Learning beyond our classrooms: the importance of self-directed learning in the 21st Century

 

By Ms Lam Ming Yee and Ms Hung Sui Ha 

 

The world is changing drastically and therefore so must society. We are witnessing certain jobs disappearing and some skills are no longer important. To keep up with the societal needs, our way of teaching and learning needs to be changed. The traditional learning style focuses on rote memorisation of lots of information and the way of teaching also measures itself by the amount of input given to learners within the classroom. However, the amount of input has always been constrained by the limited time available for teaching in the school. Our students, therefore, need to possess the ability of self-learning. 

 

Self-directed learning means students have an active role in learning (Lee, 1998). They take initiative in what they are going to learn and decide what they are going to focus on. In our school, taking learning English as an example, students are encouraged to prepare for lessons using different materials that have been chosen by our teachers and uploaded onto Edmodo before the lesson. This can help students to prepare themselves for their learning or they may choose to read the information after the lesson to aid their revision and understanding of the content. In this way, students can choose which specific areas of a topic they are most interested in and decide what they want to read or watch for each unit that they are currently learning or going to learn.  

 

Besides Edmodo, each student can go on to the online reading platform “Raz-Kids” to read any books they like. The books are categorised and put into different ability levels, so students can therefore decide which level of books they want to try to read. Since students can make their own choices, they have more motivation to read on their own. It is hoped that through the platform, students’ reading habits can be gradually cultivated and their English learning will then be enhanced as a positive reading habit is a key determiner of English language learning (Chettri & Rout, 2013). 

 

The principal aim in encouraging self-directed learning is to enable students to find their own intrinsic motivation towards learning. More often than not, students in Hong Kong are driven by extrinsic motivational factors, especially their exam scores. However, crucially these external factors are not ever lasting. Students will therefore lose their interest for continual learning once these extrinsic motivational factors are removed (for example once the exam period is completed). 

 

We believe that students, teachers, schools, the education system and even our society at large should not focus on examination scores alone in determining the success of students’ educational achievements. We all need to apply value to the essential idea of whether our children are motivated to continue to learn independently outside the “classroom” as having this ability is most likely to enable them to be successful and productive members of society when they become adults. 

 

References:

 

Chettri, Kushmeeta & Rout S.K. Reading Habits – An Overciew. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 2013

 

Lee, Icy. ELT Journal: Supporting Greater Autonomy in Language Learning. Oxford University Press, 1998