Teaching Students to Become Self-Determined Learners

by Michael L. Wehmeyer, Yong Zhao

Children are born learning machines who want to learn and can organize and manage their own learning. Unfortunately, today children have little choice over what they do in school and how and when they do it. Children prepared in this "other-determined" manner will be poorly equipped to navigate an adult world requiring that they act autonomously and self-direct learning to acquire skills in rapidly changing environments. In Teaching Students to Become Self-Determined Learners, Michael Wehmeyer and Yong Zhao explore the how and why of self-determined learning—which emphasizes autonomy and choice, turning over ownership for learning to students by supporting them in engaging in activities that are of personal value to them, thus enabling them to act volitionally. You'll learn

* How to promote self-determined learning in your classroom or school
* The importance of autonomy supports, competence supports, and relatedness

supports
* Conditions that enable self-determined learning
* Teaching strategies for self-determined learning
* Assessment strategies in self-determined learning
* The role of technology in self-determined living The practical strategies, case studies, advice, and resources here will help you help your students to motivate themselves and become self-determined learners

141 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 28, 2020

About the author

Michael L. Wehmeyer, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and former Director, Beach Center on Disability and Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Kansas. He has edited or authored 50 books and almost 500 scholarly articles and book chapters on topics related to special education, understanding intellectual disability, eugenics, and self-determination. He is a Fellow and past-president of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

"... it did not disrupt the entire school. Instead, it was an alternative for a small number of students who chose to experience a new approach. It was an invitation rather than an imposition...This school within a a school approach has a better chance to succeed than a wholesale approach that attempts to make changes to the entire school."

I had the opportunity to attend a high school that was similar to many of the examples Wehmeyer and Zhao used and I had the fortune to work with colleagues who also saw the value in curating learning opportunities for our students and co-owning the assessment and planning with our students and providing choice to facilitate self-directed education. "Teaching students to become self-determined learners," provides a thorough discussion of the benefits of self-determined learners and research based steps to incorporate into your classroom and implement in your school. It makes goods sense, and this book explains why.

[Cybele36 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book cherry-picks ideas from self determination theory to promote a constructivist view of education. Boring.

[Claudette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book for professional development as a teacher. Some strategies are helpful in leading students to become self-determined learners.