Actioning Self-directed Learning: Learning Environment for Undergraduate Students

Dr. Bruce A. CalwaySwinburne University of Technology, Lilydale, Australia

E-mail：bcalway@swin.edu.au

With Constructive paradigms there seems to be an assumption that students come to learning motivated and independent as learners. However, research by Calway (1999, 2000, 2001,a,b) to date suggests there are variables that mitigate against such a self-actualisation of students studying subjects at Swinburne University of Technology, Lilydale, Information Technology, Systems and Multimedia (ITSM) Discipline. The students, that enter our programs, exit secondary studies with an Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank (ENTER) and for students entering the Lilydale campus the ENTER is a low 65+. For the Hawthorn campus of Swinburne the equivalent students have a ENTER of 80+ and a premier Melbourne university would be a ENTER of 95+. This indicates that students entering Lilydale are there with lesser motivation as a starting point, this is further extenuated because students are goal-oriented.

Therefore, as part of an ongoing action research project, the ITSM Discipline is investigating self-directed and Constructivist learning paradigms, both to implement them and investigate their shortcomings. The research reported here relates to the development of an active (collegiate) learning environment that draws together understandings gained about how explicit knowledge construction and self-actualised learning can coexist in undergraduate degree programs facilitated by the ITSM Discipline as a classroom and Web-based scenario.

Key words: Active (collegiate) learning environment Self-directed learning

1 Introduction

Self-directed learning (SDL), (cf. Knowles, 1975; Houle, 1984; Hiemstra and Sisco, 1990) affords a number of connotations, from learners motivated in a prescribed and dependent study through to learners generating their study material and path of learning. The former suggests a strong use of dependent learning with the learner environment taking on a high degree of directed action. Whereas the latter is far more self-actualised learning where the learner constructs the topic, time, place and pace. Therefore, there is a discernable pluralism as:

（1 ）Self-motivated self-directed learning – where the learner takes an active part in a structured learning environment. An environment that encourages subjective interpretation of learning within a stimulus contextualisation. It is interesting to note that motivation was not a competency of the original SDL competency measurement instrument developed by Knowles (1975, p61).

（2 ）Self-actualising self-directed learning – where the learner creates a learning path in accordance with an individual action to create a context or influence an extant context (i.e. construction, Bruner, 1960, 1986, 1990).In essence, the two are similar in that the learner is making an individual response to learning. However, there is one notable differentiation in that the sphere of individual contextualisation is objective for the one and subjective for the other. In a survey (using the self-directed learning instrument, http://www.distance.syr.edu/sdlskills.html) conducted of students in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years of undergraduate study

(Calway 2002) students believe they were moderately self-motivated and moderately self-directed. While the academic staff agreed with the students in terms of self-motivation they disagreed the self-direction, suggesting students were low and/or did not understand this aspect. Self-direction of a learner does not seem to be associated with the dependence or independence of the learner, rather I suggest it is associated with the needs (insecure through self-actualised) focus of the learner that need to be met, e.g. independent learners can have multiple levels of self-direction.

Figure 1 Learning Responsiveness – Adapted from Grow (1991/1996) (Source Calway and Turner, 2002)

This paper describes an understanding of self-directed learning gained while researching to construct an active (collegiate) learning environment for undergraduate students of the Information Technology, Systems and Multimedia Discipline. The research was induced by two events; firstly, the technology used to distribute the computer-assisted learning to ITSM Discipline students became obsolete requiring a replacement in first semester 2002. Secondly, observations from prior studies (Calway, 1999, 2000, 2001,a,b) and academics that indicated ITSM Discipline students were not self-actualised nor self-directed learners on the whole. Also, that the use of online (computer-assisted) flexible learning materials made no significant difference to student outcomes or motivation to learn when compared to other more traditional approaches taken by other disciplines in the same university campus. There existed sufficient anecdotal observations to suggest that, on the whole, ITSM Discipline students possessed a prescriptive and deterministic nature that would be anticipated for a traditional dependent learning paradigm (cf. Grow, 1991/1996), reflected in the lower left quartile of Figure One above.

Independent

Colleague, Peer

CollaboratorFacilitatorGuide

Self Actualised

Insecure InstructorTeacher

Dependent Student

Instructivist focus

Constructivist focus

This has lead me to the view that what was being observed ran contra to the assumptions of constructivism in that self-actualised learners seem to be a product of a social construction. This dichotomy could loosely be viewed in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (e.g. Norwood, 1999) where the student is overtly progressed along a path of objective security to the point of subjective self-actualisation. That is, a traversing from a “not knowing what they don’t know” and insecure as learners to “knowing what they don’t know” and able to engage self-actualised learning given appropriate conditions (the debate of whether we are a product of a social construction is not attempted here).

