Self-directed Learning: The Basic Principles And The Instructional Development

On basis of the new curriculum reform in modern China and the new concept of lifelong learning in the world, as a new learning style, self-directed learning meets the needs of social development and is becoming a highlight in education. It advocates a learning-centered education, emphasizes the emotional ties in learning environment, and injects a fresh vitality into our basic education. However, during the past 20 years, while China has been learning abroad advanced learning styles and developing a self-directed learning from theory to the practice, it oversights two problems. One is how to integrate theoretical study of self-directed learning abroad into Chinese localized education theory. The other one is how to integrate the theoretical study of adult education into adolescent education and adapt youths the physical and psychological development. On one hand, in the view of theory, because a systematic clarity is not available, it is apt to take it for grant that any learning theory from abroad, involved in the active individual learning, is self-directed leaning. On the other hand, in the view of practice, we lack a systematic study on the physical and mental development of adolescents, and the direct leaning experiences of adults in the basic education classroom, which thus affect not only the enthusiasm and initiative of teachers involving themselves into the curriculum reform, but have a negative effect on the overall quality of basic education.For this reason, the author aims to effectively facilitate the development and learning of students under the current Chinese educational conditions. In order to fulfill such an aim, the author tries to make a scientific and powerful statement with the help of some concerned theories. First of all, based on the literatures of self-directed learning, the intrinsic links between the in-out cultures, young-adult psychologies are profoundly analyzed, and the views of developmental psychology and educational psychology are used to clarify the concept, establish the foundations, construct the learning mode for the practice. Then a series of methods are used, say literature, comparison, personal experience, to analyze the special effect of the theory applying in China and basic education, to discuss the potential problems which exist in theory and practice research, such as operational and universal application problems,and so on. Finally, based on the all, the author makes her own innovative teaching methods and ways for Chinese basic educational reform.This study consists of five components, namely, ChapterⅠ, Introduction; ChapterⅡ, The concept of self-directed learning; ChapterⅢ, The research of self-directed learning theory; ChapterⅣ, The foundation of self-directed learning theory; ChapterⅤ, Construction of self-directed learning. The first four chapters are concerned with the in-out theoretical study on the principle of self-directed learning. ChapterⅤis the last one, which involves the skills and operational levels of self-directed learning.The results of my exploring in the paper may mainly be summarized as several aspects as following:The first aspect is to analyze and interpret deeply the reasons to choose this subject. Firstly, the author used to be an English teacher in a rural junior school and hopes to fulfill an educational dream that everyone loves learning and enjoys learning. Secondly, as the rapid development of technology provides us the ever-growing material and spiritual wealth, there is a growing concern for our own development. Also, with the global advocacy of the concept of lifelong learning there is a great change from teaching to learning in education, which promotes strongly the new education and curriculum reform flourishing in the whole world. Thirdly, since the establishment and improvement of Chinese market economic system, a life-long education system is being built to create a learning society, thus we can contribute to the new curriculum to fulfill the objectives, such as changing the teaching views, advocating the new learning styles, promoting the round development of students. Fourthly, China has a very weak educational enterprise, a very big population, very large classes, very weak teaching power, etc, which stimulate the author to explore a new way to access quality education under the limited education conditions, and concern the new learning style—self-directed learning with great interest.The second is to clarify and define the concept of the self-directed learning. When the author analyzes and summarizes the literary, she found that the researchers used an"independent study"to name all kinds of self-learning styles, which are popular in adult education field abroad, such as"self-regulated learning""autonomy learning""self-directed learning"and so on, however, paid less attention to the distinguishes among them. In addition, with the further study, the author also found that with the confusion of the concepts, researchers were likely to neglect the problems how to integrate self-learning theory from abroad adult education into Chinese educational culture and adolescent education, so that the new theory can adapt the Chinese culture tradition and the physical and psychological development of youths.The third aims to analyze and summarize the contemporary study of in-out self-directed learning. From a historical perspective, the author reviews briefly self-directed learning's origin, occurrence, development, prosperity, and the results of current researches about the diversion from adult to adolescence education, then analyzes deeply the basic assumptions of self-directed learning and the basic characteristics of self-directed learners, clarifies the development trend and pattern types of self-directed learning theory, illuminates the inspiration gained from the adult learning theory to adolescence study field.The fourth is meant to establish the theory foundations of self-directed learning on basic education field. First of all, the author analyzes the enlightenment from humanism psychologists Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and Rogers' significant learning to the self-directed learning, and based on the results on the physical and psychological development of adolescence from developmental psychology research to analyze deeply the relationship between self-directed learning and adolescence, then focuses on the feature of this study so as to use effectively the self-directed learning theory in the classroom from the perspective of social psychology, consequently build up the theory foundations of self-directed learning on the humanism learning psychology, adolescence developmental psychology and social psychology.The fifth attempts to set up the self-directed & interactive organizational mode of teaching and learning. First, the author analyzes the former research results and summarized her own years of practical experience in rural junior high school, then draws a conclusion that self-directed & interactive organizational mode of teaching and learning reflects the major learning style of the new basic curriculum reform. Besides, it is playing a very important role for the students' development process on how to learn, how to learn effectively and how to learn lifelong. In order to make self-directed & interactive organizational mode of teaching and learning work effectively, the author applies the theory of systems as a proper method to build its academic frame. However, some measures are essential to ensure it work effectively. According to the aims of the learning mode, teachers should rely on the present class and organize the class members to form a right overall learning structure and fulfill the learning function of overall members. Furthermore, teachers should fix attention on the information and energy exchanges effectively among learners and learning environment to gain the momentum for class development and keep a smooth progress.The conclusion bears such an idea: confronted with the fact of the weak basic education of China, we should seize the opportunities of the times and integrate our education into the international learning environment except that we have been embarking on the active self-directed learning practice and study under the disadvantage conditions of our big scale classes. In order to get the effectiveness of teaching and learning, the current researchers should notice two points: how to integrate the foreign theoretical research results into our educational culture; how to integrate the adult learning experiences into the adolescence education field. Based on the understanding of the two problems and the clarification of the self-directed learning theory, the author tries to establish a new self-directed learning mode according to Chinese traditional learning culture and the development of the adolescence. Besides, the author analyzes the static and dynamic characteristics, functions, constructions, optimization, and the strategies for the operation of the self-directed & interactive organizational mode of teaching and learning mode. All of these endeavors are for the sake of a dream—everyone not only loves learning but aslo enjoys learning.