For the past month, we have been piloting a new concept in our homeschooling program. We always take a laid-back approach to learning, but we just let go a little more. We officially instituted Mondays as self-directed learning days. Sure, we were a little worried that nothing would get accomplished. Could our homeschooler really keep at it for a whole day of intensive learning? As it turns out, the answer is yes (as long as he has general guidance). Here is how it works:
Our Ground Rules
1. Feel free to choose absolutely any topic to study
2. Chosen project has to be completed by end of day
3. Parent is there for technical assistance and guidance, with light instruction, if necessary.
4. Child has access to any tools needed, including books, art supplies, paper, office supplies, toys, computer, printer, scanner, camera, all sorts of software, calculator, etc.
5. There is always a deliverable (product) due at the end of the day. Sometimes it’s a photo gallery, a blog posting outlining the project, a built object, a movie, a movie script, or anything that reflects time well spent.
Success?
So far, Self-Directed Learning days have been a great success. Mondays are great days to get excited about learning, too. Our homeschooler sure has chosen some really fun things to learn. He made a movie about dinosaurs (with some instruction), built a commercial lego kit from spare parts and documented the process in a blog, wrote a screenplay (single scene) with character sketches and a story board, and composed a piece of music.
Outcomes
Because he has complete autonomy in choosing and executing his project, he makes learning fun — it has real meaning and relevance to him. As a result, he is passionate about his projects and works really hard all day. We don’t worry about not getting all of the ‘subjects’ included in a lesson. First of all, it’s just one day per week. Secondly, each week’s lesson will probably require skills in different subjects. Most importantly, though, the creative thinking, problem-solving, skill-acquiring, curiosity-provoking lessons hidden in these projects more than make up for dusty old spelling quizzes!
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I would love to do this, maybe more than just Mondays. But I am pretty sure I would hear, “I don’t have any ideas!” for quite a long while before they finally produced anything… I think that in order to have self-directed learning work properly, you need to have a lot of resources, which we don’t. Or is that just an excuse?
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What a great idea. I might use that with our kids here – They are getting so tired of the same ol’ same ol’. Right now they are planning a music video with yarn dolls that they’ve been making all morning, calling them “The Its.”