Work in progress - building autonomous students: Modeling curricular approaches for lifelong learning

Abstract

Student development of self-directed learning skills is critical for success in today's rapidly-changing engineering world. The details of how instructors may best foster engagement in life-long learning, however, are unclear; many educators have struggled to define, implement, and assess lifelong learning in engineering curricula. We present a framework for student autonomy that may serve as a useful curriculum design tool by aiding instructors' consideration of learner responsibility and development. The model describes lifelong learning as a set of choices over which students may gradually gain control. These areas of learning autonomy include four question categories: why is learning necessary, what should one learn, how should learning occur, and how well is learning achieved. Instructors may create policies in these four areas that produce low or high degrees of learning autonomy. Awareness of the areas of student autonomy may enable course designers to more effectively adopt approaches that meet student needs and foster lifelong learning skill development.

Work in progress: How do first-year engineering students develop as self-directed learners?

“…An opencoding method was used to select emergent themes and a framework was created to evaluate individuals' developmental level for SDL-relevant behaviors (effort regulation, time management, help-seeking), cognitions (metacognitive skills and awareness), motivations (extrinsic to intrinsic), and goal orientations. The emergent themes and SDL evaluation framework draw heavily on self-determination, achievement goal, and self-regulated learning theories [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Degrees of autonomy in foreign language learning

“…A key element which is a requirement for the model is that it should be able to accommodate what Little (1996a, p. 3;1999a, p. 28) These four levels, and the last in particular, are of utmost importance to the AARP. For this reason, we will look beyond the field of FL and EFL education and we will modify and adapt, with permission, a framework created by Stolk, Martello and Geddes (2007), which was designed to serve their interest in the lifelong learning of engineers. This modified framework seems to provide a satisfactory model for the AARP, as well as what Oxford (2008, p. 44) refers to as a "visual metaphor", which can be seen in Table 2.8 below.…”

“…As Stolk et al (2007) state, the rows in the model represent areas of responsibility for learning, while the columns indicate varying levels of control in these areas. The beauty of this particular model for the AARP is that it shows how although each student was given equal opportunities for learning and engagement with learning, it is likely that there was considerable variation in the degree of autonomy achieved on the various levels by different individuals, on the various assignments and activities, but that the potential was there for all to reach the highest degree on each level (see Table 2.8), or to achieve what Reeve, Bolt and Cai (1999, p. 540) refer to as "rich autonomy", combined with what Falchikov (2007, p. 139), previously mentioned, refers to as "assessment autonomy".…”

“…A comparison of the proposed AARP model with Oxford's (2008, pp. 45-46) makeover of Nunan's (1997, p. 195;2000, p. 11) Based on Stolk, Martello & Geddes (2007) and Little (1996a;1999a)…”

First Year Engineering From The Perspective Of A High School Teacher.

“…Secondly, self-directed learning becomes more important as learners transition into adulthood 8 . Ultimately, individuals are required to take complete control of their own learning experiences, diagnosing their learning needs and formulating a wider range of approaches to meet these by seeking out and generating experiences to construct appropriate knowledge and skills.…”