Balancing Directed and Self-Directed Learning

What am I supposed to do to prepare for class, my students at times wonder, if I am not being directed what to read or what homework to do? 

A look of student uncertainty (courtesy of jamelah on Flickr)

It's a fair question. I am not following custom in my Shakespeare course. There is no calendar of readings, no exam slated, no paper due. Not even a quiz. In short, I am not providing for my students the sort of completely directed curriculum that they've likely experienced as their professors have handed out a course syllabus with its exact and exacting set of readings and assignments. It's enough to make more than one student feel a little edgy.


Escaping Passive Learning
This departure from the norm will no doubt be disconcerting to some, since there is a comfortable familiarity in just going to the prescribed texts, just doing the assigned reading, then preparing for whatever evaluation will test one's knowledge. But I think this discomfort can be constructive; it can awaken students to their own abilities at self-directed learning, and can break them free from a passivity about their education induced by traditional teacher-directed learning.

Schooling is scaffolding for life, or can be. But what happens when, year in and year out, someone is handed a syllabus, assigned textbooks, and directed what to read, what to write, what to be tested on? This develops a passivity on the part of the students. Implicitly, it says they do not have the ability to direct their own learning. Someone must do all of this for them.

Self Directing One's Learning
By the time students enter college it's time for them to practice independence in how and what they learn. Sure, they select their own major and their own slate of courses each semester, but then they settle into conforming to readings, requirements, and evaluations that will certify them as educated. The problem is, they might earn their degree, but be unable to educate themselves further because no one is there to hand them a syllabus and make them prepare for a test.

This is why I require my students to do self-directed learning. I want them to practice for life-long learning, and unless they plan to be perpetually in school (an actual danger for some), they won't be learning into the future unless it is under their own steam.

Too Much Freedom?
But self-directed learning doesn't mean an education without structure. After all, for all its faults, the constraints of an educational system provide a motivation, an environment, and a set of resources that focus one's attention and get one consuming and producing information that one would not likely do if left on one's own. We all know what it is like to be set free (for the summer, for example), only to find that with less structured time and more freedom, less actually is accomplished.

Finding the Balance
What's needed, I think, is the proper balance between directed and self-directed learning. Here's how I've tried to achieve this within my Shakespeare classroom.

• Learning Outcomes
  First, I make explicit the learning outcomes for the course. I return to these constantly and urge the students in their participation always to refer to them. There never should be any question as to where we are headed, even if there is much latitude given in how to get there. 
• Modeling
  For each of these learning outcomes I provide various models so that they get a range of ideas of how to reach those learning goals. My favorite way of doing this is by referring to the work of fellow students (from current or prior semesters). For example, one of the learning outcomes (under "Analyze Shakespeare Critically") is to investigate various digital mediations of Shakespeare. I've written a blog post on the topic of digitally mediating Shakespeare that explores this learning outcome and gives them ideas (but doesn't hold them to specifics). Similarly, in class yesterday I described, again, how to make one's academic blogging more coherent by using a "hub post." I showed them examples of such a post from one of my own blogs and from blogs of prior students.
• Regular Documenting of Learning
  Next, I have required regularity in when and where students report on and document their self-directed learning. In this course, it means blogging. My Shakespeare students are not being given any specific reading or homework assignments by me, but they all know of the requirement to post on their blogs regularly (three times weekly, due the night before the following class period) and to comment on others' blogs regularly (twice per class period).
• Social Learning
  The next ingredient in this pedagogy is a social dimension. Even though I emphasize self-directed learning, I do not mean learning in isolation. Quite the contrary, I have emphasized the critical role of interaction among one's peers (online, in the classroom, and informally outside the classroom). We are more likely to do things we know are important if we find social reasons for doing them. And so, as students read and respond to one another's learning while in process (via their blogs) there is a mild performance pressure, a positive peer pressure, that gets them to stay current with their research and their thinking. If they know that what they write is going to be read and commented upon (and not just privately by one's instructor), they are more likely to want to do their reading, research, and writing well.
• Evaluations: Self, Peer, Instructor
  My students must, at intervals, write up (on their blogs) a self evaluation in which they report on how well they have met the learning outcomes. They get practice at this (and perhaps some objectivity) by also being required to evaluate one of their peers using the learning outcomes as an assessment rubric. At that point, I hold a personal interview with the students and ask them to tell me how they have met the learning outcomes. Using a rubric like this one pictured here, I guide the student in understanding what I think are acceptable means for reaching the outcomes.

There are other factors in play here, such as how one evaluates another person's online writing or what the standards ought to be for developing an academic blog or a line of inquiry that has both informal and more formal components. But for now, what I'm wanting to emphasize is that the best structure I can come up with for helping my students to learn what they need to now, and to develop the skills for learning they need later, is to create a structure in which they are motivated socially to be independent in their learning, all while keeping focused on clearly stated learning outcomes.

I'm learning here, too. These tools are new, imperfect, and subject to change. But I know that as I have been open with my students about my pedagogy, they feel comfortable participating in its improvement. Recently several of my students have made suggestions to me about how we could make best use of our time in class. I cannot say how pleased I am with this. It means they are thinking about the learning outcomes, and they are using discernment in trying to arrange the resources available to them (including me, their teacher, and their peers) to best reach those outcomes.

I'm not sure what we are going to be doing in class from one period to the next. That doesn't mean there is chaos, nor a lack of structure. We have enough structure to keep each of us productive, interacting, and focused on clear and common goals. That's enough -- at least until my students tell me otherwise.