From the article, "Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed" by Gerald Grow, Ph.D. School of Journalism, Media & Graphic Arts Florida A&M University Tallahassee, FL 32307 USA available at: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow

Referencing this publication

Abstract

Based on the Situational Leadership model of Hersey and Blanchard, the Staged Self-Directed Learning Model proposes that learners advance through stages of increasing self-direction and that teachers can help or hinder that development. Good teaching matches the learner's stage of self-direction and helps the learner advance toward greater self-direction. Specific methods are proposed for teaching students at each stage, although many different teaching styles are good when appropriately applied. Several pedagogical difficulties are explained as mismatches between teacher style and learner stage, especially the mismatch between a student needing direction and a non-directive teacher. The model is applied to a course, a single class, and the overall curriculum.

Contents

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Cartoons on Teaching Styles

I. Introduction

When I began teaching college in the late '60s, many of my students were teachers taking classes for re-certification. It never occurred to me that I was practicing adult education. But they learned so differently than younger students-- so much more personally and willingly, and with so much independence--that they taught me new ways to teach. The first and hardest lesson took about a year: to shut up and listen. Inspired by the possibilities, I sought out educators in the San Francisco area with similar interests and joined them in workshops, retreats, and study groups to learn what we called "humanistic" teaching. Characteristic of the times, I wrote a manifesto on self-education, "Notes Toward an Ideal College," which was published in a teacher education journal. After fifteen years outside academia, I returned to the college classroom--teaching magazine journalism at a state university. Only now students responded differently. Many were passive and dependent upon being taught. Others resisted what I had thought were learner-centered methods of teaching. A few became defiant, or defiantly indifferent. The response of one student, though, drove me to rethink what I knew about teaching. She hated me. I had received the usual range of student responses, but no one had ever hated me. No matter how nice I was, no matter how much interest I showed in her own learning process, she simply hated me. I was too unnerved to find a constructive response. I couldn't get her to talk to me. Colleagues could not help me understand what was happening or what to do. (Some thought I must be a bad teacher to be admitting such problems.) Since her hatred symbolized other lesser failures to reach other students, I knew then that I would have to learn to teach differently--or leave. As a result of struggling with this problem, I found a concept around which to reorganize my understanding of teaching: Different students have different abilities to be self-directed, Teachers must adapt their methods in response Self-direction can be taught. This paper presents a model -- the Staged Self-Directed Learning (SSDL) Model -- that suggests how teachers can actively equip students to become more self-directed in their learning.

Additional details from the introduction

Contents