Ownership of Learning: Strategies for getting students to take responsibility for their learning

Nobody is inferior and nobody is superior, one is just oneself. Unique individual possesses unique inbuilt capacity. Educator activates individual’s inbuilt capacity. He helps individual to explore his inbuilt capacity. A wise educator instigates desire for learning. Educator sole responsibility is to awaken learning sense of students and guide them to right direction in a right approach. Educator designs student’s learning techniques.

Awake Learning Desire –Develop Sense of Learning Ownership

When we awake learning desire of our students, we develop a sense of ownership in each and every learner of our classroom. Wise educator analyzes individual’s capacity intelligently and ensures his/her involvement in process of learning. When we create a positive learning circle in the classroom and students sense it positively then we lead them to a point of learning where they feel intrinsic motivation to explore depth of learning. They share their understanding with teacher, peers and friends, they feel a sense of caring from peers and teachers, they feel free to make mistakes and of course they find right platform to express their voice. Positive learning environment enables students to make appropriate learning choices which are resulted in their self –determination and intrinsic motivation to inquire, to investigate and to explore more and more.

Inculcate Democratic Values-“Yes you can” and “I believe in you”.

Educator instills democratic values when he incorporates sense of learning ownership among students. Integrating democratic values in classroom occurs when educator respects the dignity of an individual and considers individual as complete personality who can think like us. It is a sense of equality where the learner and educator stand on same platform and share knowledge with one another. It is a process to trust the individual’s dignity, capacity and capability. When educator develops a sense of learning autonomy among learners, then he says; “Yes You Can” and “I believe in you”.

Develop Ownership for Each One

When we talk developing a sense of ownership among good, average and below average academic performers of the class, we develop an autonomy supportive setting in the classroom. In fact, it has positive effects on different learners. Wise educators develop a sense of ownership among different types of learners. We instil this skill on various occasion of learning in the classroom and in the school campus.

Setting Own Learning Goals

Wise educator make them a sensible learner, who knows what to learn, how to learn and why to learn. Wise educator help learners to decide own learning goals. The day learner comes to realize that this is the ‘goal’ which I want to achieve, s/he starts working hard to achieve it since, s/he knows objective of his/her learning.

Setting Own Deadline To Complete The Tasks

Wise educator works together with all students, guide them and motivate them to complete the various task on time. Completing a task on time surely enhances the confidence and self esteem of students, because nature of task does not matter but completion of task does matter in building confidence and framing positive learning attitude among students. It develops a sense of punctuality. The day a student learns the value of completing a task on time, the day s/he leads towards a way to perfection. Ruchi is a gifted student of class 8. She excels in all learning direction. She shared her feeling in a group meeting that if she completes one task at right time, she is able to complete another task also on time, otherwise pending works creates unnecessary burden and also kills other task’s time.

Sensitize Student To Be Self Dependent

A person’s personality is total sum of the time s/he spends with his/her family, friend, school and society. Everyone becomes a teacher for us. In spite of all these stakeholders of our learning; school plays crucial role in our learning in most of the cases. A wise educator develops a sense of self dependency among learners. It is to make them free from sole dependency on teacher and textbook. An active student explores all available resources. He develops own way of learning styles, making notes and doing other learning works. He reads his own, interprets the meaning of text and seeks help from educator in the time of difficulties.

Sensitize Students To Think Independently On Any Relevant Scientific And Social Issues

Thinking is a skill. It develops over a period of time with keen eyes to observe and interpret knowledge, with the help of intensive reading and with the help of vast experiences of life. A wise educator helps students to think their own on various topics and life situation. Basically they explore the rational knowledge of students. They initiate and stimulate the inbuilt knowledge of individual in various context and references. A wise educator helps students to bloom and spread the fragrance of knowledge. He opens a door and an opportunity for his learners. Sometimes a learner thinks rationally and has concrete ideas than the educator. Educator identifies this capacity and establishes a sense to be an independent thinker on various basic and crucial points in pedagogical paradigm.