2 Previous ITSM Learning Technology

Within Swinburne University of Technology, Lilydale, the ITSM Discipline is responsible for constructing learning for undergraduate students studying for Bachelor degrees in the information technology, information systems and multimedia discipline areas. The premise that underpins the development of the ITSM structured learning technology is that the learner is not sufficiently knowledgeable to be self-actualising at point of entry to the program, i.e. they “don’t know what they don’t know.” If we were to suggest a self-actualising subjective contextualisation then the student would be sufficiently knowledgeable to deduce that they “know what they don’t know” and are seeking a learning environment sufficiently rich in which to subjectively construct meanings.Having made this observation, a second emanates, in that, a Constructivist learning approach assumes a student comes to learning as self-actualising (cf. Bednar et.al., 1991; Wilson et.al., 1995; Wilson, 1997). If, as the ITSM Discipline did, you take the Constructivist learning framework, then you are faced with the dichotomy of providing sufficient objectivity to direct students to a path of learning on which they can individually and subjectively traverse given the low or distracted motivation mentioned earlier. Data previously reported (Calway, 2001b) suggests that students of the ITSM Discipline in fact are prescriptive goal-oriented learners focused on “what must be done” rather than the self-actualising attitude of “what is worth knowing.” This observation was suggested by Houles’ in his original motivation points first discussed in the early 1960’s.

Time

Task

Topic

Figure 2 Screen shot of pre-2001 ITSM Discipline subject home page.

For three years now ITSM Discipline students have been provided with an expansive online and classroom based learning environment where the learning materials are structured and navigable from three perspectives:

（1 ）Topics – what is worth knowing and how this knowledge is to be descriptive, contextualised, as well as situated and problem-based;

（2 ）Tasks – a set of assessment items, and situated learning activities and exercises. Assessment items having set requirements and completion dates, whereas exercises and activities are non-prescriptive requiring student self-motivation.

（3 ）Time – a linear representation of topics and tasks as a schedule where students are given a suggested paced learning environment.This was the first generation of what the ITSM Discipline has developed (Figure Two), what we are calling an active learning environment that reflects the diversity of learners’ self-awareness, offering objective and subjective capacity commensurate with capability. The active learning environment assumes that each student requires direction at some point, and that this direction is most likely to occur at the start of a student’s learning or at a point when students are distracted from learning.

3 ITSM Learning Environment

The desire of the ITSM Discipline staff remains to create an online Web-based and classroom environment that provides the initial objective structure suggested for focusing undergraduate student learning and to promulgate a self-actualising culture within which students frame their individual learning as a collegiate model of active learning. Studies by Calway (1999, 2001b) indicate that while most students can and will study in online mode not all students engage with an online learning environment nor do all students engage with self-directed independent let alone self-actualised learning. This along with other scenarios provides a problematic learning environment development. At this point the opportunity exists to engage theories that deal holistically with problematic scenarios.

Figure 3 2002 ITSM Discipline learning environment rich picture.

Systems Thinking (cf. e.g. Robotham, 2000; Tam, 2000) is one such theory that provides opportunity to think holistically about what is to happen in self-directed learning (SDL) and the active (collegiate) learning environment and to seek the structural elements that relate to it. Systems Thinking (cf. e.g. Checkland, 1981; Banathy, 1995; Reyes, 1999) enables the developer/viewer to uncover assumptions that are positive and/or negative to the desired structure. Likely agents, whether students, academics, industry, or the like can be described along with likely or intended consequences of actions. There is the capacity to look at the environment from multiple viewpoints, from the micro to the macro, enabling the determination of opportunities and leveraging actions. As part of the analysis process the opportunity exists to identify and constrain variables, and to view both quantitatively and qualitatively test propositions and to view the systemic consequences that alter the original structure. Each step is played out over time and is therefore available to be observed and measured.These comments have now framed the following descriptive analysis of the ITSM Discipline active (collegiate) learning environment. Prior to the discussion a pictorial representation is given in order to assist the reader deal with the inherent complexity of such a structure. The means of representation is via a Rich Picture (Figure Three) (cf. e.g. Checkland, 1981; Checkland and Haynes, 1994).

