Pedagogical Approach Patterns
Self-directed learning
Description:
Self-Directed Learning (SDL) is a very popular pedagogical approach that puts the emphasis on designing learning around authentic problem contexts and giving agency to students in the learning process. There is a lot of literature on SDL (Black & William, 1998; Brockett, 2002; Candy, 1991; Clarke, 2001; Garrison, 1997; Guglielmino, 1977; NCREL, 2003; SRI, 2008). In this pattern, LDS provides a five-stage structure, follows a simple problem solving provess: goal setting, self-planning, self-monitoring, self-evaluate and revision.
– in goal setting, students identify own learning goals & learning activities
– in self planning, students regulate and plan for the detailed decisions and arrangements needed to solve the problem, including planning and scheduling to address their own learning needs
– in self monitoring, students self‐manage their own time and their own repertoire of learning strategies. They could adjust their own learning pathway as they progress
– in self evaluation, students are aware of the assessment criteria, and may contribute to the setting of such criteria. Students critically evaluate their own and/or peer’s work according to set criteria
– in revision, students revise their work based on the feedback received from their teacher or peers at various stages and students reflect on their own learning and apply what they have learnt to new contexts.
The stages in this approach can be integrated with a disciplinary practice problem context to generate a sequence of curriculum components to achieve the intended learning outcome goals.
Mission-focus inquiry learning
Description:
Mission-focus inquiry (MFI) learning can be seen as one pedagogical approach under a social constructionist learning theory (alternatively referred to as social constructionist pedagogical philosophy. A key feature of this pedagogical approach is the attention to designing learning tasks that provide opportunities to ensure that learners can build up their requisite knowledge and skills at the lower levels of the Bloom’s Taxonomy before applying the learnt knowledge and skills to an authentic mission. Engagement in tackling a meaningful mission in turn helps learners to gain deeper understanding of the concepts and skills targeted in the course learning outcomes.
Typically, a course adopting an MFI approach would break down a larger mission into smaller chunks of mission components, each of which requires the application of a specific set of knowledge and skills. Thus each course adopting an MFI approach would comprise a sequence of curriculum components, each of which would involve the adoption of a curriculum component titled as “acquisition and application of knowledge and skills to construct a solution”. Thus, each cycle of inquiry should include learning tasks going from lower to higher level of learning outcomes based on the Bloom’s Taxonomy in the same domain/topic area.
To select an appropriate mission, the learning designer should select an authentic mission that that (1) course participants are likely to have engaged in or aspire to tackle in their disciplinary practice, and (2) Successful completion of the mission entails achieving competence in the targeted learning outcomes. The natural sequence in working through the mission provides the underpinning structural of the topic sequence.