The Self-Directed Learning Handbook: Challenging Adolescent Students to Excel / Edition 1 available in Paperback
The Self-Directed Learning Handbook: Challenging Adolescent Students to Excel / Edition 1
- ISBN-10:
- 0787959553
- ISBN-13:
- 9780787959555
- Pub. Date:
- 10/02/2002
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The Self-Directed Learning Handbook: Challenging Adolescent Students to Excel / Edition 1
Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780787959555 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wiley |
| Publication date: | 10/02/2002 |
| Series: | Jossey-Bass Education Series |
| Edition description: | 1ST |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.20(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Self-Directed Learning Handbook
Challenging Adolescent Students to ExcelBy Maurice Gibbons
John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0-7879-5955-3Chapter One
The Case for Self-Directed LearningNOTHING is so natural to us as learning and accomplishment. We hunger for it from our first breath. We enter school already skilled in it and eager for more. We pursue it, often with passion, for the rest of our lives. The need to survive, become competent, find intimacy, and sustain self-esteem presses us forward on all life fronts. We search for a role and work of significance; for companionship, partner, and family; for understanding each other and ourselves; for mastery over something and for fulfillment. Our species is irrepressibly curious and restless; we question everything and seek answers; we see a need or possibility and press forward to see if we can make it real. The drive to learn can be suppressed-we can be deprived, beaten, and drugged-but these are only frictions to the unstoppable learning momentum that has propelled our species from its prehistoric beginnings to its current civilized state.
Self-directed learning (SDL) is designed to nurture this momentum, to broaden and deepen it, to help students channel and refine it. This design has been enhanced by a flood of recent discoveries about the brain. We have found that the brain is a meaning-making machine that thrives in rich environments, seeks out patterns, builds on previous experiences, andfunctions best in nonthreatening situations. Not only is the brain a dynamic, self-directing instrument of learning, it is highly individualized as well. Recent studies of intelligence, learning style, and talent or strengths affirm the great diversity in the ways people learn. Cognitive psychology has also focused on the importance of learning how to learn, that is, on developing the strategies that can be applied to any learning task. Such portable skills prepare any learner for the ultimate challenge of lifelong learning.
This attention to learning for life reminds us, as we address adolescent students in middle and high school, that we are dealing with a whole life-not just intellect but emotions and performance as well. And it reminds us that adolescence is a life between childhood and adulthood. Major tasks in this chaotic teenage period include development in personality, character, and talent as well as in academics. The challenge of the transition is to leave childhood behind and to stand on the threshold of adulthood with purpose and confidence. This means maturing as a person, finding a social place, becoming independent, and finding a focus for work. The key to such readiness for students is self-efficacy, that feeling of certainty, forged in action, that they can set a course and then make the journey. The journey into adulthood-into the world-has seldom been more challenging. Globalization is rapidly expanding the economic field of play. Change is dramatically shifting the nature of life and work. Knowledge is doubling every few years. Technology is transforming the way we live and the way we work. Work itself is transformed from the well-protected life-long job to the precarious short-term performance contract. Individuals will not be looked after from the cradle to the grave; increasingly, they must look after themselves. Students must know how to learn every day, how to adapt to rapidly shifting circumstances, and how to take independent initiative when opportunity disappears. SDL prepares students for this new world in which the active learner survives best.
What Is Self-Directed Learning?
SDL is any increase in knowledge, skill, accomplishment, or personal development that an individual selects and brings about by his or her own efforts using any method in any circumstances at any time. A student, for example, decides to build and launch rockets that will rise one mile into the atmosphere. He inspires others to join him. They go on the Internet, contact the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, consult with a science teacher, find a machine shop, build experimental models, and, after many attempts, succeed.
Teacher-directed learning (TDL) by contrast is any increase in a student's knowledge or skill brought about by initiatives taken by a teacher, which includes a selection of the learning to be accomplished, presentations about it, assigned study and practice activities, and a test to measure mastery. A teacher, for example, selects the topic of propulsion, presents lessons to all students showing the physics involved, assigns readings and questions about it in a textbook, conducts demonstrations with assembled rockets, and then tests students about their mastery of the principles.