Points to notice within Figure Three are that there are structural elements that are determinant. For example, industry is requiring workers; workers who are discipline competent and who possess specific generic competencies and knowledge. Also, society has established norms and a social construction that in Australia sees many secondary qualified individuals entering universities. Students enter the university system with a desire to gain a degree qualification in order to graduate into society and industry and bring a diversity of knowledge, competencies and constraints. Students therefore enter a highly structured environment. The inherent structure has further been empowered through a university system that has rules and norms that emanate from centuries past. Amongst these norms are the learning structures categorised as ‘traditional’. However, the past several decades have seen individuals researching and implementing new structures and learning socialisations. This has led to strategies for instructional design (e.g. Romiszowski, 1977; Wilson, 1997; Tam, 2000) that redefine the focus of learning behaviour away from the academic/teacher as the knowledge repository to the student as a self-actualising knowledge creator.

4 Active (Collegiate) Learning Environment

If then, the academic accepts the self-directed, self-actualised paradigm and desires to implement it in practical terms, then this alters the role of the student from being a passive participant in the learning experience suggesting this must change to that of an active participation. Rather than knowledge being pushed into a prescriptive form, it is a requirement that knowledge be remodelled into a form that is modular and problem or project-based, contextualised and framed by an industry and disciplinary priorities. A conceptual and strategies model of the learning environment (discussed above) was developed by the ITSM Discipline to express the relationships, entities and attitudes necessary to define the cultural context and approach. Graphically this is represented in a matrix (Figure One, above) which is an elaboration of work promulgated by Grow (1991/1996).If we were to take the student as the conceptual customer entity and learning as the conceptual relationship, then ‘making sense’ as knowledge must provide the objective entity in an active learning view, upper right hand corner of Figure One, of the world:

Teacher – Explicitly Structures – Discipline KnowledgeTeacher – Creates – Active Learning EnvironmentStudent – Learns (makes sense of) – Knowledge from the Active Learning EnvironmentStudent - Becomes independent and interacts with Teachers as a Collaborator

If the view were an instructional/traditional view, the relationship would probably have been:Teacher – Structures – Discipline and Generic KnowledgeTeacher – Instructs – Student

This brief comparison is indicative of the changed relationships and therefore the change in strategies and applications/systems required for such an active learning environment, particularly one that is constituted using Web-based technologies combined with traditional classroom applications/systems.

So, what does the new model look like and what strategies are employed to enculturate students, academics, industry and administrators as they enter the active learning environment?

Students/Teachers – choose – the discipline specific knowledge majors/minors.Students and Teachers collaborate in the generation of knowledge.A course – is constructed with industry imperatives for discipline specific knowledge and

core generic knowledge.Teachers (Academics) – are discipline qualified.

Students – comprehend the need for discipline specific knowledge and core generic knowledge or Students – don’t comprehend the need for discipline specific knowledge and core generic knowledge.

Teachers (Academics) – create – lessons and learning objects (structure discipline knowledge).

Lessons – are – problem or project-based.Learning Objects – are – Content/concept focused (topics), etc.

While this is not a complete or comprehensive list of entities and relationships it is indicative of the relationships, attributes and strategies inherent in the desired collegiate learning environment. The figure above captured the structural issues, as a Rich Picture the model of the ITSM Discipline active learning environment (Figure Three). However, a point to note is that the picture does not capture the variety of behavioural and agency aspects acting upon that structure (a point of current analysis reported in a future paper).

5 Summary and Conclusions

What has been described above, as the ITSM Discipline active learning environment for 2002, is an action research project to develop a human activity system in the holistic sense of the term. Implicit with the environment is the necessity to provide a stepping out point for students regardless of their study motivation or extent of explicit discipline knowledge. The key issue is that the processes of individual knowledge construction are processes that involve both cognition, affective and real or vicarious actions. The role of the academic, as an example, changes to one of making explicit tacit discipline and generic competencies and knowledge and then acting as a collaborator. Equally the role of a student changes to one of conversion of what would seem to them tacit knowledge (even though the academic may have structured it in a learning environment) into individual explicit knowledge a process of ‘making sense’ of unstructured ‘messes’ that reside in one’s mind as assumptions, feelings, ideas, biases, heuristics, memories, etc., as Malhotra (1998) suggests. This begins to make sense of the ideal of self-directed learning as a self-actualised learner. The individual construction of knowledge is simply to take any relevant knowledge and make sense of it. When we take any ITSM Discipline subject, if the student is simply presented with content and concept knowledge then it may well be memorised but not constructed in the individual learning of the student. With the active learning environment the student is provided a view of knowledge and a context within which to make explicit their tacit learning. However, we must remember students will be individually constrained by their extant knowledge and competencies, their physiological and sociological determinants. Ultimately the self-actualising student, who has engaged with learning through their learning style, will make sense of their individual knowledge within an intrinsic micro and extrinsic macro construction. Continuing research and development includes how to recognise what the term ‘making sense’ means to students with different learning styles.

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