Self-Determined Learning

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Self-determined

Feb. 27, 2015

Learning

What do you do when you want to learn something?

learning is…

set yourlearning intention

What does it looks like when you let students lead the learning?

All of my life I’ve been taught at, and I’m good at being taught at…it was super difficult to do what I wanted to do, and figure out what I even wanted to do. When there’s no plan set out for me, no curriculum to work through, I struggled to determine my own through my interests. (What are my interests? What am I even good at?)

I learned that throughout my years of schooling, but mostly in the past few, I have been avoiding failure rather than trying to succeed.

It is more of a challenge, and an achievement in my opinion, to follow your heart and use your curiosity to pave the way rather than to complete planned specific material and curriculums.

http://blogs.hsd.ca/nyvlrz/2014/06/04/learning-about-learning/

backstory context

“It is critical that we become active researchers and developers of innovations and new directions” (Jacobs, 2010).

the challenge

“The necessary knowledge to solve the

problem must be created in the act of

working on it” (Wagner & Kegan, 2006, p. 76).

learning environment

pedagogy of care

constructivist learning

student-centered learning

learning environment elements

inquiry learning model

inter-disciplinary, student-teacher

developed curriculum

multi-grade classroom

internship opportunities for learning outside the classroom

pedagogy of care

model careengage in

open dialogue

provide students

opportunities to practice

care

confirm the best in

students (Noddings,

2005)

“No teacher who respects their students would make them mindlessly learn.

- student comment

project-based

Student-centered learning is about personalizing the “what” and “how” of learning.

“School is boring.Let me get on with my life.Let me learn my own way.”

“What I was doing actually mattered.”

“I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything because I don’t have a mark in front of me or

physical evidence of my learning.”

“Learning isn’t necessarily linear.”

“I’m learning this for me, and not for you.”

“I always thought of you as part of the program too.”

“What am I doing differently here that cannot be done in a regular classroom?”

Understandings requiredTeachers must be able to embrace ambiguity: “a true problem…is never fully solved” (Roy, 2003)

implications of the study

Understandings required

• The knowledge legitimized by the school curriculum must change (Cassassus et al., 2008). We must ask ourselves what are we educating for? We need to know what they are going to do with the knowledge.

Possibilities for change

A rhizomatic conception of learning is where curriculum is “constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process” (Cormier, 2008, “The Rhizomatic Model of Education”)

We need an approved learning environment design that allows for alternative & innovative, “just-in-time,” learner-constructed curriculum that qualifies for certification.

Change?we know what is being left behind;what may we gain?

What are we not talking about?

ReferencesCassassus, J., et al. (2008). The Construction of Learning Environments Lessons from the Mexico Exploratory Phase. In OECD, Innovating to Learn, Learning to Innovate, OECD Publishing. Feb, 78(6), 444-450.

Cochran-Smith, M. & Lytle, S. (2009). Inquiry as Stance. New York: Teachers College Press.

Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum. Retrieve March, 2011 from http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/06/03/rhizomatic-education-community-as-curriculum/

Noddings, N. (2002). Starting at home: Caring and social policy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Roy, K. (2003). Teachers in nomadic spaces: Deleuze and curriculum. New York: P. Lang.