Teaching Examples Critique

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Fostering Self-Directed Learning

When I think of empowered learners, I think of people doing things for themselves, making

things happen by their own initiative. I think of self-directed learning in much the same way, as

people deciding that they need to know something and, in the absence of anyone being available

to teach them, attempting to learn it for themselves. DIY (do it yourself) is the heart of the punk

ethic, for example Furness, 2012). Sometimes I picture this happening individually, sometimes (

as part of a group effort. So for me the terms and empowered learners self-directed learners

conjure up very similar images. This is why a book on powerful teaching techniques has to deal

with self-directed learning.

But if the definition of self-directedness is that there is no teacher present, how can you talk about

teaching it? Well, I have two responses to that question. First, as we shall see, in a lot of self-

directed learning efforts there are often phases when learners use external teachers to teach them

specific elements that move the overall project forward. Second, and this connects self-directed

learning to the broader theme of teaching for empowerment, there are many things classroom

teachers can do that help prepare the ground for adults to conduct self-directed learning projects

outside any particular course.

What is Self-Directed Learning?

A TV commercial for Phoenix University that was running while I was writing this chapter

celebrated learners studying on airplanes, buses, in factory cafeterias, on the bleachers at a Little

League game, and so on. This is often how self-directed learning is thought of—isolated

individuals working flexibly to further their education and training, fitting study in around the

demands of work, home, and community.

But this is not self-directed learning, it is learning (Bembenutty, 2011), in which self-regulated

students have some choice in determining how they will achieve institutionally approved

objectives. A recent volume on self-regulated learning defines it as students’ “capability to

engage in appropriate actions, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to pursue valuable

academic goals while self-monitoring and self-reflecting on their progress toward goal

completion” (Bembenutty, 2011, p. 3). This kind of self-regulation often has a degree of Brookfield, Stephen D.. Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=1132527. Created from liberty on 2025-07-14 06:17:13.

Brookfield, S. D. (2013). Powerful techniques for teaching adults. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

flexibility I support—giving learners the opportunity to decide when they will read set texts,

complete set assignments, make mandatory postings, or demonstrate how their prior experience is

equivalent to institutionally mandated skills. I like, as a general rule, to give students some choice

over which of several study options they wish to pursue or to negotiate aspects of curricula with

them. But I would not call it self-directed learning. Self-directed learning is learning in which

decisions around what to learn, how to learn it, and how to decide if one has learned something

well enough are in the hands of learners. To use a fashionable formulation, the key question is all

where does the locus of control lie?

If self-directed learning is conceived as a process in which the key decisions around what and

how to learn are in the hands of learners, then it quickly becomes apparent that self-directed

learning is neither antipedagogy nor inherently isolating. Someone in charge of decision making

may well decide that for a particular element in a learning project they need to place themselves

temporarily under the direction of a teacher. For example, when forced (temporarily) to be a lead

guitarist I asked another band member for advice. He told me to learn how to play some basic

scales so I could then choose how to construct a particular guitar solo. I went on You Tube and

followed the instructions in videos that had high viewer ratings. In this example, being self-

directed meant seeking direction from both teachers and peers, yet the decisions regarding the

overall direction and execution of my learning still remained in my hands.

It is no accident that the idea of self-direction has engaged the attention of adult educators in the

United States. As a representation of how learning optimally occurs, the concept fits very much

the American ideology of rugged individualism. Self-direction underscores the folklore of the self-

made man or woman who succeeds against the odds through the sheer force of individual efforts.

This is the narrative surrounding adult learner of the year awards bestowed on those who pull

themselves up by their bootstraps to claim their place at the table of stories and voices. St. Clair

(2004) outlines the hold that the myth of aspiration has on adult educators, and I contend that

there is no more potent myth than the Eurocentrically inclined idea of new frontiers of learning

being conquered by individual pioneers, boldly going where no man or woman has gone before.

Self-directed learning is at the heart of adult education, but how it is defined and practiced says

much about the politics of the field. The prevailing view is one interchangeable with self-

regulated learning: a process of helping adults acquire predefined skills, knowledge, and

dispositions by allowing them to pace when and how to work. Self-directed learning is lauded for

its being able to fit the individual circumstances of learners who are, for various reasons, unable

Brookfield, Stephen D.. Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=1132527. Created from liberty on 2025-07-14 06:17:13.

or unwilling to attend institutional classes. This viewpoint is well represented in the International

, where articles regularly examine the effectiveness of self-Journal of Self-Directed Learning

directed approaches for helping learners acquire predetermined skills and negotiate predetermined

curricula. Typical articles are those exploring self-directed learning methods in secondary school

classrooms (Carmichael, 2007), geriatric care courses (Park et al., 2006; Park, Candler, and

Durso, 2006), military college training (Gabrielle, Guglielmino, and Guglielmino, 2006), physics

and chemistry courses (McCauley and McClelland, 2004; Thompson and Wulff, 2004), and

among primary school students (Mok, Leung, and Shan, 2005).

From my standpoint, this is self-paced learning rather self-directed learning. If self-directed

learning is undertaken because , not experts or authorities, see it as necessary, then it is learners

potentially one of the most radical traditions in the adult education field. In my opinion, it is by

definition anarchic and uncontrollable—people deciding what and how, to learn for themselves

and to hell with what institutions say they should be learning. To be truly self-directed is to be

empowered—to decide what is most important to you, how you want to go about learning it, and

when you’re done. The learning is done not to earn grades but because it has to be done if people

are to lead meaningful lives.