Both are important approaches to learning. TDL is important because it is an efficient way to present new bodies of knowledge and practice. SDL is important because it enables students to customize their approach to learning tasks, combines the development of skill with the development of character, and prepares them for learning throughout their lives.
SDL is dramatically different from TDL. It requires a different approach by the teacher and demands new skills from students. In SDL, students gradually take over most of the teaching operations that are traditional in TDL until they are designing as well as executing their own learning activities. The teacher's role is transformed and becomes even more important and more demanding. Teaching SDL requires a full professional repertoire of instruction, including training, coaching, guiding, and counseling skills. It represents a paradigm shift in thinking about teaching and learning (see Table 1.1).
The choice, of course, is not simply between teacher-controlled and student-controlled learning. There are many stages between these two poles. Students can be taught to think for themselves, work at their own pace, learn in their own way, choose their own goals, and design their own programs. Each of these is a step toward SDL, and each can be the focus of a teacher's program. How far across this bridge any teacher decides to travel will be determined in part by individual judgment and the circumstances in which he or she works. This book is a challenge to teachers to challenge themselves to go as far as they can in this effort. Fortunately, as we will see, there are excellent schools to model each of these stages of SDL.
In TDL, we teach students about the nature of flight; in SDL, we teach students how to fly. When students learn to fly, they "earn their wings." They study in the classroom, work on simulations, and practice in the air with a flight instructor until they have the knowledge and skill to fly solo. When they prove that they can make skillful flights on their own, they can fly anywhere they choose. Teaching SDL is about teaching the skills and providing the experience that students need to guide their own learning lives. It is teaching them what they need in order to solo safely and successfully in life. SDL teachers, like flight instructors, succeed when their students no longer need them.
SDL not only encourages teachers to help students to find a passion; it requires it. In SDL, teachers not only challenge students to excel; they challenge students to challenge themselves to go as far as possible beyond the easy and familiar. SDL ends not in exercises but in action, and action as often as possible in the world beyond the classroom. Teachers do not direct students so much as they teach them to direct themselves by empowering them. SDL students work closely with other students and adults, not just independently. They are charged to learn academics, but are challenged with much more as well.
This approach equips the teacher with the means to inspire a wide range of students to learn. The program, as we will see in Chapter Seven, is designed around motivational principles: it cultivates students' interests, applies their strengths, and equips them for success. Such features enable the teacher to adapt the program to every student. The teacher is each student's partner in becoming proficient. Mark, for instance, was a problem student who had moved to several other schools before he entered an SDL program. As he put it,
I'm just grateful to be here. I was going nowhere at my other schools. Look at me! I'm too big to be bossed around like a little kid. Then I get here and they treat you with respect. I get a part in a little theater thing about Galileo at the museum, talk to the lab guys there, and here I am doing a science project on solar emissions.
The teacher's task is to help students like Mark to find their passion and then to challenge them to pursue it. Eileen was not aggressive but passive, so passive it became resistance:
I can't believe it. I had teachers lecturing me all the time to get to work. Then I get into this classroom, and she tells me to challenge myself. Now she's got me telling myself to do stuff I don't even think I can do.
In SDL all students can find a pathway to progress and receive recognition for it.
For bright and talented students, such programs often provide an opportunity to run free, move fast, and go far. Meguido, a student in a challenging SDL program, viewed coming to this class as a relief: "No more dragging along as slow as the slowest guy. You can just go for it." SDL also offers equal opportunity for students who, in regular TDL situations, have always been ranked against the brightest and considered relative failures. Such ranking and its diminishing message are deadly educational medicine.
