Enhancing Teacher Development Through Self-Direction

The changing paradigms consider education as a continual process of gaining information whereby learning is perceived not as a passive acquisition of knowledge, but as a largely active and individual process of deriving personal meaning from what is learned. Teaching in the new paradigm is consequently perceived, not as the transmission of knowledge, but as developing in the individual the ability to learn how to acquire the ability to be a self-directed learner. Since self-directed learning is perceived to be essentially individual in nature, it is evident that learning must emanate from the learner, and the learners should be allowed to take decisions about the goals, organization and evaluation of their learning. The role of the teacher of the self-directed learner therefore changes from being a disseminator of knowledge to a facilitator of learning. The motives of the professional developers have been to encourage the teachers to take the initiative in identifying and acting on their own individual needs and hence self-directedness. Therefore, this book provides a lot of inputs on how a teacher can be a self-directed professional.