Originally published here.
I chose to participate in the Critical Skills study because firstly, I don’t see myself as being a particularly productive thinker, neither do I utilise the information available to me when studying for an exam or learning about a subject. When I first heard about this study and its focus on Independent Learning, this appealed to me in that I hoped it could be of personal help to me i.e. help me to become a more independent learner.
However, in order to do this, the course made me think about what being an ‘Independent Learner’ meant in the first place. My first reaction to Independent Learning and what it meant was that it was learning completely independently, with little to no help. This could be through collecting information from a variety of different sources to expand on your knowledge or merely making use of what information you have. However, through discussions with peers during the first few days of this course, my views on Independent Learning have been revised.
I do not think Independent Learning means to work completely on your own. Asking for help does not make learning any less independent. In fact, working as a group and collaborating with other students can enhance your knowledge more than working alone does, “learning to collaborate ought to be collaborative.”
But learning how to gather and use information in a productive way is not all it takes to be an Independent Learner. There are key attributes such as ‘motivation’ and ‘resilience’ needed to develop the skills required to begin with. I think these attributes are essential in the process because without the motivation/drive for a subject or the resilience to push you through however hard or long it may take to change your mindset to become an independent learner in the first place, the transition cannot be made.
Despite this, I think it is important to emphasise that it is possible to learn to be a more in(ter)dependent learner. Attributes such as motivation can be acquired through changing one’s mindset to a more positive way of thinking. The idea of a growth or fixed mindset highlights this. Although someone may be defined as having a fixed mindset, I do not think it is impossible to teach the skills needed in order to collaborate and gather information with peers successfully, and hopefully this would help instil the motivation and resilience needed to become an Independent Learner.1