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The teacher’s toolkit Strategies Make sure the goals negotiated are achievable, not too long-term, available in writing to the learner and to you, and have a date when achievement might be expected. If long timescales are unavoidable, monitoring will be necessary. Consider negotiating a learning contract, as described in Chapter 41. Action planning This process often occurs immediately after goal setting. The aim of the action plan is to think of concrete activities which will help achieve the learner’s goals, and so devise ways of closing the gap between where the learner is now, and where they want to be. Action plans should be in writing, and should be available to you and the learner. But how should activities be decided? Strategies As ever with self-directed learning, it is best to ask first. The student will be much more committed to their own ideas than to yours, and will also develop their action-planning skills. However, you may need to negotiate changes to the plan. Action! Learners may find it difficult to work alone, and there is a danger that bad practice will be consolidated rather than corrected without a teacher to check and correct. If you can remain available to monitor the learner’s progress, this will help. Alter-natively, arrange for peers to support each other. The next self-evaluation should include an evaluation of the learner’s working methods: how did they find working alone? What was most difficult about it? The teacher as facilitator In self-directed learning, the facilitating role of the teacher is crucial and not well understood. Too many teachers simply pass over full responsibility to students who are not yet ready. The role of the teacher is to be ready to help the student towards independence, but not to help where there is no need. A useful facilitation strategy for any stage in the cycle is to ask the student first, then to use question and answer to lead the student to make good any deficiencies in their suggestions. Only when this fails should you take more control. In this way, the teacher and student become a partnership, but the student is always given the lead initially. Here is a teacher acting as a facilitator with a management trainee who is self-evaluating. Student 370 … so I think my main strengths are organisational, and my main weaknesses are that I am not so good with people, especially those older than myself. Facilitator Student Facilitator Student Facilitator Facilitator Facilitator Facilitator Self-directed learning Not good with people? Well, I’m not bad with most of them I suppose. Your last piece of work certainly suggests you are excellent with some of them. Okay, so it’s mostly problems with those who are older than me. Why is that, do you think? (Student explains.) So what could you do about that then? (Student makes a suggestion, setting herself a challenge.) Resources. What might help you in this challenge? (Student looks blank.) Can you think of any other young managers at work who you could talk with about managing staff older than yourself? This coaching or facilitating role is very far from leaving the student to flounder alone. The teacher is ‘leading from behind’, and helping the student learn not only the immediate topic of how to manage older staff, but also how to learn indepen-dently. Note that in the above exchange, the facilitator: • asks for a difficulty, but then gives it to the student: ‘what could you do about that then?’ • encourages the student to recognise her own strengths, as well as her weak-nesses • shows that they value the student. ‘Bridging’ is an excellent strategy to finish off a facilitation session (see page 342). Carl Rogers suggests that if students are to develop the self-belief that makes self-directed learning possible, the emotional climate created by the facilitator is crucial. The facilitator must empathise with the student, must be non-judgemental and must show that they value the student as an individual. Many teachers would praise the student for taking initiative in the learning process, but Rogers would probably not agree, preferring intrinsic to extrinsic reinforcement. Instead, he would encourage learners to recognise their own successes. There is a continuum from teacher-directed to self-directed learning, as shown in the diagram below, and students may need to move along it gradually, rather than be thrown in at the deep end. Consider using independent learning before self-directed learning. Students may also find it easier to be self-directed about resources or monitoring than about setting themselves goals or self-evaluating. Why use self-directed learning? The ability to learn by oneself is the greatest gift any teacher can give a learner; indeed, it is the ultimate aim of all education. The educational gains for self-directed learning are the same as those described in the previous chapter for independent learning (see pages 362–4). These gains are very impressive, and in any case, the ultimate purpose of teaching is to make all students into self-directed learners, so why not give them some practice? 371 The teacher’s toolkit Further reading See the further reading section for Chapter 33 on independent learning, together with: Knowles, M. S. (1975) Self-Directed Learning, Cambridge University Press. Petty, G. (1997) How to Be Better at Creativity, London: Kogan Page. Deals with the emotional difficulties of self-evaluation and self-improvement. Rogers, C. (1994) Freedom to Learn (3rd edition), New York: Merrill. 372 ... - tailieumienphi.vn
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