Personal Illustrations

Let me illustrate my idea of self-direction by talking about three of my own self-directed learning

projects. The first has to do with learning about race and racism. About twenty years ago a White

colleague of mine—Elizabeth Kasl—challenged me by telling me my understanding and practice

of teaching adults was race-blind. She told me (in gentler terms than the ones I’m using) that

teaching as if the racial identity of teachers and students was not an issue was blinkered and

naïve, and that I was committing daily racial microaggressions. I disagreed, but her comments

planted a nagging seed of doubt, mostly because I admired her and assumed her judgment could

be trusted. So eventually I decided that a major self-directed learning project for me should be to

examine if and how the ideology of White supremacy—the belief that Whites are naturally best

equipped to assume authority because they possess superior intelligence and leadership qualities—

had nested itself in me.

There wasn’t any workshop on how to do this at my own institution, so I had to work out on my

own whom I should talk to, what I should read, and so on. One of the ways I did this was to draw

on my knowledge of critical theory and the microrealities of power (Brookfield, 2004) to explore

the ways I regularly commit racial microaggressions; that is, the small, daily acts of exclusion,

stereotyping, and marginalizing of colleagues and students of color. As well as reading about this

(Sue et al., 2007), I also talked to colleagues of color (Peterson and Brookfield, 2007; Sheared

et al., 2010).

What makes this an example of self-directed learning is that the decisions regarding what and

how to learn ultimately rested with me. This is not to say that other people weren’t involved.

After all, the impetus to learn these things had come after some disturbing conversations with

Elizabeth. But just reading about this kept my understanding at the level of a wholly cognitive,

rational analysis so I felt I needed to have long conversations with colleagues, peers, and students.

Only by doing that could the raw emotional dimensions of how racism is perpetuated crash into

my world. I needed people to direct me to useful resources, both human and material, and to help

me process, chew over, make sense of what I was learning about racism on a general level and

my collusion in it on a personal level. One of the hardest parts of this project was realizing that I

needed to appreciate that racist instincts, impulses, and thoughts are so deeply embedded in me

that the best I can hope for is to stop them from completely taking over in certain situations.

Another self-directed learning project I conducted in the last few years was learning how to cope

with my own clinical depression. This was been more of an intrapersonal learning project as I

found few fellow sufferers I could talk to, and it involved technical and emotional kinds of

learning as well as developing the interpersonal skill to talk about a stigmatized topic (Brookfield,

2011). Here I copiously read self-help books and tried many of their recommendations having to

do with exercise, meditation, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. When it was clear that none of

those had much effect, I decided to seek psychiatric help and to consider medication. After a

bump or two finding a psychiatrist, I was treated by one whose directive approach worked well

for me. Under his direction I experimented with different medications before finding a

combination of drugs that stabilized me. Now the cognitive-behavioral therapy scripts work much

better for me. This is a good example of a project in which the learner chooses to place himself

under expert authority for a period of time.

Finally, a few years ago my band, The 99ers ( ), were lucky enough http://www.the99ersband.com

to persuade Spinout Records ( ) in Nashville, Tennessee, to release http://www.spinoutmusic.com/

our first album. We decided to record this in my basement so, in short order, I had to buy a

portable twenty-four-track recording studio, learn how to operate it, learn how to buy affordable

but quality microphones, learn how to record different instruments and vocals, and then how to

mix the different percussion, bass, guitars, and vocals tracks together. I am something of a

technophobe so this presented a real challenge. But I studied the manual that came with the studio

assiduously, did a lot of trial and error learning, typed specific questions I had into online search

engines, and talked to local DJs who directed me to engineers who could answer specific

questions.

It’s striking to me that in all three of these projects I used other people as resources and sounding

boards. In doing this I was typical, at least according to research in this area. Peters and Grey

(2005) summarize a stream of research documenting how collaborating with others is an integral

element in self-directed learning. Recent empirical studies of self-directed learning among

graduate students (Davis et al., 2010), community leaders (Phares and Guglielmino, 2010), school

principals (Guglielmino and Hillard, 2007), and executives in philanthropic and nonprofit

organizations (Liddell, 2008; Ziga, 2008) all stress the importance of learning networks and using

peers as sounding boards regarding the progress one is making. It is not an oxymoron to speak of

collaborative self-directed learning (Moore et al., 2005). There is no contradiction at all in

deciding you need others to get advice, check your progress, and help you troubleshoot or suggest

new directions.

How Self-Directed Learning Relates to Power

Any time decisions about what learning is, how it should be conducted, and who should evaluate

it are removed from the control of accredited teachers and institutions, a challenge to formal

power is in place. At its heart, self-directed learning is about power and control—who has the

power to decide what should be learned, what counts as legitimate knowledge or curricula, and

who controls how these are explored. One reason the ideas of self-direction appeals to so many

adult educators is because it represents a break with authoritarianism and educational

totalitarianism. It means that control over the definitions, processes, and evaluations of learning

rests with those who are struggling to learn, not with external authorities. The belief that through

self-direction adults can gain increasing control over their lives (however naïve this belief might

subsequently turn out to be) is an emancipatory belief. This is why as a graduate student I was so

taken by Gelpi’s (1979) view that “self-directed learning by individuals and of groups is a danger

for every repressive force, and it is upon this self-direction that we must insist. . . radical change

in social, moral, aesthetic and political affairs is often the outcome of a process of self-directed

learning in opposition to the educational message imposed from without” (p. 2).

