Nothings succeeds like a budgerigar

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The philosphical tension between how much self-directed rope to give senior students is quite a real one.

On one hand - the desire for students to succeed (the down side of that is the lack of desire for students to fail, and thereby learn about themselves); and on the other - the desire for them to be (or become) self-directed learners.

How much do we intervene when they are poised to fail? Riddle me that. How much?

I checked my previous posts on self-directed learning on this blog and I think there's a real danger, from time to time, of forgetting the central precepts of SDL.

I wrote this two years ago: 

What conditions need to exist to improve S-DL?

Great question. Here's my response!

• Environment (personalised places/conditions to do it)
• Learning goals (set by the student and owned!)
• Choice (what to study and when to study)
• Self-reflection (How am I doing? What needs to change?)
• Support: Learning coaches (help is on the way)

BTW: Those last two are linked. Self-reflection is tough for kids and that's why a coach is a crucial ingredient.

When one or more of those elements are missing there's an imbalance in the force.

There's also potential imbalance when the desire for results becomes a primary driving force and coaching becomes something else.

It's a dilly of a pickle.