their intellectual resources.
Whether or not learning is self-directed
depends not on the subject matter to be learned or on the instructional methods
used. Instead, self-directedness depends on who is in charge--who decides what
should be learned, who should learn it, what methods and resources should be
used, and how the success of the effort should be measured. To the extent the
learner makes those decisions, the learning is generally considered to be
self-directed.
TYPES
OR CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
1)
Independent learning, which connotes learning in isolation, or is
represented by the "lone' learner who makes all of the decisions about
goals, content, effort, time, and evaluation, etc. Assistance from others is
routinely accepted and rejected according to the learner's own whims and
standards.
2) Distance
learning, which connotes physical distance between the learner and a
teacher or an agent where the learner is constrained in some degree by a
curriculum devised by others; but in some ways learner behavior may include
some of the activities noted in the other two conceptualizations.
3)
Psychological control, which connotes the necessary element in the
definition is found in the learner's psychological independence (control)
rather than in social or curricula elements. Thus, neither the setting, nor the
format of the learning activity, necessarily determines if learning is
self-directed.
MODELS OF SELF
DIRECTED LEARNING
Brefi Group offers three
models:-
- Facilitated
learning groups
- Community
learning
- Self
directed development programme
1)Facilitated learning
groups
·
In this model, a small group is supported by a trained
facilitator; but responsibility for the learning remains with the group. The
model can be used within organizations, or it is an excellent means of sharing
both costs and experience between organizations.
·
Individuals negotiate a learning contract and report progress on
it. Each group of six to twelve people has an advisor to take them through the
process, which could involve meeting every four to six weeks over a period of
nine months.
·
Very often, the morning is used for the facilitator or another
visiting expert to introduce some training, possibly following a standard
course, and the afternoon is dedicated to addressing a common problem or
coaching one individual on an issue relevant to that person's organization.
This ensures that the learning is related to practical experience
·
The facilitator combines a neutral process role with access to
specialist knowledge.
·
Organizations using facilitated learning groups cite business
benefits such as cost savings, improved customer relations, lower staff
turnover and an improved organizational culture
2) Community learning
·
The basis of community learning is to create an organization-wide
commitment to personal improvement and to deliver this accurately designed for
each person with minimal costs in time and money.
·
With group coaching, each person first defines what they need in
relation to their work, then how they need it delivered. They then agree how to
achieve it within the ethos of the group. By forming contracts between groups
of staff to support each other, not only is the learning delivered at minimal
or no cost to the company, each person gets only what they need, at a rate to
suit their abilities.
·
It begins with one day coaching sessions in small groups taken
from similar levels across the organization. A facilitator, trained in group
dynamics and coaching, provides the theory, ethos and motivation for each
person to create a learning need statement. Learning diaries and contracts are
provided for each individual. Sub groups are formed and contracts for
co-coaching are committed, supported by the facilitator. The facilitator
interviews each person during the day.
·
Later, participants with related learning goals are combined into
new sub groups to review progress and set longer term contracts
·
New more complex support groups are automatically formed. Topics
of learning are circulated, with offers posted to join in a sub group, to
mentor or to provide insights. The facilitator responds to requests for
literature or guidance. At this point only two days has been spent per person
in a formal setting.
·
After some weeks the facilitator canvasses the now complex groups
as they form more interconnected resource networks and provides a report to the
company on strategies found, achievements, prognosis, assessments and suggests
any further support to accelerate learning and performance.
The success of community
learning depends on: -:
- Experienced
proactive facilitators, skilled in both business and personal development.
- Acceptance
of the responsibility for learning by a critical mass of individuals.
- Understanding
of the process in HR, Training and at Board level.
- Sufficient
patience in the process to become accepted by the company culture.
3) Self directed
development programme
·
This involves people and process skills; in particular learning
how to learn, in order to increase the options available for behavior and
processes.
·
The programme requires participants to take responsibility for
their own learning and to create a learning community, learning with and from
each other.
·
The role of the tutors is to support participants as they identify
and address performance improvement needs and opportunities, and to learn with
the group, demonstrating the learning flexibility that is core to the approach.
·
There are few formal presentations. The tutors listen, encourage
and, where appropriate, challenge individuals to work in various ways –
individually, in pairs, in small teams and in the large group – and to make
sense of the learning. Everyone involved is responsible for the success of the
programme for self and for others.
On completion of the module
participants will be able to:
- Recognize
effective behaviour in a range of settings
- Describe
their own learning style preferences and understand individual differences
and needs.
- Identify
personal learning blocks and ways to deal with them.
- Demonstrate
choice and use of appropriate interpersonal skills in a variety of
personal, team and organizational situations.
- Apply
knowledge and skills to better manage organizational complexity.
- Implement a
personal plan of continued skills improvement.
