Self-Directed Learning: What is that?
Key Ideas from a Literature Review
This review of literature on Self-Directed Learning was a goldmine for me.
We talk about 21st Century Competencies but struggle to define them. They are complex. They are general. They are vague. They are evolving.
This paper gave me some amazing mental models for translating these important ideas around self-directed learning into practical action. For me, it helps answer these questions:
What skills should we be developing in students in our school?
How can I help teachers and students understand what these skills are and why they are important?
How can we build these skills in schools? (In another blog post)
These are my key takeaways
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. (Alvin Toffler, 1991)
Why Self-directed learning in Schools?
In today’s world, we have access to massive amounts of data and information, which creates conditions for rapid social change.
To survive in today’s workforce, individuals must be self-directed learners i.e. know how to take charge of their learning— to plan, develop, adapt, and change in a digital, interactive and global society.
And Schools need to prepare students for the demands of this workforce (which based on research, we aren’t doing very well in most schools yet).
Defining Self-directed learning will help us better understand the 21st Century skills that students need. This will help us design learning experiences that target these skills.
What is Self-Directed Learning?
Self directed learning is an individual, purposeful and developmental process.
Self-directed learning has 4 dimensions - Self-Regulation, Motivation, Personal Responsibility and Autonomy (see detailed frame below)
Self-directly learning
Views learners as capable individuals, inherently good-natured with a sense of responsibility and a desire to reach their full potential.
Is highly influenced by the environment, including social interactions and other context-based factors.
Skills are both, generic and discipline-specific.
Self-directed Learning can be viewed on a learning continuum that moves from Self-Regulated Learning → Self-Directed Learning → Self-Determined Learning
Each of these have a massive overlap, but in general can be viewed as going from a narrower scope with more structure to broader ones with less structure.
(My post on Motivation explores Self-Determined Learning, but it has massive overlaps with Self-Directed Learning. I still need to make a more coherent connection between the two myself)
Dimensions of Self-Directed Learning
Below is a visual summary of the 4 dimensions of self-directed learning
3 Challenges with Self-directed Learning in schools
Same words, different meanings: Self-directed Learning has emerged from different disciplinary fields with different vocabulary. Much of self-directed Learning research comes from Adult, Experiential and Informal education. K-12 education, Cognitive Sciences and Psychology have focused more on self-regulation and motivation, but these ideas have big overlaps.
Emerging Frameworks: Another challenges is that there are no widely-accepted or empirically validated frameworks to guide thinking around these ideas.
Challenging to Assess: Finally, the nature of these skills make them difficult to assess in traditional ways and at scale. Lack of a widely-accepted framework further compounds this.
For these reasons I have personally found it challenging to systematically address (build vision, set goals, teach, assess) self-directed learning skills in our school. But this paper will help me take some big steps in the right direction!
More on how to teach for Self-Directed Learning in my next post!