A way to Student's Autonomy

This was an amazong week with such great knowledge to learn.

I learnt that Learning Autonomy, the ability to take charge of one's learning, it is a skill we are not born with but is something we can develop under certain psychological and environmental factors. These factors set the basis for students motivation to be actively involved in their own process of knowledge acquisition.

Different strategies can be assumed in this process; some cognitive strategies as repetition, translation, note-taking, deduction, among others; and some metacognitive strategies come to take part of it as well. And, in order to promote Students Autonomy, teachers must be autonomy practitioners.

What we, as teachers, can do to promote students autonomy to learn is basically motivate them to get involved in the process of learning, helping them to identify and be conscious of their objectives, giving them the tools that support their process of learning, making them feel aware of what they have learnt and the abilities they have gotten. Teachers are just facilitators in this process.

We can provide students with the tools to support their learning process: it can done through technology which provides us with information and tools (internet, power point, electronic surveys, multimedia content, etc.) that only need to be organized and properly guided; on the other hand, non-electronic sources of information and tools are also available: books, letters, cards, newspapers, pictures, classroom storytelling, and others can encourage students to lead their own process of research and learn.

A one-Computer Classroom provides teachers with these tools: Power Point, Internet, e-books, digital magazines and newspapers, social networks, and so many others facilitate our lesson plans with giving students Authentic and Meaninful Information to work with.

However, non-electronic material is also necessary on this stage: books, magazines, papers, and even posters from a concert in town can become a great source of information to work in class.

I would say that mixing electronic and non–electronic resources might become the best way to motivate students autonomy for learning.

I prepared a Lesson Plan for a One-Computer classroom. It's published using Adobe Acrobat. You can get access to my Lesson Plan clicking HERE.