The programme differs from
traditional training models: -
- The
traditional hierarchical relationships with tutors are altered
-The journey of learning to learn begins from the moment the programme starts: the tutors sit amongst or to the side of the students and wait.
-Frustrated students may ask to be
taught or for guidance on what to do.
-
The tutors reflect back the concerns of the group and decline to provide
answers. Only when participants take responsibility for meeting their own needs
and request specific collaboration from staff are the tutors able to respond
and to help more directly to contribute learning around immediate needs such as
leadership, planning, use of time and information, handling stress, memory
skills.
- Structure
has been removed from two thirds of the timetable
- The
programme process itself is used as an important learning vehicle
- Participants are invited to learn about learning, as they are learning.
-
Tutors model the process of learning, flexibility and enquiry
themselves. A climate of discovery and challenge is created and expectations
are taken beyond the limitations of preconception towards extraordinary levels
of improvement. Individuals and groups examine limiting beliefs; active
learning by questioning and testing is encouraged.
- Responsibility
for outcomes is shifted to participants
BENEFITS
OF SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING
1) Self-directed
learners demonstrate a greater awareness of their responsibility in making
learning meaningful and monitoring themselves
2) They are curious
and willing to try new things (Lyman, 1997), view problems as challenges,
desire change, and enjoy learning
3) Learners become
motivated and persistent, independent, self-disciplined, self-confident and
goal-oriented
4) Self-directed
learning allows learners to be more effective learners and social beings.
5) They demonstrate
the ability to search for information in multiple texts, employ different
strategies to achieve goals, and to represent ideas in different forms
6) Self-directed
learning can encourage students to develop their own rules and leadership
patterns.
SKILLS
FOR SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING
PERSONALITY
TRAITS
Some
of the personality traits are
·
Self-confidence
·
Inner directed
·
Achievement motivated.
GENERAL
SKILLS
At
least six kinds of cognitive skills appear to be particularly important in
successful self-directed learning. They are as follows:
·
Goal
setting skills
·
Processing
skills
·
Other
cognitive skills
·
Some
competence or aptitude in the topic or a closely related area
·
Decision
making skills
·
Self-awareness
1)
GOAL SETTING SKILLS
When
working with people with little experience in self-directed learning, careful
attention should be given to helping them to imagine possible outcomes of
results of their learning, and then encouraging them know how and why to choose
from among multiple desirable goals.
2) INFORMATION PROCESSING SKILLS
2) INFORMATION PROCESSING SKILLS
Even
though good strong reading ability is often identified with successful
self-directed learners, there are other information processing skills that are
also important. From the available research it is assumed that the
self-directed learner is able to attend to and process information by the at
least one if the following skills:
i)
Observing - the ability to see and do, or the
ability to see and understand.
ii)
Seeing and translating - the ability to
translate visual information to notes and records, or the ability to
graphically reproduce visual information and to relate it to existing
information schemes.
iii)
Reading - the ability to read, translate, and
comprehend written material.
iv)
Listening - the ability to receive and process
aural information and relate it to existing information schemes.
3)
OTHER COGNITIVE SKILLS
In
addition to the above information processing abilities other cognitive skills
appear to be associated with self-directed learning success. Some of these
skills are
i)
Sensory, including the ability to select from
multiple sensory in-put, identify, and classify the sensory information.
ii)
Memory, working memory is important in the
processing of information before it is assimilated into existing long-term
memory.
iii)
Elaboration includes the ability to take an
item from working memory and process it by imaging, deducing, discriminating,
generalizing, etc.
iv)
Problem solving and problem posing.
4)
EXECUTIVE SKILLS
Self-directed
learners seem to be different from other-directed learners in the degree to
which they can focus on information monitor their processing and other
cognitive activities, and in the way they react to information.
A
simple illustration is found in the self-directed learner's act of reading and
studying.
Self-directed
learners are aware of when the cease to interact with the written material, and
begin to merely process words.
A
change is behavior may be called for and the learner may adopt a different
procedure such as note taking, drawing schemata, etc., to refocus on the
material and to stay on task.
Executives
skills required include:
·
Pre-task monitoring
·
Using a strategy for gathering and using
information
·
Information gathering
·
Self-awareness as it pertains to existing prior
knowledge, personal cognitive processes, and ability to control the cognitive
system.
·
Self-monitoring
·
Reflection
·
Assimilating/accommodating
5)
DEEP PROCESSING SKILLS
The successful self-directed learner
engages in deep cognitive processing, an important activity associated with
self-directed learner activities. The learner
·
Derives enjoyment from the activity.
·
Searches for meaning in the information.
· Often personalizes the task by relating it
to his or her own experience.
· Relates bit and parts of the information
relates evidence to conclusions, and relates the whole
to previous knowledge.
· Develops theories, forms hypotheses, etc.
6) CONTENT COMPETENCE
Some minimal level of aptitude or competence
in the self-directed learning topic, or a closely related area, seems to be desirable if not
necessary.
