Self-Directed Learning: Making Learning Meaningful
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Course Name: Self-Directed Learning |
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Course Number: EDUC 714Z |
Semester Credits: 3 |
Course Description
The possibilities for student motivation, achievement, and success are exciting for both teachers and students when teachers move from teacher-directed activities to a self-directed learning environment. Teachers can motivate and empower students to take responsibility for their learning by assisting them in goal setting, self-monitoring, reflection, and independent course work. Resources will include sample lessons, contracts, self-monitoring tools, and assessment strategies to make learning relevant and meaningful to adolescent students.
Goals
- Define self-directed learning (SDL)
- Describe how to develop an SDL program
- Use the teaching techniques and tools required to help students become skilled in SDL
- Identify the fourteen intellectual dispositions that characterize self-directed learners
- Perceive the need for learners to be self-directed as they face an increasingly complex future
- Focus on developing students' intellectual capacity for self-assessment
- Assess themselves, their environment, and their efforts to build self-directness in others
- Examine their own role and identity in order to become catalysts for unleashing the motivations of their students
- Utilize some practical suggestions about getting started on establishing a school dedicated to self-directed learning
Course Contents
- The Case for Self-Directed Learning
- A Framework for Teaching SDL
- Rethinking Student Coursework
- Planning Lessons and Projects
- Teaching Independent Thinking
- Negotiating Student Learning Agreements
- Motivating and Empowering Students
- Assessing Student Achievement
- Pursuing a Path of Excellence
- Why We Need Self-Directed Learners
- The Intellectual Dispositions of Self-Directed Learners
- Developing the Capacity for Self-Assessment
- Assessing the Conditions for Self-Directed Learning
- The Teacher's Role in Self-Directed Learning
- Adapting the Assessment Strategies for Your School and Classroom
Evidence of Learning Outcomes
Upon completing Self-Directed Learning, the student will demonstrate a reflective understanding of how self-directed learning impacts student learning through the application of concepts in the assigned projects.
How to Register
Self-Directed Learning can be completed in either an online or via emailed PDF format. It is open for anyone to register at any time during an open semester. After completion, students receive graduate, non-degree semester credit on official transcripts from the University of La Verne, an accredited university in La Verne, California.
Registration is fast and straightforward and can be done online or over the phone. Courses are offered on a rolling basis during three standard semesters, and you can begin whenever you are ready! The registration dates are:
- Fall: September 1 - January 31
- Spring: February 1 - May 31
- Summer: June 1 - August 31