I have developed this argument more extensively elsewhere (Brookfield, 2000, 2007) so won’t go

into in depth here. Suffice it to say that issues of power and control, particularly regarding the

definition of acceptable and appropriate learning activities, are always endemic to self-direction.

Who defines the boundaries of intellectual and practical inquiry is always a political question, and

self-direction places this decision squarely in the hands of learners. This was a cardinal principle

of Myles Horton’s work at the Highlander Folk School (Horton, 1990). Through the experience of

making decisions about what was to happen at Highlander, participants learned democratic

process. Horton argued that this process was indivisible; it couldn’t be hedged around with

facilitator-imposed constraints: “if you want to have the students control the whole process, as far

as you can get them to control it, then you can never, at any point, take it out of their hands”

(p. 136). As with the Highlander process, so with self-directed learning: who controls the ways

and directions in which adults learn is a political issue highlighting the distribution of educational

and political power. Who has the final say in framing the range and type of decisions to be taken,

and who establishes the pace and mechanisms for decision making, reveals a great deal about

where power really resides.

Andruske’s (2000) study of self-directed learning as a political act illustrates this point well. She

studied twenty-one women on welfare—often portrayed by right-wingers as scroungers with no

initiative who spend their time leeching off the state—and concluded that “women’s self-directed

learning projects result in women becoming political agents . . . seeking to regain control and

power over their lives as they navigate social spaces and social structures in their everyday

worlds” (p. 14). Andruske’s subjects engaged in complex legal research and policy analysis that

brought them into direct conflict with bureaucrats and policy administrators such as welfare

officials. They quickly learned that such officials would not as a matter of course inform welfare

recipients of potential benefits, necessitating considerable research by claimants. So part of being

self-directed was challenging the structures that controlled the flow of information in their

communities and fighting for access to resources to improve their lives.

Fighting for the resources needed to conduct self-directed learning is, indeed, a political act that

challenges dominant power. As a learner, I may come to a clear analysis of the skills I need to

develop in order to do or learn something but be told repeatedly by those I approach for necessary

resources that, while my plans are good ones, the budget cuts that have just been forced on my

organization and community mean that priorities have changed, and my plans are now rendered

useless. If this is the case, then sooner or later I am bound to realize that the problem of blocked

access to resources is not just one of individual personalities (the myopic, anal-retentive,

bureaucratic administrator constantly trying to thwart me) but also one of structural constraints.

If I need the physical equipment for a self-directed learning effort I have planned, and I’m told by

those owning or controlling such equipment that it is unavailable to me for reasons of cost or

because of other prior claims, this immediately raises an awareness for me of who owns the

means of educational production. If I decide to initiate a self-directed learning project that

involves challenging the institutional hegemony of a professional group (for example, physicians

or lawyers), I may find that medical and legal experts and their professional organizations place

insurmountable barriers in my path in an effort to retain their position of authority. So being self-

directed can be inherently politicizing as learners become aware that the resources necessary to

conduct their learning projects successfully are differentially distributed across society and often

in the control of gatekeepers unwilling to relinquish their monopoly on information or facilities.

It may also be the case that I decide I want to learn something that I consider essential for my

own development, only to be told that the knowledge or skills involved are undesirable,

inappropriate, or subversive. A desire to explore an alternative political ideology is meaningless if

books exploring that ideology have been removed from the public library because of their

“unsuitability,” or, perhaps more likely, if they have never been ordered in the first place. In a

blaze of admirable masochism I may choose to undertake a self-directed learning project geared

towards widening my understanding of how my practice as an educator is unwittingly oppressive

and culturally distorted. Yet I may well find that the materials I need for this project are so

expensive that neither I, nor my local libraries, can afford to purchase them. In this regard it is

ironic—an example of Marcuse’s (1965) idea of repressive tolerance—that critical analyses of

adult education have their political impact effectively neutered by being hard to obtain from

publishers or priced well beyond the pockets of those who could most benefit from reading them.

Five Caveats

Lest I fall into the trap I identified at the beginning of the chapter of uncritically celebrating self-

directed learning, I want to add five caveats or objections to what I’ve been saying before I delve

into practice.

Self Direction as Controlling

First, it’s possible to understand self-directed learning in a very different, and much more

controlling, way than the way I have portrayed it. Following Foucault’s (1980) analysis of

disciplinary power—power exercised by individuals to keep themselves in line—it is plausible to

see the technology of self-directed learning (such as student learning contracts) as a highly Brookfield, Stephen D.. Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=1132527. Created from liberty on 2025-07-14 06:17:13.

developed form of surveillance. From this viewpoint, learning contracts can be understood as a

sophisticated means of monitoring the content and methodology of learning without the teacher

needing to be physically present. That the exercise of disciplinary power can be furthered through

self-directed learning is illustrated in a book on creating self-directed classrooms where the “self-

directed plan of discipline . . . a written plan negotiated between the teacher and student”

(Areglado, Bradley, and Lane, 1996, p. 66) is the means by which “self-directing behavior

becomes self-discipline” (p. 63).

Counterfeit Self-Direction

Second, I should acknowledge that my analysis does not address the problem of counterfeit self-

direction. By that I mean a self-directed learning effort where you believe you are in control of an

authentically generated project, but in fact you are acting out an ideologically manipulated desire.

