Self-directed learning puts students in control
Philosophy focuses on individual help rather than classroom lectures
When students are in the driver’s seat of their own education, good things happen. This is the philosophy behind self-directed learning, a method that takes a highly personalized approach to the school experience while following the curriculum of Alberta Education. “What I want the individual to learn is autonomy and that’s where self-directed learning comes in,” says Diane Swiatek, founder and director of Banbury Crossroads School, a 40-year-old private school in southwest Calgary that uses self-directed learning. “It’s that empowerment — I want students to know that through their choices, through their rational decision-making, they can have power over their own lives.” Self-directed learning can incorporate a range of strategies. Among them are the ability for a student to set their own schedule, lessons specific to their learning preferences, and rather than teachers lecturing classrooms of students — tutorials focus on the needs of individual students. “It allows kids to move, allows them to make decisions, and allows the teacher to work more one-onone,” says Swiatek. “It’s the opposite of the teacher-paced, lecture-based and teacherdirected model. (It’s) studentpaced, tutorial-based, student directed — where the emphasis is on the student.” Summit West Independent School, just south of Calgary, also offers the self-directed route. “We (don’t) stand and deliver,” Brad Masterton, Summit West’s principal and high school director, says of selfdirected learning. “It’s not, ‘Everyone sit down and open your books to this page,’ ” says the math teacher. “I’ll walk into the classroom and I literally go one-toone,” he says, adding there are no more than 15 students in a class. “I say, ‘Do you need anything from me today?’ ” Some students may be on the right track and not need the additional direction, while others may ask to be taught directly, which is called a command lesson. “The teacher gets to know the individual child really well, so when they approach them with one concept, they’ll do it in a way specific to that child,” Masterton says. “Then they’ll talk to another kid, it could be the same concept, but they may approach it in a completely different way.” If a teacher sees more than one student stuck on the same part of an assignment they may teach two or three students at once. “That is most often the biggest group lesson that any of our teachers do,” says Masterton. “Maybe up to five kids in the younger grades.” Students have the flexibility to set their own schedule, which allows them to spend more time on some subjects, if they require it. “They’ll know (for example), at 9:30 a.m., the math teacher will be in the classroom. So they’ll do math at that time, if they need the help,” Masterton says. “Otherwise, if they don’t need the help, they can work on whatever they want whenever they want. “They know what they have to have completed by the end of the week, so if there was a day when they spent extra time on science, for example, they know they have to make up that time for whichever they skipped on another day,” he adds. For younger learners, self-directed learning involves more guidance than the upper grades. Doan Tran, who teaches math and science for Grade 2 to 6 students at Banbury, says these students gain considerable value from this method of education. “Self-directed allows them to explore and identify their strengths and weaknesses and what works for them and what doesn’t,” Tran says. “Students are allowed to choose when they are going to take certain subjects based on how their mind works,” she adds. “They are able to say, ‘I’m not a math person in the morning so I’ll plan it for the afternoon or vice versa.” At the end of each day, students reflect and talk to their teacher about their accomplishments. “It’s either, ‘I had an awesome day and was really productive,’ or ‘I didn’t do much’ and why,” Tran says. “They get to reflect and make changes for the following day.” In science, for example, Tran provides an outcome that she expects each student to demonstrate in their project. How they get there varies significantly. “I’ll say I expect to see this in their project and they can show their knowledge to me in any way they want,” Tran says. “Whether it’s a song, story, a poster. It’s up to them, what they’re comfortable with and how they want to present it.”