What is independent learning & how can I use it in my own teaching?

One of the buzz words of 2016 was independent learning but the question I found myself asking is what is independent learning & how can I use it in my own teaching?  Independent learning is defined as when an individual is able to think, act and pursue their own studies autonomously, without the same levels of support you receive from a teacher at school.  So, what does this actually mean?  When I think about independent learning these are the main things that come to mind.

Independent learning helps stretch higher ability students.  This is because when students are working independently they need to be self-sufficient.  Often the skills they need to develop in order for this to happen go hand in hand with higher order thinking skills.

Independent learning helps students develop a growth mindset.  Dweck defines growth mindset as “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment”

When planning independent learning tasks, try, and enable students room for manoeuvre so that they can be creative, think out of the box or both.  There are a few ways round this. When setting homework tasks that will .really stretch the independence of students, give them options to choose from.  In lessons think about tasks that are going to challenge your students and cause them to have to access the lesson content in a way that they will have to be able to explain it to another student if they have to.  

If students are working independently then they must be doing something by themselves.  This was the first main misconception on my part as what I’ve come to believe is that what independent learning really is, is any sort of learning where I’m not directly responsible for what students are learning.  This also means that students can still be learning independently when working in groups or pairs.

If students are working independently then they will by divine intervention, make more progress!  The second realisation I’ve had is that even though independent learning promotes higher level thinking, you don’t need to try and crowbar it into every lesson as it’s not always appropriate.  A more important point is that there is no rule that says that even if you have set an independent learning task there’s no reason that you can’t still give your students guidance or a framework to work within.

Independent learning doesn’t just mean homework.  For years, this was a common misconception made by many teachers across the board.  You can plan independent learning tasks into your lessons.  The most important thing to think about when doing this is to start with the independent learning task you want your students to do, then construct your lesson around it as your students will need to be pre-equipped with the tools they need to complete the task effectively.   

Independent learning should help increase student’s confidence and motivation in lessons.  Because student’s are taking responsibility for their own learning they will be able to help direct the direction they take.  If students are helping to choose how they are learning they should become more motivated about their own learning.  If students are engaged within their learning it should make them more confident about explaining what they are learning.

The final realisation I’ve come to believe about independent learning is that it allows students to work at their own pace.  And with that in an ideal world you’ve discovered the holy grail of teaching.  A pedagogy that allows differentiation, the stretches the most able students, that frees up the teacher in the lesson to help support less able students and that allows students to be creative in their own learning.  If only it was that easy.

The question that I heard asked time and again is “how can I effectively use independent learning within my own teaching?”  This is a question that I’ve been wrestling with for a long time, and I think that I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Below I have tried to outline some of the methods and activities I use to help independent learning both within and outside of my lessons. 

Get students to teach each other using micro-teaching.  Micro teaching involves students teaching each other ideas & content during a lesson.  There is lots of evidence that shows that students make the greatest amount of progress when they have to explain ideas & concepts to each other. Below I have outlined how to carry out a micro teaching activity with students and have tried to detail some of the possible preparation that needs to be in place to ensure that this activity has a meaningful impact on student progress.

The first stage in any micro teaching activity is to enable students to gather the information for themselves.  If students have to find things out for themselves they will make more progress than if they are just spoon fed it.  This can be done in many different ways.

• Flipped learning:  Before the lesson you can let students know what they will be teaching and then set appropriate videos for them to watch. Students can then use this to make notes on the content they need in preparation for the next lesson.
• Directed reading:  Students can be given the content they will be producing a micro teaching presentation or short lesson on.  This method works most effectively when students have to pick out key information from the text and then have it taken away before they start interacting with other groups.
• Use exam questions:  During revision, different groups of students can be given different exam questions that they need to explain to other students how to answer.
• Information hunt:  Before beginning the micro teaching activity, put key information around the room that students will need to use.  Give students some time in small groups to go around and gather the information they need to carry out the micro teaching activity.
• Once students have collected the information they need, they need to put together a short lesson or presentation on a particular concept.  This can take the form of a traditional short presentation or a short lesson where students have prepared some simple resources to help them teach.  
• Once your students are ready set them up work around rows of tables as shown in the pictures below

After students have worked around all the other groups you can carry out more traditional AFL to assess how much progress students have made. 

