Jenny’s reflections apply to far more than learning contexts! It connects with the recent post on Stewardship.
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So a key aspect of support is fostering a sense of self-reliance and this might require some ‘de-schooling’. It gets away from the ‘what can we do to support you’ approach, to ‘what can you do to support yourselves’ approach. The support is still there but it takes a different form.What would this mean in practice? Some of the following thoughts come to mind:
- Explicit, up front discussion about the meaning of ‘support’ in these terms.
- Clarity about and discussion of expectations
- Provision of an environment which is ‘true’ to these principles such as described by the factors we have used in our research on emergent learning
- Provision of tools that maximize the power of individuals to manage their own learning
- Modelling and demonstration of self-organisation by the course conveners
- Standing back and letting the learners get on with it, i.e. letting go of control
And perhaps the last point is where the shift might be difficult to make. So much of a traditional course is based on authority and control. Learners will not learn to self-organise unless we ‘let go’, even if that means letting go of traditional ways of thinking about learner support.
via Learner support in MOOCs. An alternative perspective | Jenny Connected.