Self-Directed

Becoming self-directed means that learners take command of their own learning: what and how they choose to know and do. This is a life skill. Digital learning leaders create the conditions beginning in early childhood that promote and encourage every learner to pursue this goal.

Before reading any further, watch this self-taught black artist at https://www.ted.com/talks/titus_kaphar_can_beauty_open_our_hearts_to_difficult_conversations?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2020-07-02

Since so many adults are so very certain that they know exactly what the learner needs to know and be able to do, the Digital Learning Leader needs to know what a real self-directed learner looks like, feels like, and acts like. They need to learn how to be a true mentor rather than a director, and how adults actually learn how to mentor such behavior not only in K-12 settings, but in college and organizational settings. Fortunately, there are a number of sources that both describe and document self-directed learners so that we can all experience vicariously, if not in real time, what this phenomenon is. Below are a few videos that might help in understanding this role.

If you have ever observed a two-year-old asking questions, then you realize that curiosity begins at birth. Instead of crushing that curiosity with serious "school," how about capturing it then and continuing that curiosity throughout life? In a forthcoming book, entitled Create by Design, Prof. David Loertscher recommends that everyone begin a Leonardo Notebook. As we know from surviving notebooks, Leonardo kept volumes of questions, drawings, plans, and observations throughout his life. Below, from the book, you will find a double page spread. On the left is the concept of the Leonardo Notebook and on the right side, recommendations for anyone that would like to start one in today's digital world. Perhaps Digital Learning Leaders could encourage this practice in any learning environment as an essential element in one's self-directed learning plan.

At one point, Google was encouraging its employees to observe the 80/20 rule, where 80% of their time would be devoted to their current company project, but 20% of their time could be devoted to their own creative thinking as long as it had some connection to the goals of the company. In a number of secondary schools, this idea turned into Genius hour time where students under the direction of a mentor could pursue their own learning either as an individual or with a group. Suppose college professors asked the students to propose a project related to the class that plowed new ground and disruptive thinking. The maker movement is one example of great exhibitions of self-directed learning. Instead of trying to get K-12 students to do "prescribed" work by the classroom teacher, the substitute teacher would just turn over precious time for students to get out their Leonardo notebooks and make their own progress. In all cases, perhaps traditional schools could make room for self-directed learning and learners rather than just continuing down a pathway that encourages conformity over creativity.

Digital Learning Leaders, alongside their instructor partners, might fold in the concept of the flexible learner as they teach together. This might encourage students of any age to be flexible and adapt to both directive instruction and self-directed learning time; that sometimes we all need to be structured to learn basics together, but then there will be time for what they want to learn. Loertscher proposes this idea in his Create by Design book as shown in the model below.

Of course, if we need flexible learners we will also need flexible teachers as illustrated below.

Two powerful stories can give us inspiration as mentors. MK Asante, in his Buck: A Memoir, gives us a glimpse into street life of a rebellious teen in North Philadelphia. In chapter 34, a savvy English teacher hands Buck a blank sheet of paper and changes his life. Then in Tony Wagner's Learning by Heart, we learn in the first chapter all his troubles in traditional schools and then he treats us to a life of discovering his own passion for teaching and learning.

Mentoring self-directed learners requires quite a different skill set than directive or sage on the stage delivery. How does one learn those skills? For most of us, learning by experiences is probably the only way to build a track record. For young people or adults who do not do well in traditional schools, success probably is counted one by one by one. From various accounts like the two books recommended above, change often happens when the learner realizes that the teacher has trust and real interest in them. It seems to happen in a moment when the learner is "down" or out of options and realizes that there is an authentic and caring hand reaching out to help rather than criticize.

As a digital learning leader working with various instructors, both adults identify candidates for different interventions and combine their expertise and caring to almost invent a unique intervention for each learner in question.

Who are these individuals in our group?

• A gifted learner who is totally bored

• A struggling students who just refuses to do anything

• The learner who just does the minimum to stay out of trouble but resents the requirements being dished out.

Can you adults discover the background of the problem?

• Dysfunctional family?

• Community dysfunction and environment?

• Poor personal choices and trouble with the law?

• A social misfit; bullied; physical difference; poverty?

Can the adults discover any interests the learner has? Can these be the key if allowed and encouraged to develop whether the school or organization approves of?

Can the learner be challenged by real problems to solve? Internships with outside mentors?

Have resources in the organization such as counseling been exhausted?

Are there other schools that just might be a better fit for this learner?

In your portfolio as a digital learning leader, successful case studies and perhaps what you learned from some failures would be quite appropriate. You can't save all the learners you encounter, but you can make a major difference with some and each success is a pearl of great price. These are learners who will come back and back over time to share, appreciate, and might even seek additional guidance.. There is nothing more rewarding.

Finally, meet this teacher who learns the fine art of mentoring and then see teens who have decided to change the world and done so.

Check out the ISTE Standards for Students and you can purchase their ebook at: https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students