Faculty Development: Promoting Independent Learning

By Jack Prostko, Director, Faculty Development Center
(Please feel free to add comments and/or information on your own experiences with independent learning at the end of this article.)
When we think about or discuss our own teaching, we often focus on the “performance” aspect–for example, how well we’re doing in our lectures or how lively the discussions are. Yet as we know, the most significant aspects of teaching are not always easy to see and often very difficult to assess. The really lasting impact of our teaching has less to do with how well we perform in the classroom and more with the effect we have on the future performance (and learning) of our students. And we know that in order to have some control over this impact, we first have to clarify for ourselves what we really want students to take away from the class.
In his excellent book Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses, (and an excellent 33-page summary available online) Dee Fink outlines an approach to creating courses that begins with six kinds or areas of goals–what he calls his Taxonomy of Significant Learning:

1. Foundational Knowledge (‘understand’ and ‘remember’ learning)
2. Application (thinking: critical, creative, practical (problem-solving, decision-making)
3. Integration (making ‘connections’)
4. Human Dimensions (learning about and changing one’s self; understanding and interacting with others)
5. Caring (identifying/changing one’s feelings, interests, values)
6. Learning How to Learn (becoming a better student; learning how to ask and answer questions; becoming a self-directed learner)
   

The first three of these goals are present in almost every class students take at the university, and the others are present to a greater or lesser degree depending upon the discipline and the location of the course in the overall curriculum. The final goal, though, often gets much less attention than it truly demands–we tend to imagine that this goal will be reached, but we have a tough time determining how to measure or assess students’ progress toward it.
One crucial method of developing more independent learners is to help students examine and reflect on the skills they are using in a course. How aware are they of the mostly unconscious habits they bring to problem-solving or research tasks? Have they experimented with a variety of techniques for developing paper topics, or do they rely on a hit-or-miss method that has mostly succeeded in the past? Have they discussed their study techniques with a tutor or a friend who has been particularly successful in their major? If instructors don’t raise these issues, then students are likely to ignore them, and proceed as best they can with often insufficient methods of work and study. And if we are going to raise these issues, it is especially important to focus on them in the first half of a semester, when students have a chance to improve skills that they are depending upon to help them with upcoming exams and projects.
As instructors, we can help students develop independent learning skills if we build into our assignments some requirement for self-analysis and reporting. For example, in problem-solving disciplines, ask students to describe how they went about solving the problem and what difficulties they encountered along the way. Students working in pairs can often help document each other’s work by listening to and noting down the methods their partner attempts to use in working through a problem. Or we can ask students to create sample test questions that will allow you to judge their ability to analyze, synthesize or evaluate information with the proper degree of depth and sophistication. These and other Classroom Assessment Techniques can provide the kind of feedback that helps students refine their thinking skills rather than concentrate solely on memorizing content or procedures. And focusing on how students are learning particular kinds of content helps us to teach better while also contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning in our disciplines.
Finally, in an article on the course syllabus in Insights last September I included a list of ten items a syllabus should contain to be a useful teaching tool. The final item on the list may have struck some teachers as unnecessary or the idea too obvious to include formally: “10. Suggestions for achieving course goals and meeting academic expectations.” (What have students done in the past to help them perform well? What academic resources exist to help students?)” Yet while this item appears on few syllabi, it can be one of the most significant aids to a student who is trying to develop independent learning skills. Point students in the right direction from the outset of the course and give them constructive feedback early to make sure they have found a path to succeeding.
Please feel free to add comments and/or information on your own experiences with independent learning below.
Resources Available at the Faculty Development Center
Angelo, Thomas A., & Cross, Patricia. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).
Fink, L. Dee. (2003). Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).
Riordan, Tim & Roth, James. (eds.). (2005). Disciplines as Frameworks for Student Learning: Teaching the Practice of the Disciplines. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Weimer, Maryellen. (2002). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).