Learner-driven is one of those labels that often oversimplify what it attempts to described. Generally it’s shorthand for self-directed. The learner directs the learning instead of the teacher or instructor. As if all teachers do is present content, learner-driven is quickly reduced to “pick your own content.”
Think a moment about what’s being driven. Is it the learner? No. It is the effectiveness of the learning process as well as the selection of sources. In a truly learner-driven environment, each of us must be our own instructional designer.
Kathy Sierra’s Crash Course in Learning Design is an excellent starting point for learning to think like a designer.
To get our arms around the whole learning process, we need to take charge of functions that occur outside the narrow confines of the surface activity of classrooms. If you get sick at school, you go see the school nurse. If we have a physical set-back, be it whooping cough or ADD, each of us must be our own diagnostician and primary care-provider.
Certain behaviors impede our learning process. If you only get four hours of sleep a night, your facility for learning shuts down. A handy article entited Hacking Knowledge: 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, Better is a compendium of things in addition to content and design that make for effective learning. Read through the list, asking yourself which of the 77 you could leave out with no consequences. (I buy into about 65 of the 77.) This means that each of us must be our own coach.
Murphy’s Second Law: You can never do just one thing.
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