For example, learning to control your emotions—as if emotions are aberrations getting in the way

of reason—represents a Eurocentric Enlightenment way of being. Many could argue that trying to

control our emotions as if they are taps to be turned on and off at our behest is psychologically

harmful. Learning how to be more competitive to gain a market advantage and outsell or

outperform the competition is a common organizational project. Yet such a project represents an

unquestioning internalization of capitalism. Learning how to be popular, how to gauge what is the

best way to win influence, or how to please all reflect dominant notions of what counts as

successful. A young woman who learns how to hide her intelligence and fake an interest in sports

in order to appear desirable to men is engaged in a self-directed learning project, but it’s hardly

one that is in her best interest. So one element of analyzing any self-directed learning effort is

inquiring into the degree to which it represents and has been framed by dominant ideology and is

therefore against our true interests.

Questioning the Self

Third, the notion of the self at the heart of self-directed learning is itself highly questionable. Self-

directed learning rests on a modernistic concept of the self. A self-directed learner is seen as one

who makes free and uncoerced choices from a smorgasbord of enticing possibilities. The choices

the learner makes are held to reflect her desire to realize the strivings, dreams, and aspirations that

lie at the core of her identity. So self-directed learning clearly depends on there being a self to do

the learning. This views each individual learner as self-contained and internally driven, working

to achieve her learning goals in splendid isolation. The self is seen as a free floating, autonomous,

volitional agent able to make rational, authentic, and internally coherent choices about learning

while remaining detached from social, cultural, and political forces.

Ehrenreich (1990) writes that in this conception of individualism “each self is seen as pursuing its

own trajectory, accompanied by its own little planetary system of values, seeking to negotiate the

best possible deal from the various ‘relationships’ that come along. Since all values appear to be

idiosyncratic satellites of the self, and since we have no way to understand the ‘self ’ as a product

of all the other selves—present and in historical memory—we have no way of engaging each

other in moral discourse, much less in a routine political argument” (p. 102). Critical theory

questions this notion of a core self, arguing instead that identities are always embedded in history

and culture, and that the self is always socially formed (Brookfield, 2004). Postmodernism also

dismisses the notion of a core authentic self, positing flexible positionalities that change

according to situational factors (Bagnall, 1999). A tenet of postmodernism (though

postmodernists reject anything as fixed as tenets) is that the same person can behave in radically

different and contradictory ways depending on the context. We can all be compassionate saints or

genocidal devils depending on the situations we find ourselves in.

Self-Direction for Disempowerment

Although the examples of self-direction I have given are mostly positive, it is not uncommon to

decide self-directedly to learn how to hide, even silence, oneself. In Alfred’s (2001) research into

how immigrant British Caribbean women learn to negotiate American culture, she describes how

her subjects learned to silence their voices for fear of being misunderstood and how they learned

to seek marginality, to hide so as not to be noticed in adult classrooms. As an introvert I hated to

participate in discussion seminars in college so I learned to keep my mouth shut for fear of

sounding unintelligent. In dealing with depression during my “secret” years (before I went public

about my condition), I learned many strategies of deception that allowed me to explain why I

couldn’t meet deadlines, appear at conferences, or take trips without ever referencing the true

reason. In these instances people are working in a self-directed way to develop certain skills and

knowledge, but one could hardly view them as empowering.

Mixing Self- and External Direction

Finally, it is important to emphasize that while we can talk of self-directed learning as one of a

range of possible ways of developing skills and knowledge, it is more problematic to talk of self-

directed learners as if they were an entirely separate category, monolithically and unilaterally self-

contained. The truth is that all of us are at times more self-directed in our learning, and at other

times more externally directed. In an area in which I feel I know the layout of the territory I want

to cross, I can be self-directed with far more confidence than in a project where I feel a total

novice. Because I enjoy academic writing and find it relatively stress-free, I have never needed to

take a course on scholarly writing for publications. Similarly, because songwriting comes easy to

me, I’m fine with studying other songwriters’ tricks and have never thought to enroll in a

composition workshop.

But when it comes to learning how to use online tools to engage students I need someone to take

me through a step-by-step explanation of a new software program or platform. The decisions

regarding how I integrate that tool into my teaching may be my own (and therefore self-directed),

but in order to know the possibilities of the tool and how it can be manipulated, I need a lot of

initial external direction. So most learning projects involve alternating episodes in which self- or

external direction is predominant.

Fostering Self-Directed Learning

This section is written for adult classroom teachers who want to help their students develop the

confidence and ability to conduct self-directed learning efforts outside formal institutions. I

believe there are things we can do inside institutions that can help students learn something

outside them. In this sense, part of adult teaching involves reducing students’ reliance on

educational institutions when they decide they need to learn something. Whatever the educational

level of adults I have taught, whether they are studying pre-college study skills or doing doctoral

degrees at Harvard, my intent is to help them expand their repertoire of learning practices and

increase their awareness of their strengths and weaknesses as learners. By so doing, I hope they

are better placed to learn independently of a formal program.

