What helps foster self-directed learners and learning?
Student Choice/Responsibility • Students should be given a chance to interact with the curriculum through investigation & demonstration. Students should be able to have some choice in “showing what they know”…showing they have met the state standards. • Teachers should shift some of the responsibility for learning from themselves to the learner. This is not to suggest that the teacher should not teach, make lesson plans, or facilitate activities. However, the teacher can instruct the class in those features over which students have control: amount of effort, note-taking, perseverance, locus of control, self-efficacy, and self-regulation. • Teachers should encourage study skills, inquiry, questioning, and an atmosphere where errors are considered a normal part of arriving at the correct answer. Teachers should avoid taking the shortest path to correct answers and help students determine correct answers through authentic learning, disciplined inquiry,critical questioning; & expressing