Every SDL teacher is committed to the success of all students-to the discovery and development of strengths and to measuring personal progress, not rank. Such features enable teachers to engage both students who are proficient and students who are struggling. Tough, streetwise Jeremy finds success learning to fly an airplane. Bottom-of-the-class dweller Maria discovers that she can draw. While developing these interests and gaining recognition for their success, such students learn that they can accomplish, and as a result, their other efforts also improve.
SDL teachers enjoy a number of advantages when working with students of all kinds. As students learn how to learn, or how to teach themselves, they often work individually and independently. This enables the teacher to meet with individuals and small groups regularly for the special attention and guidance that are so important to this process. But teaching SDL is demanding. It means teaching students all they need to know in order to learn a course on their own and devise their own studies. Fortunately, every teacher is already using several SDL approaches (see Resource A at the end of this book) that provide a solid foundation on which to build a full program.
In the future, technology will replace teachers whose major role is to present content. That is already happening as a result of open learning institutes, cyberschools, and on-line high school courses. As Gary Phillips, director of the National School Improvement Project, says, "Anyone who can be replaced by a computer should be" (personal communication to the author). The teacher who teaches students how to learn, guides them through the struggles of adolescence, and challenges them to challenge themselves to excel will always be irreplaceable. The secret of SDL is education that goes deeper. As one teacher said whose students have to complete a series of SDL challenge projects, known as passages, to graduate, "I like the adventure passage best because the journey leads students to the adventure of self-discovery, and that is the greatest discovery of all." Students can direct their learning only when they begin to know themselves and the direction they want their lives to take.
The rewards for SDL teachers are great. Not the least of the pleasures is to hear students presenting at the end of their program describe the drama of taking charge of their own learning. Their pride in prevailing during their struggles to accomplish their goals can be overwhelming. Once teachers are touched, the experience becomes a necessity. As this teacher from Jefferson County Open School in Lakewood, Colorado, said,
We want our kids to identify their passion and to pursue it with discipline. Once they care, they can't be stopped, and they can recreate what they accomplish again and again, growing stronger every time. That's why I can't pour information into empty tubes again. Once you've been close to the fire, you can't live without it any more.
How Does Research Support SDL?
Recent research on teaching is usually interpreted as guidelines for improving how to teach students the curriculum. Teachers are urged to apply the research on learning styles, for example, by designing their lessons to accommodate the different ways-visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic-by which students most readily comprehend and apply what they are taught. When brain research shows that people learn better when new concepts are tied to what students already know, teachers are encouraged to connect the lesson to students' past experience and to begin with their current state of knowledge about the subjects they are teaching. Such responses are commendable and promising for TDL. With a shift in perspective, however, we can also see, in these and many other findings, the outline of another paradigm in which students exercise their individual learning styles in creating their own meaning. That paradigm is SDL. We can flesh out that paradigm with other research and the developments based on it.
The work on multiple intelligences, diverse learning styles, and the psychology of the individual is applied in various approaches to teaching designed to accommodate those differences in direct instruction. This involves teaching to the intelligences and learning styles and individualizing instruction. From another point of view, however, we can affirm that each child is unique, with a unique set of talents, a unique body of experience, and a unique perspective on the world. Students learn best in unique ways that maximize their personal resources. It seems reasonable to conclude that students will learn best by coherently extending their experience in their own emerging style that takes full advantage of their individual strengths.