Building Self-Confidence

A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the connections between self-efficacy

and self-direction. In other words, a propensity to be self-directed is connected to a belief that you

are capable of conducting such learning effectively (Hoban and Hoban, 2004; Ponton et al.,

2005a; 2005b). One crucial preparatory step to encourage self-directed learning is to build

confidence in those who feel that because of their age (“you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”) or

social location (“learning is not for the likes of me”) mastering a new set of skills or coming to

understand complex ideas is something they aren’t cut out for. Teachers who work with students Brookfield, Stephen D.. Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=1132527. Created from liberty on 2025-07-14 06:17:13.

across the lifespan often say that helping students become lifelong learners is an overarching

agenda for their practice. So part of being a teacher in formal settings is working to help students

develop the confidence to feel they don’t always need an institution or teacher to help them

conduct important learning. Some ways I try to do this are described below.

The Learning Audit

The Learning Audit is an instrument to let students see that although they may think no learning

is happening in a particular course, over a period of time they are taking microsteps to develop

skills and acquire knowledge. It comprises three questions that are regularly posed (maybe every

two or three weeks) to students about their participation in a course. These questions are. . .

What do you know about the subject that you didn’t know this time two weeks ago?

What can you do in this subject that you couldn’t do two weeks ago?

What can you tell or demonstrate to someone about this subject that you couldn’t have told, or

demonstrated two weeks ago?

As students complete these I ask them to hand them to me so I can see how they feel they’re

moving forward, and then I return them to the students at the next class. Over the course of a

semester students collect a series of audits. As part of their final learning portfolio for the course,

I ask them to read through these and compile an inventory of the skills and information they feel

they’ve developed over the term.

The intention of the Learning Audit is to convince students that, contrary to what they might

believe, they are actually making small incremental gains. My hope is that this counters their

belief that learning is beyond them and helps them realize that they are making progress and

moving forward. This helps build a self-image as a learner that, in turn, contributes to their belief

that learning is something they can do outside of a formal classroom.

Demystifying Learning

For adults whose time in formal schooling has been a sustained experience in being told they are

mediocre and that significant learning is beyond them, the word takes on an aura of a learning

mysterious phenomenon, a world that exists beyond their comprehension. So part of normalizing

learning, bringing it into their worldview, is to strip learning of its aura of being something that

only highly credentialed people can do. Two ways teachers can do this are through

autobiographical disclosure and by helping learners construct an inventory of their own everyday

cognition.

Autobiographical Disclosure

How a particular teacher incorporates an autobiographical disclosure of their own learning is

obviously shaped by what constitutes their autobiography. In my own case I use several

approaches. First, I often start a new course or program with a general autobiographical

introduction detailing my own struggles with formal schooling. As I outlined in The Skillful

(Brookfield, 2006), I have a history of mediocre performance as a learner. I almost failed Teacher

to progress beyond age sixteen in high school, failed my university entrance exams at eighteen,

graduated with a poor undergraduate degree from the college of technology that finally accepted

me, and failed my master’s degree exam. Starting the first class of a course with this disclosure is

repeatedly described by students as a very effective way of keeping their own anxieties in check.

If I made it through to a point where I’m now qualified to teach them, they conclude, then there is

hope for them.

Second, I try to be open about my own struggles as a learner around particular subject matter. So

when I teach critical social theory—an area rife with impenetrable scholarly jargon—I keep

talking about how difficult it is for me to understand the topic, how my head hurts, and how after

reading the same paragraph over five times I am no clearer about what it means. When I teach

basic study skills courses, I talk about how I struggled to develop these same skills. When I run a

faculty institute on recognizing racial microaggressions I lead off by describing my own struggle

to recognize my own commission of such aggressions.

Third, I try always to introduce a new unit or module of study with an autobiographical

illustration of how my knowing this material, or acquiring this skill, played itself out in some

aspect of my own life. This could be in terms of my life as a scholar (how reading interviews with

Foucault were much more helpful in my understanding his ideas than reading books he authored)

or a more practical illustration from my work (how Foucault’s work helped me understand how

some of my own practices were experienced by students as surveillance).

Recognizing Everyday Cognition—Jeopardy Mastermindand

Everyday cognition is a term initially popularized by researchers Rogoff and Lave (1999) to refer

to the knowledge and skills people develop in everyday situations (parenting, relationships,

workplace roles, community organizations). One way to strengthen the self-confidence needed to

undertake self-directed learning is to help learners appreciate the store of practical knowledge

they have developed without consciously being aware of involvement in any kind of sustained

learning project. For example, students can be invited to share their passions via (a US Jeopardy

TV show) or (an old UK show) quizzes.Mastermind

I used to find out my students’ passions (football, guns, soul music, clothes, dancing, beer, militia

memorabilia) by asking them on the first night of class what they would like to be in life if they

had the talent and freedom to choose anything. I then used their responses as the basis for

organized class quiz games. The class would be divided into teams and would be asked general

questions about the topics of the course, alternating with specialist questions based on their

passions. My intent was to help them realize they already knew a lot and could do a lot, even if

they had never taken an academic course after dropping out of high school.

Providing Exemplars

A very helpful way of convincing people that they can conduct a self-directed learning effort is to

bring exemplars to a class. By exemplars I don’t mean famous figures such as Harriet Tubman,

Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Nelson Mandela, or Wangari Maathai. I mean, rather, people who

are as close to the students’ own experiences as I can find who have themselves conducted self-

directed learning projects. By inviting these individuals to class to talk about the ways they

became knowledgeable or skilled, I can give students models that are accessible and

understandable. Seeing how people just like them have conducted self-directed learning may

convince them it is a possibility for them too. If bringing exemplars to class isn’t logistically

possible, then video-streaming comments from them online is an option.