Sensitize Students To Identify Their Own Weakness And Strength

To become a knowledgeable person is one aspect of life and to become sensible to our weakness and strength help us to become integrated human beings. Educator achieves a great success when he ensures the ability to identify own weakness and strength among each and every learner. Knowing oneself is a difficult phenomenon. A wise student always ready to accept his weakness and always ready to improve his weakness, because he thinks that his weakness is a great hurdle in his learning. He challenges himself to overcome his own weakness. Tappu analyzed the last term exam result and he came to know that he could not practice well on quality content in Social Science. He got less marks in Social Science. He prepared well, used to show his written answer to his mentor and frequently asked about his weak point to his teacher. He worked on his teacher’s guidelines and developed a good command on quality answer.

Sensitize Students To Analyze Their Own Performance Data

When we evaluate our own performance in different situations, it helps us to re-evaluate our process of learning. We judge our efficiency and drawbacks. We evaluate our skills. We become able to reflect upon men, method and materials. Subham formed a peer group of learners. This group fixed the TARGET to qualify a National Level Test. Group of learners appears in different pre-preparation test series before final examination. They analyze their test score in an interval. They develop their strategies on the basis of their final score card i.e. which topics need more focus, where they have to do more practice , what type of resource material they will use for next pre-test examination etc. Subham endorsed that critical analysis of their own performance data is like a mirror for them. It truly reflects upon their planning, preparation and execution. It helps them to re-think, reshuffle and reschedule their way of working on desired goal.

Sensitize Students To Review Steps And Strategies To Improve Weak Points

Data interpretation gives an insight for learners. If we want to increase success ratio, we review our strategies over a period of time. Educator sensitizes their learners to review their steps and strategies to improve weak points. Everyone does not do it in day to day life. A wise learner always weighs his capacity and capability in a certain contest. They plan ahead for future so that they should not repeat previous mistakes over and over. As famous author Alexander Pope quoted once, “To err is human” (An Essay on Criticism). I firmly believe that smart people think innovatively and work according to their plan. He may commit 100 of mistakes during execution of those planning but always tries to review his mistakes and make an improved plan. Committing error is not a sin but committing mistakes again and again is a sign of conflict personality. A wise educator nurtures an individual in such way that s/he becomes sensible enough to review his/her planning for the better learning outcome. Educator creates a circle of comfort zone so that students share their positive as well as weak points with peer, parent and teacher. A wise educator hears the unvoiced sound of a student.

Sensitize Students To Develop An Improved Plan Based On Anlyzed Data

A wise educator helps students to prepare an improved plan based on analyzed data. He discusses better options and alternate on present situation. He helps students to compare and contrast before redrafting previous plan. He shares the better ideas with students. A wise educator discusses previous experiences on certain context so that students get an insight. Ms. Rimpi a class 12 students was facing a lot of problems in developing deep conceptual understanding in a unit of physics. She consulted so many books but could not understand that particular topic. She shared her problems with Mr. Rai an experienced physics teacher of that school. Ms. Rimpi worked on the ideas given by Mr. Rai and performed quite well in compare to previous test. Integration of Mr. Rai subject expertise and vast experience and execution on the Mr. Rai suggestions by Ms.Rimpi converted into a better learning outcome.

Sensitize Students To Execute Those Steps And Strategies To Convert Efforts Into Visible Changes

Educators subject expertise as well as his/her teaching experiences provides a golden platform for students to execute different learning strategies in right directions to convert into a visible changed. We observed this with the case of Ms. Rimpi while dealing with physics problems. Educator always creates a learning environment in the classroom. He breaks the barrier of complexity of learning, motivate students to think rationally. He supports student sometimes beyond the limit to break the conventional thinking box and create a new era of learning.

Teacher activates inherent and inbuilt capacity of an individual.

Educator is architecture. He designs an integrated human being under his kind guidance and visionary leadership.

Teacher activates inherent and inbuilt capacity of an individual. When an educator instills learning autonomy in the classroom, he helps students to develop the capacity to make choices, he helps students to understand their learning interest, he helps students how to design learning choices and monitor the positive and negative consequences of their choices, he encourages students to make choices and exercise self-initiative in learning activities, helps students to recognize and manage their emotions and finally helps students to watch how their beliefs work in different situations. In fact, it is golden opportunity for educator to share their thoughts and feeling with students.

Rajeev Ranjan

Indian Educationist

References

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: Macmillan.

Fletcher, A. (2005). Meaningful student involvement: Guide to students as partners in school change. Bothell, WA: HumanLinks Foundation.

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