This is a learning strategy which allows learners take charge of their own learning process. This includes diagnosis of learning needs, identify learning goals, select learning strategies and evaluate learning performances and outcomes. It is the ability for a person to formulate a plan and identify the tools, resources and strategies needed for one’s own learning.
Open learning can also be defined as Adults controlling their own learning process, or learning in which decision around what to learn, how to learn it, and how to decide if one has learned something well enough are all in the hands of learners. It refers to learning experiences in which the learner has the primary responsibility for engaging with, planning strategies and pathways in order to successfully complete a learning task. Behaviors and characteristics associated with self-directed learning are related to intrinsic motivation, integrity, agency, diligence and perseverance.
Some of the many benefits of self-directed learning are as follows:
- Self-directed learning provides students with the opportunity to teach themselves the most essential skill to become lifelong learners: knowledge of how to learn. Self-directed learning teaches students how to learn, rather than what to learn. If students can learn the ‘how,’ the content or topic can be interchangeable.
- Self-directed learning is rooted in the application of skills: thinking skills, research skills, self-management skills, social skills and communication skills. These skills can then be applied to a multitude of different contexts and learning situations, both inside and outside of school.
- Self-directed learning gives students further independent practice in comprehension strategies: Students read with a question in mind and activate curiosities along the way; they connect to their background knowledge and schema; they monitor their comprehension when evaluating texts they are interacting with; they determine the important parts of a text to help them focus on specific inquiries; they infer unfamiliar word and concept meaning when reading texts; and, they take everything they have understood and synthesize it into a summary of their new learning.
- Self-directed learning increases the amount of time students spend reading and writing. In order to learn more about their curiosities, students must become more proficient in comprehending and creating non-fiction texts and visual modes. As a result, authentic and purposeful literacy development occurs within an inquiry-based setting.
- Students are given the freedom to choose the who, the what, the where and the how. They can choose to work independently or with a rotating partner. They can choose to work in the classroom, a quiet room, a shared space or the library. They can choose what they want to learn about and how they want to communicate their new learning. This freedom of choice allows students to find their proximal zone of learning: physically, socially, mentally and emotionally–which promotes metacognitive awareness and self-advocacy along the way.
- The degree of independence students exhibit increases exponentially as the year goes along. By the end of the year, the teacher’s primary role is one of connector, enabler and cognitive coach. Student initiation and organizational capacity collectively grows throughout the year. The students know exactly what they are doing and how they want to accomplish it. The teacher’s job is to maximize and push the learning potential in each inquiry.
- Self-directed learning fosters a collaborative learning environment. Whether inquire independently or in partnerships, there is a constant cross-pollination of ideas and sharing that takes place. Students engage in negotiation, compromise, feedback and evaluation, especially when learning in partnerships and small groups.
- In self-directed learning, the locus of control and influence shifts back to the students. They begin to have greater self-determination and freedom over their learning. As a result, there seems to be a renewed and genuine passion for coming to school and learning. Self-directed learning is students’ favorite time of the day, and many wake up looking forward to this time at school.
- Self-directed learning broadens students‘ abilities to communicate with one another and the world. Students use a wide variety of visual modes to share and document their learning, which helps to refine their visual design skills. As a result, students think more naturally about the purpose of their “product” and their intended audience, thereby becoming more effective modern communicators.
- Students become highly proficient in a range of technological applications and media. They are often initially inspired by their peers, so when one student thinks divergently and tries something new, others follow and innovate off the original. As a result, the amount of peer-to-peer upskilling in technology builds a lateral and dynamic digital learning environment. The time they spend using technology increases with self-directed learning opportunities, so there is reciprocal growth in personal and collective proficiency in these media.
