Self-Directed Learning: Challenges and Concerns

Self-Directed Learning:

Presented by Patrick Farenga

NM Association for the Education of Young ChildrenMarch 1, 2014

Challenges and Concerns

What Is Self-Directed Learning?

Challenges and Concerns

Not learning from a structured curriculum. Kids won’t learn important things unless they are taught to them.

Not learning from a certified teacher. Not learning at the same pace as other children. Children who prefer to play, read, or converse rather than be instructed are loafing and need to be reprimanded.

Learning All the Time

Research by Alison Gopnick

•Your Baby Is Smarter Than You Think in the NY Times, 8/16/2009

•Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School in the NY Times, 3/16/2011 “While learning from a teacher may help children get to a specific answer more quickly, it also makes them less likely to discover new information about a problem and to create a new and unexpected solution.”

The double-edged sword of pedagogy:

Instruction limits spontaneousexploration and discovery

Published in Cognition, 2010

Journal homepage:www.elsevier.com/locate/COGNIT

The Good-Enough Parent and Competent Children

John Bowlby

D.W. Winnicott

T. Berry Brazelton

Claudia Gold

Informal Learning Workers reported that informal learning was three times more

important in becoming proficient on the job than company-provided training.

Workers learn as much during breaks and lunch as during on- and off-site meetings.

Most workers report that they often need to work around formal procedures and processes to get their jobs done.

Most workers developed many of their skills by modeling the behavior of co-workers.Source: CapitalWorks [www.capworks.com/] surveyed hundreds of knowledge workers about how they really learned to do their jobs.

Say Something

In the last few months, what did you learn that wasn’t formally taught to you?

School-Directed Learning

• The role of educational research is “to control and predict.”

• The goal of the educational process “is to equip students to achieve specific, desirable outcomes.”

• BUT “The capacity to achieve an outcome is different from the ability to explore the world and understand experience.”

Sources: • The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen Langer.• The Gift of Imperfection by Brené Brown

Schooling is not the same as education . . .

And education is not the same as learning!

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”

— Plutarch

Don’t put the fire out—feed it!

Multilingualism

• Children can handle being bilingual!

• Parents can use conversation and involvement with other adults and children in their native tongue.

Not Just Books . . .• Keep abreast of public resources and events using

smartphones, tablets, computer for awareness of local bulletin boards, news, events.

• Learning is not just quiet studying.

• Sing, dance, play with children. Encourage activity at home.

• Involve young children in your daily activities as much as possible.

Sugata MitraSugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

The Hole in the Wall Experiment

Teaching Themselves

Learning is about Relationships

•Social

•Personal

•Places

•Things

Video Games Can Be Valuable Connections

Say Something

Technology increased the connections between adults and children for Erik Martin. How can you increase and strengthen the connections between adults and children you know?

Work through strengths and interests

A Question versus a Quiz

Play

Six characteristics of child rearing that were common to

our distant ancestors:•Lots of positive touch – as in no spanking.

•Prompt response to baby’s fusses and cries.

•Breastfeeding, ideally 2 to 5 years. •Multiple adult caregivers.•Free play with multi-age playmates. •Natural childbirth.

Source: http://newsinfo.nd.edu/news/16829-research-shows-child-rearing-practices-of-distant-ancestors-foster-morality-compassion-in-kids/

Help Parents Appreciate Themselves and

Their Kids•Be a good-enough parent. •Read or tell stories about when you were a child to your kids. Share your life but don’t overwhelm them with it.

•It’s okay to make mistakes with your children as long as you correct them ASAP (disrupt/repair). You are providing a learning model to your children.

•Watch shows together and comment on their content and presentation. Discuss the stories and issues you watch.

Children are good at learning