The basic concept of metacognition is that we think about our thoughts: we think about what we know, what we are doing, and what we are thinking. As Hacker, Dunlosky, and Graesser (1998) say, the promise of metacognitive theory is that it focuses "on those characteristics of thinking that can contribute to students' awareness and understanding of being self-regulatory organisms, that is of being agents of their own thinking" (p. 20). One of the ways this theory has been applied is to teach students to self-regulate their learning and study practices in TDL classrooms (Zimmerman, Bonner, and Kovach, 1996). From another perspective, metacognition is the key to SDL.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Self-Directed Learning Handbook by Maurice Gibbons Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Preface xiiiAcknowledgments xvii
1 The Case for Self-Directed Learning 1
What Is Self-Directed Learning? 2
How Does Research Support SDL? 6
The Major Principles of an SDL Program 9
The Essential Elements of SDL 11
Approaching SDL in Stages 13
2 A Framework for Teaching SDL 14
Defining the Course 15
Expanding Learning Options and Environments 16
Building Independent Thinking Skills 18
Negotiating Student Learning Agreements 20
Establishing Assessment Processes 21
3 Rethinking Student Coursework 23
Essential Planning Steps 23
Understanding the Stages of SDL 24
Linking the Stages to Grade Levels 28
Designating Course Outcomes 29
Developing Self-Managed Course Units 34
Student-Planned Coursework and Projects 38
Focusing on Competencies and Challenges 39
4 Planning Lessons and Projects 43
Planning Lessons and Projects 43
Principles for Planning Lessons 43
Designing Learning Episodes 46
Creating Experiences 47
Promoting Study 49
Encouraging Productivity 51
Involving Students in Project Planning 52
5 Teaching Independent Thinking 57
Inviting Inquiry and Initiative 58
Developing Problem-Solving Skills 64
Using Process Frameworks: Investigation and Action 65
Cultivating Process Thinking and Attitudes 68
6 Negotiating Student Learning Agreements 73
The Learning Agreement or Contract 73
The Elements of a Contract 74
Negotiating Contract Agreements 81
Sample Contracts 87
Tracking Student Progress 90
7 Motivating and Empowering Students 93
Encouraging Students to Pursue SDL 93
Motivating Students to Motivate Themselves 95
The Working Journal as a Motivational Tool 99
Dealing with the SDL Crisis 101
Working with Difficult Students 106
8 Assessing Student Achievement 110
Promoting Student Self-Assessment 111
Assessing General Skills 113
Assessing Coursework 113
Evaluating Projects and Assignments 119
Portfolios for Personal Learning 121
Passage and Graduation Criteria 122
Demonstrations, Celebrations, and Conferences 126
9 Pursuing a Path of Excellence 132
The Teacher Is the Key Person 132
Making a Difference to the Student 135
Starting an SDL School 137
Administrative Support for SDL 138
Creating a Shared Vision 140
Resource A: How Much SDL Are You Teaching Now? 142
Resource B: How Self-Directing Are You? A Self-Assessment Instrument 144
Resource C: The Passage Process 148
Resource D: The Integrated SDL Unit: The Kinds of Activities Involved 152
Resource E: Inner States for SDL 154
Resource F: Sample Process Templates 157
Resource G: Guidelines, Traps, and Boosters 159
Resource H: The Support Group or Triad 163
Resource I: Samples from a Student's Working Journal 166
Resource J: Some of the Many Ways Students Can Learn 170
Bibliography 172
Index177
The Author 183
What People are Saying About This
"When Maurice Gibbons introduced his Walkabout model a few years ago, he opened exciting new possibilities for relevant, meaningful, and challenging learning to take place in high schools. In this new book he provides teachers with a comprehensive, step-by-step process for realizing these possibilities in their classrooms." — Ron Miller, executive editor, Paths of Learning magazine
"This book offers thorough and detailed instruction in the creation of self-directed learning environments. It's a much-needed 'how-to' manual for classroom teachers who want to motivate and empower their students to flourish as learners." — Karen Fernandez, teacher, Denver Public Schools
"Will help teachers and administrators implement a vision of schooling that will revitalize their professional lives while providing avenues to success for all their students. I have seen the successful application of his vision for over twenty years, and this handbook is a practical guide for expanding the possibilities to any school that wishes to challenge itself to become the best that it can be." — Arnold Langberg, educational consultant, former principal of Jefferson County Open High School
"This is one of the most practical, wisest, and most upbeat books I've encountered in thirty years of teaching, and working with teachers. Educators who want to do SDL will find this an extraordinary valuable resource, one they use over and over again." — Joe Nathan, director, University of Minnesota Center for School Change