Refine
Document Type
- Article (1)
- Bachelor Thesis (1)
Language
- English (2) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Keywords
- Lernen (2) (remove)
Faculty / Organisational entity
Problems, Chances and Limitations of Facilitating Self-Directed Learning at a German Gymnasium
(2020)
Self-directed learning is becoming more important than ever. In a rapidly changing world, learners must be ready to face new obstacles. Self-directed learning gives the learners the chance to adapt to these social contextual changes. But facilitating self-directed learning in formal settings seems to be a risky task and venture. To accomplish its facilitation, many limits must be overcome.
In this thesis, lessons at a German school called a Gymnasium – the type of school where learners can get the highest school level degree – were observed in order to find out in how far elements of self-directed learning can be found in the observed lessons. For the comparison, the process elements of Knowles’ book “Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers” from 1975 were adapted to the observations of the lessons.
A central part of the observations and interviews of the teachers was to find out which limitations in the facilitation of self-directed learning can be found in terms of the institutional framework and the attitude of the teachers. The results of the observations highly differentiated. Whereas in many of the observed scientific lessons, many elements of self-directed learning were found, the lessons in social studies were teacher-directed. Also, a different attitude between the teachers was found in terms of the support for self-directed learning.
Importantly, the thesis includes the scientific critic of self-directed learning instead of excluding it and proposes the facilitation of Grow’s “Self-Directed-Learning Model” (1991) where the level of the learner’s self-directed learning is supposed to progress during school. This thesis is relevant for educators, curriculum developers, teachers and policymakers to help them identify the difficulties and chances to facilitate SDL in formal settings.
Relating mathematical concepts to graphical representations is a challenging task for students. In this paper, we introduce two visual strategies to qualitatively interpret the divergence of graphical vector field representations. One strategy is based on the graphical interpretation of partial derivatives, while the other is based on the flux concept. We test the effectiveness of both strategies in an instruction-based eye-tracking study with N = 41 physics majors. We found that students’ performance improved when both strategies were introduced (74% correct) instead of only one strategy (64% correct), and students performed best when they were free to choose between the two strategies (88% correct). This finding supports the idea of introducing multiple representations of a physical concept to foster student understanding.Relevant eye-tracking measures demonstrate that both strategies imply different visual processing of the vector field plots, therefore reflecting conceptual differences between the strategies. Advanced analysis methods further reveal significant differences in eye movements between the best and worst performing students. For instance, the best students performed predominantly horizontal and vertical saccades, indicating correct interpretation of partial derivatives. They also focused on smaller regions when they balanced positive and negative flux. This mixed method research leads to new insights into student visual processing of vector field representations, highlights the advantages and limitations of eye-tracking methodologies in this context, and discusses implications for teaching and for future research. The introduction of saccadic direction analysis expands traditional methods, and shows the potential to discover new insights into student understanding and learning difficulties.