Open ended homework tasks:  These do pretty much what it says on the tin, they provide students with an opportunity to expand their own learning outside of the classroom in a direction that interests them.  There are a few ways to approach this form of independent learning:

1. Set students a general inquiry question that they must research then produce some sort of report on.
2. Set homework tasks which allow students multiple routes to get to an outcome.
3. Allow students to collaboratively to produce a video on a certain topic

Modelling activities:  When getting students to build models to explore concepts you still need to start with the content, however, you don’t necessarily need to stand at the front of the class and physically teach it.  The first step in allowing students to construct models is to allow them to collect or put together the information they need to help them build the model themselves.  This can be done in a few ways; you can use flipped learning and set students a series of youtube videos to watch & make notes on to help them, or lay out a range of information and allow students to gather what they need in small groups.  In some cases, you can give students a sheet with the content on and allow them to highlight what they think is relevant. 

Once students have the information they need, don’t assume they will automatically know where to start.  In many lessons where students are given a chance to build models to explore concepts there isn’t just one correct answer, however, there will still be a range of criteria that students need to incorporate into their models.  Before students start building their models don’t forget to give them a rough frame work to help them structure their ideas that they will incorporate.  In some cases, when you are giving students a task to complete where there is lots of scope for interpretation, it is worth showing students examples to help them get going.

Allowing students opportunities to feedback on each other’s work.  Peer marking is often a contentious method. Using it relies on students understanding what the correct answer is and that they will be able to mark answer without being overly harsh or generous.  The other major problem with peer marking is the quality of the feedback that they give each other.  If the feedback they give doesn’t aid progress has it been worth the time it has taken them to give it?  The way that I think effective peer marking should be carried out follows a few key concepts.

Firstly, if I’m getting students to do any peer marking I get them to do it in green pen.  If students do their marking in green it is easy for them to distinguish between their marking and mine.  It also gives an opportunity to easily comment and give feedback on the quality of peer feedback.

When getting students to make each other’s work don’t presume that they will automatically know how to do it.  It’s been my experience that most students have no idea how to mark a piece of work.  The way to get around this is to give students a strict framework to mark to.  If you want students to mark for SPAG, give them the key words that need to be spelt correctly.  If you want students to mark for specific content get them using a mark scheme to allow them to see what the correct answers are.  Using peer marking takes some time to get right as your students will need some training, however, it’s a useful tool to have I your arsenal.

Allow students to set their own tasks:  This one does come with a little health and safety warning, I would only use it with a class that I felt confident with, and which I’d already set a relatively strict framework for students to work within.  The first thing to do is to ensure that you share the lesson outcomes with students so they know what they need to achieve by the end of the lesson.  From there it’s up to them to set their own task to get there.  Put students in small groups or pairs to do this and then ask each group what they have decided to do to make sure that they will achieve what you want.

Group brain storming activities:  This is a short activity that can allow small groups of students to feed off each other’s creativity, therefore helping each other to expand their own learning.  Start with giving your students a topic to work on expanding it with as much as they can think around it.  Then rotate students around each other’s work and get them to expand on what’s already written.  Continue this process until students are back at their original work, then get them to use the information to compete some sort of collaborative task.

Interrogating the text:  Students are given an unfamiliar piece of text.  In pairs or small groups they are asked to:

1. Formulate important questions the text should be able to answer, or they hope the text will answer.
2. Read the text, highlighting key points,
3. Discuss the key points and agree answers to the questions formulated in ‘1’.

This is by no means a complete list of the things you can give a go; however, they are some of the methods I’ve given a go and have worked pretty well.  I hope that these ideas have provided some inspiration for how you can use independent learning within your own lessons.

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk