Bahram Hossein

My Small Acheivements

2019-06-01T01:00:00+04:30

I was asked this weekend what I have achieved in my life. What I have to show. My answer is “Wisdom”. Some people make lots of money, some people gain success, levels of success. The list can start from becoming the best player in NBA, to being the C.E.O of a relatively famous company, to becoming a famous writer. I preferred wisdom over all these. In all moments that I could become a writer or poet by practicing and working hard a dilemma would rise. The only reason to want to become a successful anything is ego. I had to believe I’m more important than wisdom, and I never did. Rich people get rich because they believe money is more important than them. I mean many of people stop trying to make money when they have “enough” to have a comfortable life. Only the “greedy” ones go on making more money and they are judged by the self-loving lazy mass. In the world of wisdom, I have realized that most people want just enough, to make their lives better, and if wisdom gets in the way of their likes and dislikes, or their comfort, they no longer want it. Some others want wisdom as a tool for other enterprises. So any wisdom that won’t benefit their goals won’t matter. If a person who has some million dollars can call himself rich, I’m positive I am wise, and that would be enough for me to believe that I have had levels of achievement in my life. You know the difference between wise people and success-based people is that they believe Socrates is great despite the fact that Plato made him famous. He would be as great if no one ever knew him. Gandhi is great despite the fact that he defeated England. He would have been as great if he had lost or been killed and had not changed anything in India. Now , getting back to the point, I don’t even believe that wisdom is my greatest achievement, I believe my greatest achievement is sharing my wisdom with others without any judgement. There were people I knew that won’t get what I say, but I talked to them anyway, not allowing myself to judge them. There were people which I realized would manipulate wisdom but I shared my wisdom with them anyway. I have friends with whom I have been sharing my wisdom for many years. Some , I realized will never prefer wisdom over themselves, the ones who always accused me of wasting my time talking to “stupid” people. Some I see that they are walking the path of wisdom and have passed the stage of caring about themselves. To the first group, I have always tried to say that if they are not going to kill their “self” they need to at least get more flexible, less anal. My hope is that my friends will pass me and eventually get wiser than me. That would be my greatest achievement. I have always thought this is my hope because I am a teacher by nature. Today morning I realized the real reason is that I am a romantic. Love has always been more important than wisdom for me. I have always tried to sugarcoat wisdom and have been careful not to hurt people while conveying wisdom. I only let wisdom hurt a person when I truly care about him or her. The more I have loved a person the more I have hurt him or her by sharing my wisdom. Because I believe wisdom is the best thing in the world I have been okay with pushing it on people I love. I know this is the wisest thing to do. But does that make me a good lover or a horrible one? That is a question you should answer. Because I am a romantic, I do care to be the perfect lover more than doing the wisest thing.

زبان و محدودیت‌هایش

2019-06-01T01:00:00+04:30

فارسی مینویسم، دلم برای فارسی تنگ نشده، هیچ وقت، گاهی هوس نگارش فارسی می‌کنم، فقط برای بازی‌های رسم آلا خط فارسی. چیزی برای گفتن به فارسی ندارم، چیزی برای گفتن به هیچ زبانی ندارم. حتا به زبان شعر، موسیقی‌، نقاشی. زبان از بیان قاصر، مثل همیشه. وقتی‌ در نوجوانی برای اولین بار این اصطلاح را شنیدم فکر کردم زبان در این جمله به معنای تانگ است. و عیان شدن حس به توان گوینده ربط دارد. ولی‌ الان باور دارم ک زبان به معنای لنگوج است. ضعف از گویند نیست، هیچ زبانی توان انتقال عریان مفاهیم را ندارد. این که چیزی برای گفتن وجود نداره هیچ ربطی به توان گوینده ندارد. توانمندترین گویندگان، از نقطه‌‌ای به بعد در مقابل بهترین مخاطب، فهیمترین مخاطب، نزدیکترین مخاطب، به استیصال می‌رسند. کلمات واضح و درست، در قالب‌های واضح و درست گفته میشوند، و بهترین مخاطب، بی‌ آنکه گفته ا‌ت را بفهمد، مطمئن میشود که حرفهایت تکراری و کلیشه‌ای هستند. و تو با تمام توانت در استفاده از کلام عاجزی از بیان واضح آن مفهوم واضح در ذهنت. زبان قاصر است و مفاهیم باید که فارغ از کلمه فهمیده شوند. کلمه فقط به درد قضاوت کردن می‌خورد، کلمه قضاوت می‌کند و اگر تو کلام را درک کنی‌ دچار قضاوت میشوی. باید که فارغ از کلمه مفاهیم را جستجو کرد، باید فارغ از خطوط، فارغ از نت، فارغ از تصویر، مفاهیم را دنبال کرد، این تنها شانس ما برای ارتباط برقرار کردن در معنای واقعیست، تنها شانس ما برای نزدیکی‌ به مفهوم کامیونیکیشن

Michel de Montaigne

2019-03-01T00:00:00+03:30

Michel de Montaigne

We generally think that philosophers should be proud of their big brains, and be fans of thinking, self-reflection and rational analysis.

