Question from Prof. Diana Laurillard’s keynote session #17
With SDL, we can assume that learners are motivated and have the thirst for knowledge. How do you promote SDL behaviour for the workforce - how to motivate learners?
Simple answer is to find out what motivates them. The SDL must be relevant to that. A sense of the relevance of what they are learning is essential for adults, as it is for all learners. They are on the course because it is supposed to be relevant to their current and future work, so the educator has to make that link clear. Technologies can provide more opportunities for personalising the learning - a blog can be used to encourage them to reflect on a general concept, skill or principle that can be used in their practice at work, and their experience exchanged with other students in the online blog. Or, they can be asked to bring in a short video or photo of their workplace to illustrate a problem they encounter - enabling the tutor to build on that, and create short projects that engage them in using the teaching to explore solving the problem - that begins to be self-directed, because the activity is relevant. Students need a lot of scaffolding by the teacher, to guide them in doing SDL, but gradually you can fade that, as they begin to see how to get something out of their reflection, or observations, or problem solving activities. We all do SDL all the time in our normal lives. As teachers we have to harness that capability by ensuring the relevance of what we are teaching.
Simple answer is to find out what motivates them. The SDL must be relevant to that.
ReplyDeleteA sense of the relevance of what they are learning is essential for adults, as it is for all learners. They are on the course because it is supposed to be relevant to their current and future work, so the educator has to make that link clear. Technologies can provide more opportunities for personalising the learning - a blog can be used to encourage them to reflect on a general concept, skill or principle that can be used in their practice at work, and their experience exchanged with other students in the online blog. Or, they can be asked to bring in a short video or photo of their workplace to illustrate a problem they encounter - enabling the tutor to build on that, and create short projects that engage them in using the teaching to explore solving the problem - that begins to be self-directed, because the activity is relevant.
Students need a lot of scaffolding by the teacher, to guide them in doing SDL, but gradually you can fade that, as they begin to see how to get something out of their reflection, or observations, or problem solving activities.
We all do SDL all the time in our normal lives. As teachers we have to harness that capability by ensuring the relevance of what we are teaching.