Understanding Your Own Instinctive Preferences and Habits

Another way teachers can help learners prepare to undertake self-directed learning is to help them

to become aware of their own instinctive learning preferences and habits. I use these terms rather

than learning style, because they refer to a learner’s personal history of choices and actions.

(Learning style is a term for me that deals with information processing and brain chemistry.) In

interviews with highly self-directed adults regarding the barriers that interrupted their learning

projects, Guglielmino and others (2005) explored how personal learning habits were significant

factors in stopping learning in its tracks. I would contend that being aware of your learning

preferences and habits is crucial if you are to avoid falling into ruts when learning outside of

formal education.

Some of the components of understanding your learning style are the following:

Knowing what learning methods usually work best for you—this helps you decide what a

good initial starting point might be

Knowing what kinds of tasks typically cause you the most difficulties—this stops you from

quitting prematurely when confronting such tasks

Knowing when your instincts are to be trusted and when they should be disregarded—as

when, for example, you don’t seek out expert help because you believe you can accomplish

everything on your own

Understanding some of the typical rhythms of conducting learning projects—this helps you

recognize temporary (as against permanent) setbacks

Critical Incident Questionnaire

One way that adult teachers can help students become aware of their preferences and habits is by

asking them to review the Critical Incident Questionnaires (CIQs) they have completed over a

period of several weeks. The CIQ can be downloaded for free at my home page (http://www.

) where you can also read case studies of its application. It’s a one-page stephenbrookfield.com

response sheet that asks students five questions about their weekly experience of the class.

Because it’s anonymous I trust the responses more than those where students identify themselves.

I always return the completed response sheets to the students by laying them on a table during a

class break and asking them to retrieve their copies as I’m out of the room getting tea.

At the end of the course I ask students to go back over all their completed CIQs and to look for

common themes. What were the kinds of classroom activities they found most engaging or

distancing? What actions that I or their fellow students took did they find most helpful or

confusing? What surprised them? I then ask them to provide me with a brief statement of what

they’ve learned about themselves as learners having reviewed ten to fifteen of their completed

CIQs. What kinds of learning activities are they drawn to and what do they avoid? Which tasks do

they find most challenging and which do they accomplish easily? Are there certain kinds of

resources they find more congenial than others? What have they learned about their own

emotional responses to learning? How do they deal with disappointments and struggle? How did

they judge when they needed to ask for help?

This paragraph of self-reflection is a required element in the final course portfolio the student

submits to me. If it isn’t handed in, then the student automatically gets a grade of incomplete for

the course. My agenda here is to use my power to force students to know themselves better as

learners, so that when they decide to conduct important self-directed learning efforts outside of

class they do so with an enhanced awareness of what are their habitual preferences. The more

they know what works and doesn’t work for them, the better placed they are to plan their projects.

The more awareness they have of their own emotional responses and rhythms, the more they are

able to withstand moments of frustration, weather periods of demoralization, and know how to

reactivate enthusiasm.

Letter to a Second Self

The is an end of semester activity in which learners write to themselves as Letter to a Second Self

if they were another student. The student is asked to try and step outside of herself and imagine

she is giving advice to an imaginary second self on how best to conduct a new learning effort.

This learning is based on what she has found out about her own preferences and habits during the

current course of study. I provide prompts for these letters such as. . .

Here’s the things you should watch out for

Here are some approaches likely to be most helpful to you

When you feel stuck you might want to try

What’s probably going to work best for you is. . .

Make sure you. . .

When you feel down or demoralized you should. . .

Don’t try to. . .

The intent, as with the CIQ reflection, is to get students to think about the big picture of their own

learning efforts. I want them to see themselves as skilled technicians of learning, adults who

know how best to conduct the nuts and bolts of self-directed learning efforts in ways that build on

their strengths. But I also want them to develop some kind of emotional intelligence so that they

keep the inevitable highs and lows of learning in some sort of perspective.

Poster Session—My Learning Journey

A more visual approach to helping adults develop some self-awareness is to schedule one class as

a poster session in which students depict visually the journey they have taken over a semester. I

stress that words are to be kept to a minimum and that I want people to use images—including

abstract images—to represent how they negotiated their learning activities. I supply students with

large newsprint to draw on, plenty of colored markers, pens, rulers, scissors, and tape. They also

receive magazine photographs, cloth scraps, and other textured materials for creating a mixed-

media collage creation, if they so desire. It’s important that students know that abstract drawing

with no attempt at representation is fine. I don’t want this to turn into a test of artistic ability.

The students then hang their poster on the wall and put a blank sheet of newsprint by each one.

They are then told to wander around the room looking at all the posters and to write down any

questions they have about the images they see on the posters. They also add comments or

interpretations of the images. After a time students then return to their original poster to read what

others have written in response. I’ll then open the class for discussion and reactions to the

exercise. The theme of the discussion is “What does my poster teach me about who I am as a

learner?” We talk about what their poster means for how they will conduct future learning efforts

in a self-directed manner.

Chalk Talk—“I Learn Best When. . .”