An
individual is likely to be a more successful self-directed learner with some
preexisting
awareness of fundamental vocabulary, concepts
and structure of the information. Hence,
someone who knows basic arithmetic may be able
to be self-directing in learning math, then
algebra, then geometry, etc.
7) DECISION MAKING SKILLS
The
self-directed learner must develop the ability to identify, prioritize, select,
validate, evaluate, and interpret information obtained through the processing
skills.
The successful self-directed learner develops
the ability to determine and evaluate the sources of information as well as the
reliability, validity, and meaning of information (including theories and other
explanations).
8) SELF-AWAREINESS
The
successful self-directed learner has the ability to be aware of
"self."
It
enables individuals to be aware of their learning processes, of their
weaknesses and strengths, to know if they can call up additional powers of
concentration, to know of their ability to use a different approach, to know
how and what is distracting in their environment, to know the importance of a
given learning activity, to know when they need assistance, to have a realistic
perception of their ability to achieve their learning goal
PROMOTING SELF DIRECTED LEARNING :-
·
Encourage
students to raise questions, to ask whether the information they have is valid
& useful
·
Encourage
them to pursue areas that interest them.
·
Encourage
self evaluation. A key skill for self directed learners is being able to
accurately assess their own performance.
·
Ask learners to set their own direction by
having them identify their own learning needs and by giving them options for
ways to satisfy learning gaps.
·
Identify
resources that students can use to help them learn make them aware of the
resources available.
·
Encourage
peer teaching formally or informally through assignments and projects, tutoring
or study groups.
ROLE OF TEACHER IN SELF DIRECTED LEARNING :-
1. One of the most
important tasks of the teacher is to raise student awareness of their roles in
learning
2. Engaging
students in discussion on topics from the Self-Directed Learning Readiness
Scale.
3. Learner
participation in decision-making is another fundamental aspect of the SDL
approach. Taylor advocates involving students in decisions concerning what is
to be learned, when and how it should be learned, and how it should be
evaluated.
Allowing
learners to pursue their own interests so that learning becomes more
meaningful.
4. Teacher should
capitalize on learners' strong points instead of focusing on weaknesses, as it
is more beneficial for learners to achieve a few objectives of importance to
them than it is to fulfill all the objectives that are important to the
teacher.
5. Allowing
learners to explore ideas through peer discussions.
6. To establish the
habit of self-monitoring, teachers need to encourage learners to reflect on
what they did and to revise attempted work
7. Since SDL
stresses meaningful learning, Temple and Rodero (1995) advocate a situated
learning approach, in which teachers bring real-life problems into the
classroom for learners to work on.
8. Teachers need to
model learning strategies such as predicting, questioning, clarifying, and
summarizing, so that students will develop the ability to use these strategies
on their own.
ROLE OF
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN S.D.L.
:-
·
Have the faculty meet regularly with panels of experts who can
suggest curricula and evaluation criteria.
·
Conduct research on trends and learners' interests.
·
Obtain the necessary tools to assess learners' current performance
and to evaluate their expected performance.
·
Provide opportunities for self-directed learners to reflect on
what they are learning.
·
Recognize and reward learners when they have met their learning
objectives.
·
Promote learning networks, study circles, and learning exchanges.
·
Provide staff training on self-directed learning and broaden the
opportunities for its implementation.
DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN
TEACHER DIRECTED LEARNING & SELF DIRECTED LEARNING
Teacher Directed
Learning
|
Self
Directed Learning
|
Assumes the learner is essentially a dependent
personality and that the teacher has the
responsibility what and how the learner should
be taught.
|
Assumes that the human being grows in capacity
(and need) to be self-directing as an essential
component of maturing, and that this capacity
should be nurtured to develop as rapidly as
possible.
|
Assumes that the learner’s experience is of less value than that of the
teacher, the textbook
|
Assumes that the
learner’s experiences become an increasingly rich resource for learning,
which textbook writers and materials producers as a
resource for learning, and that therefore the
teacher has the responsibility to see to it that the
resource of these experts are transmitted to the
learner.
should be exploited along with the resources of
experts.
|
Assumes that students enter into education with
a subject-centered orientation to learning (they
see learning as accumulating subject matter and
that therefore learning experiences should be
organized according to units of content.
|
Assumes that the students natural orientation is task or problem
centered and that therefore learning experiences should be organized as task
accomplishments or problem solving learning
projects (or inquiry units).
|
Assumes that students are
motivated to learn in
response to external rewards and punishments,
such as grades, diplomas, awards, degrees, and
fear of failure.
|
Assumes that learners are motivated by internal
incentives, such as the need for self-esteem, the
desire to achieve, the urge to grow, the
satisfaction of accomplishment, the need to know
something specific, and curiosity.
|
Comments
Post a Comment