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From the article, "Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed"
available at: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow |
V. Implications for Research |
Limitations of the magagement model. Most teaching models imply a theory of education that sharply constrains their validity, and this one might as well. The goals of training (to perform known tasks well) and education (to develop people who can live in an unpredictable world) are sufficiently different to make one worry that the SSDL model may unwittingly carry the limits of a management model into the much wider arena of education. At what points do management models and education models clash, and how can their differences be reconciled? Subjects with traditional teaching methods. The SSDL model represents teaching as independent of subject matter. Yet hatha yoga, karate, and some other subjects are always taught in the same mode, without regard for the self-direction of the learner. Why isn't the learner's ability to be self-directed an important variable in the teaching of such subjects? The learner's view. Nowhere does the SSDL model ask what learners think about all this. That's a major omission. The model's focus on teacher-facilitated learning further limits its usefulness by excluding teacherless learning. Teaching the already-resistant, chronically-dependent learner remains problematic in this model. In life, we often devote ourselves to solving with one hand the very problems we are creating with the other. Is there another way to construe teaching and learning so that some of the SSDL's solutions become unnecessary? Teacher expectation may play a greater role than this theory allows. Will students of all kinds act more self-directed merely because that is what the teacher expects? How well can self-direction be faked? Can self-direction be summoned into being by the power of expectation alone, or does it require the separate practice of separate skills? The impression of directedness. What do teachers do that causes students to feel more directed or more autonomous? If two teachers deliver identical instructions for a learning exercise, will students perceive them as identically directive? What could make a difference? How much is directiveness a matter of instructional method and how much is it a matter of personal style? The very concept of "directiveness" needs to be examined closely. Hidden directedness. This paper has discussed overt teacher directiveness. What about directiveness that is "hidden" in instructional materials, curricula, designed exercises, group procedures, cultural conventions, room design, hypertext links, the structures of computer-assisted instruction, etc.? What about the subtle directiveness of an expert facilitator or designer of educational environments? Do learners relate to hidden directiveness the same way they relate to overt directiveness? Does hidden directiveness promote dependency more or less than overt directiveness? (Does either promote dependency?) Is there a difference in directiveness between a teacher telling the learner what to do and the learner reading a book (or a computer screen) that tells the same thing? How real are the stages? Like any exploratory theory, this one is based alternately on seasoned observations and plausible guesses. Are there really stages of self-direction--or is the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum a better description of the relation between teacher and learner control? If there are stages (as I think), can teachers identify them accurately? Can learners? What marks a learner's passage from one stage to another? To what extent are these stages developmental, and to what extent are they situational? Would it make sense for each learner to keep a "checklist" of the subskills of self-direction and the extent those are at work in each area of learning? How adaptable are teachers? To what degree can teachers alter their natural teaching styles to accommodate students in different stages? When learner and teacher are mismatched, how do they currently handle the situation? What strategies, for example, do mature, self-directed adults use when suddenly faced with an S1 teacher? Do learners develop sequentially through the stages, or are the stages actually modes of learning that can occur in alternation, or even simultaneously, in the same learner? Anyone interested in relating this model to other leading management models (Theory X and Theory Y, for example) should consult chapter 20 in Hersey and Blanchard (1988). But if stages of the SSDL model bear any relation to "learning styles" (clearly an important but tangled area of educational theory), Wittstruck (1986) did not find it. A caveat. The SSDL model is a powerful concept, and like all powerful concepts, not to be trusted. Onto the many complexities of learning, it imposes a brisk, no-nonsense interpretation. It is valuable in the sense of a bright, single-minded colleague who keeps explaining everything so clearly that one is challenged to uncover what is missing and find a better explanation. I have lived my life in the presence of predatory theories that explain too much too easily; even before completing the thought behind this paper, I was arguing with it--and I argue with it still. Yet the SSDL model has a life of its own, it has a contribution to make, and it would not leave me in peace until I wrote it up. I present this model, not as a definitive thing, but as another statement in the ongoing conversation of those who encourage self-directed, lifelong learning. |