The Chalk Talk exercise is one of my favorites as a classroom teacher, mostly because it

democratizes participation very quickly and because it provides a graphic representation of where

a group of people stands on an issue. In Chapter 3 I explained how the process works. When

students do Chalk Talk around the prompt “I Learn Best When. . .” the board quickly fills up with

very varied responses. After ten minutes it is typically full, and I call the exercise to an end. I then

invite the students to look first for common clusters of responses, and we talk about what those

tell us. We then turn to outliers—comments that are important but that don’t comprise a cluster—

and we discuss how those represent alternatives we need to examine. My intent is to get students

to understand the range of potential approaches to learning that are available to them. As we

discuss the pros and cons of the different approaches revealed, I ask people to think how they

could incorporate new methods and strategies the next time they conduct a self-directed learning

effort.

Developing Informational Literacy

The explosion of the Internet and its obvious use as a resource for self-directed learning has led to

an interest in the opportunities and challenges it provides (Rager, 2006). In his analysis of how

the Internet changes self-directed learning in rural communities, Hiemstra (2006) notes how rural

users become skillful at evaluating web pages and negotiating search engines, and how Internet

use becomes central to their life decisions. The same could probably be said for users in suburban

and inner city communities. We now need to think of social media and the Internet as

opportunities for participatory civic engagement (Black, 2012).

Teaching basic informational literacy goes beyond computer usage, of course, to encompass all

kinds of information retrieval—from libraries, from other people, from mass media, and so on.

Adult educators working in formal systems have multiple opportunities to teach informational

literacy in a way that will be useful for learners who conduct self-directed learning outside the

formal system. If you are interested in reading how I teach adults to read texts critically you can

read chapter 6 of (Brookfield, 2012). Below I will focus on Teaching For Critical Thinking

Internet analysis.

Search Engine Selection

A beginning exercise is to give learners a topic of interest to them—how to pass examinations, for

example—and tell them to use different search engines to generate information about this topic.

Students use two or three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and so on) and are then asked to choose

the one that generated the most useful links. Once a tally of student votes has been taken, the

different engines are discussed in turn. Students supporting each search engine say what it was

about that particular engine that caused them to decide it was most useful—speed of response?,

number of links?, ease of negotiation?, clarity of link descriptors?, relevance of top hits?, breadth

of links open to retrieval?, and so on. The teacher then works with the students to discuss which

criteria for judging search engine utility make the most sense to them, and how those criteria

might be applied in a self-directed learning project totally unrelated to the student’s formal

curriculum.

Web Credibility—“The Criteria Gallery”

Another exercise is to choose a general topic of interest such as dealing with stress and to present

four or five web pages exploring that particular topic or problem. Students are told to evaluate

which of the four or five they would choose as being the most useful in helping them conduct

inquiry on the topic outside class. Five minutes is allotted for students to work independently and

choose one of the web pages. They then form into small groups and share their choices with each

other and the reasons why they felt a particular web page would be the most helpful in a self-

directed learning effort. I ask them to put on newsprint the top three or four reasons the group

agreed were important in determining why they chose the pages they did and also to post one or

two reasons for choosing pages that were only mentioned by one person.

When the posters are hung around the walls we have, in effect, a “criteria gallery.” Students see

which criteria are most frequently used by their peers when deciding to use a website to guide

learning, and they also see some of the outlier reasons that have been offered. As a class we then

discuss which would be the most accurate criteria to be deployed when assessing websites’ utility

for different kinds of self-directed learning projects such as. . .

How to learn about breast cancer treatment

How to oppose a neighborhood zoning decision

How to set up a terrarium

How to establish a charter school based on Islamic cultural values

How to organize a mass demonstration

How to create a cactus garden

How to mobilize an “Occupy Anytown” community

Wiki Construction

One of the hardest things I confront as a teacher of adults is to develop in students the awareness

that Wikipedia is not always to be trusted; or, more specifically, that it is not to be trusted as an

objective source of information collated by experts who have no axe to grind. On a simple level

you can do this by comparing Wikipedia entries that differ in regards to multiple citations, clarity

of expression, breadth and depth of detailed information, coverage of multiple contrasting views,

self-critique and caveats, and so on. What is harder is to get learners to evaluate critically what

looks to be a credible Wikipedia entry.

One quick way to teach people to be skeptical about the objectivity and accuracy of a Wikipedia

entry is to get them involved in constructing—that is altering—a fictional entry. I begin by

creating a wiki on the course Blackboard page dealing with a topic we have reviewed in the

course. I then ask students to add valid information to this wiki but also to add something they

know to be false and present it in such a way as to appear entirely credible. Students make

statements they know to be untrue and then back these up with fictional citations in sources that

sound legitimate. After a suitable period I ask for challenges to the wiki postings.

When the class convenes we talk about the ways they have constructed their wiki and, if we’re in

a “smart” classroom, students navigate the entry on screen to show the class their erroneous

contributions, and they describe the tricks they used to get this information to appear legitimate.

They then remove any erroneous claims or information they have entered.

The point of this exercise is twofold. First, I want students to appreciate just how easy it is to post

information online that looks credible and to increase their skepticism about its supposed

objectivity. Second, I want to train them in recognizing spurious entries in Wikipedia. It’s my

own personal contribution to keeping Wikipedia credible and legitimate. I am a fan and user of

Wikipedia as well as a contributor to it and want it to remain a valuable educational tool. My

assumption is that if my students know how easy it is to fabricate a supposedly credible addition

to their own wiki, they will be on the lookout for the same kinds of tricks used in an actual

Wikipedia entry.

