Letting Students Take the Wheel
Education is a transformative process that every child deserves to experience. But we may need to adjust our understanding of what the purpose of education is. It was previously thought that the best way to get ahead in life was by getting good grades, getting a degree, and then you’d be able to land your dream job and earn a comfortable salary. But this isn’t exactly what we are seeing in reality.
In reality, over 40 million Americans owe about $40,000 in student loan debt according to student loan statistics.
Meanwhile, major companies like Apple, IBM, and Google don’t require employees to have a college degree. This suggests that perfect test scores and college degrees aren’t the only ways to achieve success. Hard skills and innovative thinking could land you a job at Google, regardless of your high school grades or degree status. Perhaps it’s time to shift our focus from standardized tests and let students pursue their own interests with support from educators.
Many educators are seeing the benefits of letting students take more agency in their studies. Rather than being the sole driver of the learning process, progressive educators are allowing students to take control over the ways they learn by adopting progressive approaches such as student-directed learning (SDL) and contextualized teaching and learning (CTL). These approaches to education allow students to be active participants in their learning process and explore their passions and curiosity.
What are SDL and CTL?
SDL and CTL are approaches to teaching and learning. SDL classrooms give students the opportunity to do more than memorize information from a textbook. With this approach to education, students get to make choices about what they will study and how they will study. It allows students to explore their own interests and take accountability for their progress. Teachers who practice SDL embrace each student’s unique personality and goals, allowing them to be decision-makers in the classroom. Students get to lead the way while instructors act as more of a guide or a coach, scaffolding support as needed.
SDL increases student empowerment, critical thinking skills, and independence. A 2018 study published by the International Journal of STEM Education revealed that many educators who used this approach felt SCL supported their beliefs about their roles as educators. Additionally, a 2017 study by Breunig showed that SDL led to increased student engagement and a greater sense of responsibility in university students.
SDL has led to increased motivation, engagement, and responsibility in students. The nature of this approach is collaborative and personalized, two aspects of education that most teachers are already supporters of.
Contextualized Teaching and Learning (CTL) theorizes that learning is more effective when it is hands-on and focuses on real-world context. This approach intersects with the ideology behind SDL and the types of activities that SDL leads to. A common activity used in SDL classrooms is a service-learning project. Service-learning projects connect students to a group or organization in the community that requires help with a specific problem. Students might volunteer to design a website for a local start-up, organize a food drive for the community, or give an educational presentation to younger students in the district.
SDL and CTL can be combined to create a learning environment where students are encouraged to think critically, ask important questions, and pursue their curiosity. Students are more likely to become passionate about education if they have more say in what they get to learn.
Some structure does need to be provided, but we can absolutely allow some flexibility in our curricula if we focus on general goals and competencies that students can use as they navigate their lives outside the classroom.
How You Can Implement SDL and CTL in Your Classroom
If the concepts of SDL and CTL are new to you, you may be concerned about how you will make this work with your curriculum. The curriculum will still play a vital role in your class, you’ll just be adjusting the types of activities you do to meet the student’s desires. For example, if you’re teaching a unit on Shakespeare, instead of assigning the whole class to read and analyze an act from Hamlet, you would allow students to choose any work of Shakespeare’s to analyze. This allows you to meet specific learning outcomes such as literary analysis while giving the students freedom to personalize the lesson.
As students make decisions about which play they will study, they can form study groups with their peers who have chosen the same play. These groups might go on to participate in a service-learning project where they perform an act of the play to a local school. After performing the act, they can present a mini-lesson on rhyme, puns, and word play. This allows students to contextualize their learning, connect with their community, and build leadership skills.
How SDL and CTL are incorporated in the classroom will vary from school to school because it depends on the unique needs and interests of the students. The important thing to remember is that learning happens when students are engaged, curious, and motivated. Giving students more decision-making power in the classroom is a great way to get them excited about learning.