Written Assignment - Unit 5
Written Assignment - Unit 5
Written Assignment - Unit 5
Ada Kovaci-Kume
A self-directed learner is someone who takes charge with his or her learning, is
passionate about learning something new every time he or she gets the opportunity, and is driven
According to Output Education, there are five essential elements of self-directed learning
(n.d.). They also stated that these elements outline the structure of self-directed learning activities
and programs. The five key aspects are: (1) Student control over as much of the learning
experience as possible, (2) Skill development, (3) Students learning to challenge themselves to
their best possible performance, (4) Student self-management, management of themselves and of
their learning enterprises, and (5) Students motivate and assess their own efforts.
Lorin Anderson and David Krothwohl updated the types of thinking skills (2015).
Remembering & recalling, understanding, and applying are the types of thinking that you use in
early and middle school. While analyzing, evaluating and creating are what you normally
practice in college or in adult learning. As we grow older, we become more responsible to our
learning experience. Instead of just receiving information from teachers, we are now required to
use critical thinking skills to not just get a better understanding of the lesson, but to have a
Skill development is experimenting and identifying your learning styles and other talents
for a more productive learning experience.Students who are either going for master's degree,
taking up a few units in a course they are interested in or enrolling for refresher courses, are
challenging themselves to their best possible performance. It is also the same concept as adult
learning.
The fourth aspect is how well you manage your time, energy and resources to juggle your
daily tasks and responsibilities while maintaining a good educational output. During stressful
situations as adults, it is tempting to just drop one thing so you can have more hands for other
tasks. But responsible student with good self-management knows that dropping a thing or two
After setting a goal, a student finds inspiration and uses this as a motivation to accomplish
it. The output is being assessed based on the methods he or she used to reach to the level of
learning.
As a student, my top two strength would be my ability to speak, read and write the
international language. Because of this, I was able to get into this university and have the
feelings about certain things and is on reflective mode when I am alone. At first, I thought that I
am just a push-over and it frustrates me that I always find it in my heart (and mind) to say that “I
understand”, at some point – I do... But when I took up some in-depth personality analysis, I
I think my strengths will help me develop self-directed learning. Knowing the language
means I have unlimited access to the information around the globe. I can use it to ask questions
Having intrapersonal intelligence will also help me in assessing and synthesizing external
background. I will be turning 40 in August, and I now experience aging signs. How my brain
functions when I was 22 is really different to what I have now. Retention is bad and processing
is slow.
Also, coming from a country with a weak educational system does not help me keep up
with my peers. I find that I have a lot to learn and that what I currently know is not enough to
I guess the effect is minimal and manageable. The gap in what I know can be
compensated by learning some background about a certain subject and starting early will help me
I picked three strategies to become a more self-directed learner from Sarah Briggs’ “20
Steps Towards More Self-Directed Learning “, (2015). The first one is to “identify your learning
goals”, second is to “start with background on a topic”, and third is to “keep your goals realistic”.
Identifying your learning goal is like setting a smart goal. You decide what you want to
learn, when are you going to start/stop learning and how will you achieve the learning goal.
Knowing these metrics means that you have a clear vision of what you would like to learn as a
self-directed learner.
Since I mentioned earlier that I came from a country with very poor educational system,
learning a few things about the origin of a certain topic will help me better understand how to go
also another trait of a smart goal. You have to check the risks over the benefits so that you won’t
have to waste time starting a dead-end goal. However, this can also be a great opportunity for you
Being a learner does not mean you have to be enrolled in a certain program, there are some
instances that you are a learner even in our daily lives. So, recognizing what you know and do not
know in a certain topic is a good starting point to set learning goals. This is what I always do
whenever I am trying to learn something. Being 40-ish with a lot on my plate makes me a snob to
new ideas. To me, it can either be petty or just a waste of time. To stop this, I will also make
conscious effort to always be curious and motivated, so that I will be open to new ideas.
References
College Success. (2015, December 4). Types of thinking (Chapter 3.1). University of
Minnesota. https://open.lib.umn.edu/collegesuccess/chapter/3-1-types-of-thinking/
Briggs, S. (2015, May 3). 20 Steps Towards More Self-Directed Learning. OpenColleges.edu.
https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/29-steps-toward-more-self-directed-
learning/
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