Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Learner Autonomy in CALL
During this week’s reading, I learned a little more about autonomy. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it is and looks like, but there are a couple things I did not know. First, I did not think about how independent learning does not mean solitude. It can still involve collaboration. I thought about the real-world application with co-workers working together on projects. We want students to use their resources but that doesn’t always mean calling the teacher for help. Healy also mentions that research shows better results when students are working in pairs. Learner autonomy can take on different forms as well. I didn’t think about it including performance tracking. Students can use CALL to play back oral performances (audio or video) and asses themselves or even keep track of their own scores, grades, progress online like college students do. This is an important part of being a functioning student that many teachers do not focus on or forget about. Furthermore, I did not realize that learner autonomy is more a part of western beliefs. I have always felt like Americans do more for their children than other cultures and enable co-dependence. My final takeaway from this article was about “webheads”. I have never heard this term being used before. Webheads are communities of educators sharing best practices. I did recently see that a fellow teacher friend went to a Bloggers Meet event where blogging teachers had the chance to meet one another and their families. This was a really interesting concept. While the internet is a wonderful avenue for sharing ideas, there is nothing like actually getting together in person! I would like to research more webheads and see how I can get involved.
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Hi, Megan! Interesting post! I think you and I had different reactions to couple of Healey's points. For example, I took her note that "learners are not necessarily good judges of their own skill level" (p. 384) to suggest that learners' self-assessments might include what they've done and how confident they feel about their ability to do certain things, but perhaps shouldn't include self-evaluations of their oral performances. It's interesting that you raise this possibility; you've got me thinking about what this kind of self-assessment would look like, and for what aspects the student's self-rating would be reliable!
ReplyDeleteYour note about autonomy being a Western concept also made me return to Healey to check my interpretation of her words. I think I agree with her quote from Holliday that "educators need to presume 'autonomy is a universal until there is evidence otherwise--and that if it is not immediately evident in student behavior, this may be because there is something preventing us from seeing it' " (quoted on pgs. 379, 380). But she does say that "certain ideas about autonomy and self-directed learning" (p. 379) are couched in Western culture.... I wonder what these ideas might be, and how they inform our teaching beliefs and methods! Any ideas? :)
As far as autonomy being a western concept, I agree that we need to presume it is a universal idea but I just found it interesting that it is portrayed this way. I also wonder what these ideas might be.
DeleteHi, Megan and Lindsay!
ReplyDeleteI was going to post comments about self-assessment on Lindsay's blog, but it seems I'd better post it here to discuss together. As for self-assessment, I think a clear rubric for it should be preceded first. Teacher and learners can talk together to clarify about the objectives and goals they want to reach, and discuss about the rubrics that will be used in self-assessment later. Teacher will not just give the list of rubrics and force learners to meet the crietera. Instead, teacher and learners can negotiate and make rubrics together, while teacher is trying to elicit primarily significant criteria from learners. With this process, learners themselves get to know about their expectation in the class, and can check their achievement based on the rubrics by themselves, which might enhance learners' motivation for better achievement. I think reliability of self-rating(for grading) and self-assessment (for checking their own learning progress) may be a different matter here.
Yoon
Yoon,
DeleteI agree that rubrics are an important part of assessment and learner autonomy. I also like the idea of negotiated rubrics. Students should be involved in the assessment process at all stages and have a say in what is expected of them and why. Student retain more of what they create.
It might be challenging for foreign language learners to evaluate their own outcomes such as writing and speaking because they are not intuitive or fully proficient in L2. However, given specific rubrics or criteria, as Yoonkyung mentioned, they might be more guided to evaluate their product. Being autonomous could mean evaluating or monitoring their learning progress towards goals.
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