Designing Learning Projects

Finally, classroom teachers can help students develop some of the technical learning skills that

will be helpful in future self-directed learning. Any assignments that ask students to take

responsibility for at least part of their learning can add to a learner’s repertoire of skills. Of

course, a teacher giving you options to choose from, or encouraging you to be personally creative

in deciding how to go about learning or demonstrating something, is not an example of self-

directed learning. For that to happen the student would need to be in charge of deciding what and

how to learn. But in order to make good decisions on the mechanics of how to learn, it helps to

have had some experience with using different learning approaches in a formal setting.

Project Flow Charts

If students have an individual or group project they are required to accomplish as part of

completing a course or program, teachers can help them decide what is manageable within the

time they have available. One way is to develop a flow chart that starts with the completed project

and then works back through the calendar to what will be the planned starting point. The final

project is broken down into its constituent tasks, and these are then matched against the chunks of

time available to the student on the flow chart. When students realize that their final project goals

are way too ambitious given the time they have allotted in the weeks leading up to the completion

date, they invariably redefine what the project goals are to make them manageable, or they

reframe the project in a significant way. The flow chart helps students to see how a broad overall

objective can be realized in small incremental chunks. Teachers can help students see that

breaking an intimidating learning prospect into bite size daily or weekly tasks helps keep up

morale and momentum.

Practicing Learning Decisions

The nuts and bolts of any self-directed learning project are the daily microdecisions learners make

about what to do next. To the extent that teachers assign projects that place significant

responsibility for these decisions in the hands of students, they are helping them undertake future

self-directed learning outside the academy. So even if the boundaries and focus of a project have

been set by the teacher (thereby disqualifying it from counting as self-directed learning) students

still have the chance to practice learning decisions. Such decisions might include:

When should I work solo and when should I seek out collaborators?

If I use collaborators, how am I going to judge who will be most helpful?

How do I know which is the best book to read when several are available?

How can I use the Internet to accomplish my objectives?

How do I keep the focus on what’s integral to the project and what’s superfluous?

How do I break a large task into a series of manageable minitasks?

How do I devise a realistic schedule and hold myself accountable to it?

Emotional Fluency

Emotion is central to learning, not something added to it or something that interrupts it. The

decision to learn is in part emotional, fueled by a feeling of urgency, a desire to reduce anxiety, or

a wish to experience the pleasure of confidently moving forward. We experience learning

emotionally—feeling the chill of recognition, the joy of understanding, the pride of

accomplishment, the shame of embarrassment, the self-loathing of failure, and the tired

demoralization of not being able to “get it.” In classroom learning, which is a social phenomenon,

there is pleasure or anger at how a teacher or peer responds to you, frustration that someone can’t

understand your point, or gratification at being asked a question that shows someone has

understood your point exactly.

Adult educators have recently focused much more on the emotional dimensions of learning

(Dirkx, 2008), though Bierema (2008) usefully cautions against the danger of emotion “work”—

manufacturing emotions one doesn’t really feel as part of job responsibilities. I think of emotion

work every time I enter a store to hear a “greeter” cheerfully call out “How are you?” fabricating

a completely manufactured interest in my well being. Emotional fluency in self-directed learning

is the opposite of emotion work. It is recognizing that emotional responses are integral to learning

and coming to understand how these manifest themselves. Part of emotional fluency focuses on a

meta-awareness of how emotions are moving through us, a noticing of an altered state of being.

This is especially helpful when we’re feeling demoralized, frustrated, and confused because

things aren’t proceeding as we’d hoped. Part of it also focuses on ensuring that the conditions that

produce the most pleasurable states of feeling in a learning effort are conditions we attempt to

reproduce whenever possible.

There are multiple ways of teaching emotional fluency. One is to include testimony from learners

who are further ahead in a learning journey on the ways that emotions manifested themselves in

their learning. Hearing others name emotions we are experiencing is helpful to our being able to

keep our ups and downs in perspective. Video streaming testimony in online classes or having

previous students visit your classroom and talk about how they experienced the course are two

possibilities. Another is the Letter to Successors technique (Brookfield, 1995) in which students

finishing a course write brief letters to future students passing on whatever information they feel

it’s important for new students to know about the class. In my experience these letters focus far

more on the emotional aspects of learning than on the technicalities of how to complete

assignments. I publish these letters (with their author’s permission) on the course home page the

next time I teach the same course to a new group of students.

Summary

Self-directed learning in the way I define it is part of the field of adult education that resists

compartmentalization. It represents nothing less than the full range of learning that people decide

they need to conduct to get through their lives. Learning how to cope with bereavement and

illness, learning how to deal with being fired, learning what comprises true friendship, or how to

build a lasting relationship are examples of self-directed learning all of us sooner or later

undertake. Most community-based learning is self-directed as we try to manage the conflicting

interests of different community groups or fight against outside interests that try to take our

community away from us. And, of course, the full panoply of recreational and vocational

learning, which for those of us stuck in unsatisfying jobs is what brings true meaning to our lives,

is usually self-directed. Finally, the deepest spiritual engagements are often self-directed quests Brookfield, Stephen D.. Powerful Techniques for Teaching Adults, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=1132527. Created from liberty on 2025-07-14 06:17:13.

for meaning. In all these self-directed projects, we do not work alone—friends, peers, family,

colleagues, and experts all contribute to our learning. But in the final say it’s we who decide.