But there’s one philosopher, born in France in 1533, with a refreshingly different take. Michel de Montaigne was an intellectual who spent his writing life knocking the arrogance of intellectuals. In his great masterpiece, the Essays, he comes across as relentlessly wise and intelligent – but also as constantly modest and keen to debunk the pretensions of learning. Not least, he is extremely funny…: ‘to learn that we have said or done a stupid thing is nothing, we must learn a more ample and important lesson: that we are but blockheads… On the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses.’ And, lest we forget: ‘Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies.’

Montaigne was a child of the Renaissance and the ancient philosophers popular in Montaigne’s day had believed that our powers of reason could afford us a happiness and greatness denied to other creatures. Reason allowed us to control our passions and temper the wild demands of our bodies, wrote philosophers like Cicero. Reason was a sophisticated, almost divine, tool offering us mastery over the world and ourselves. But this characterisation of human reason enraged Montaigne. After hanging out with academics and philosophers, he wrote, “In practice, thousands of little women in their villages have lived more gentle, more equable and more constant lives than [Cicero].”

His point wasn’t that human beings can’t reason at all, simply that they tend to be far too arrogant about their brains. “Our life consists partly in madness, partly in wisdom,” he wrote. “Whoever writes about it merely respectfully and by rule leaves more than half of it behind.”

Perhaps the most obvious example of our madness is the struggle of living with a human body. Our bodies smell, ache, sag, pulse, throb and age. Montaigne was the world’s first and possibly only philosopher to talk at length about impotence, which seemed to him a prime example of how crazy and fragile our minds are.

Montaigne had a friend who had grown impotent with a woman he particularly liked. Montaigne did not blame his penis: “Except for genuine impotence, never again are you incapable if you are capable of doing it once.” The problem was the mind, the oppressive notion that we had complete control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality that had left the man unable to perform. The solution was to redraw the portrait; it was by accepting a loss of command over the penis as a harmless possibility in love-making that one could pre-empt its occurrence – as the stricken man eventually discovered. In bed with a woman, he learnt to,

“Admit beforehand that he was subject to this infirmity and spoke openly about it, so relieving the tensions within his soul. By bearing the malady as something to be expected, his sense of constriction grew less and weighed less heavily on him.”

Montaigne’s frankness allowed the tensions in the reader’s own soul to be relieved. A man who failed with his girlfriend and was unable to do any more than mumble an apology, could regain his forces and soothe the anxieties of his beloved by accepting that his impotence belonged to a broad realm of sexual mishaps, neither very rare nor very peculiar. Montaigne knew a nobleman who, after failing to maintain an erection with a woman, fled home, cut off his penis and sent it to the lady “to atone for his offence.” Montaigne proposed instead that:

“If [couples] are not ready, they should not try to rush things. Rather than fall into perpetual wretchedness by being struck with despair at a first rejection, it is better… to wait for an opportune moment… a man who suffers a rejection should make gentle assays and overtures with various little sallies; he should not stubbornly persist in proving himself inadequate once and for all. ”

Throughout his work, Montaigne took farts, penises, and shitting as serious topics for contemplation. He told his readers, for example, that he liked quiet when sitting on the toilet: “Of all the natural operations, that is the one during which I least willingly tolerate being disrupted.”

Ancient philosophers had recommended that one try to model oneself on the lives of certain esteemed people, normally philosophers. In the Christian tradition, one should model one’s life on that of Christ. The idea of modelling is attractive; it suggests we need to find someone to guide and illuminate our path. But it matters a lot what kind of portraits are around. What we see evidence for in others, we will attend to within, what others are silent about, we may stay blind to or experience only in shame. Montaigne is refreshing because he provides us with a life which is recognisably like our own and yet inspiring still – a very human ideal.

Academia was deeply prestigious in Montaigne’s day, as in our own. Montaigne was an excellent scholar but he hated pedantry. He only wanted to learn things that were useful and relentlessly attacked academia for being out of touch: “If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life,” he said. Only that which makes us feel better may be worth understanding.

Montaigne noted snobbery and pretension in many areas – and constantly tried to bring us back to earth.

“Storming a breach, conducting an embassy, ruling a nation are glittering deeds. Rebuking, laughing, buying, selling, loving, hating and living together gently and justly with your household – and with yourself – not getting slack nor being false to yourself, is something more remarkable, more rare and more difficult. Whatever people may say, such secluded lives sustain in that way duties which are at least as hard and as tense as those of other lives.”

In this vein, Montaigne mocked books that were difficult to read. He admitted to his readers that he found Plato more than a little boring – and that he just wanted to have fun with books:

“I am not prepared to bash my brains for anything, not even for learning’s sake however precious it may be. From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime… If I come across difficult passages in my reading I never bite my nails over them: after making a charge or two I let them be… If one book wearies me I take up another.”

He could be pretty caustic about incomprehensible philosophers:

“Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies and which human stupidity is keen to accept in payment.”

Montaigne observed how an intimidating scholarly culture had made all of us study other people’s books before we study our own minds. And yet, as he put it: “We are richer than we think, each one of us.”

We may all arrive at wise ideas if we cease to think of ourselves as so unsuited to the task because we aren’t two thousand years old, aren’t interested in the topics of Plato’s dialogues and have a so-called ordinary life.

“You can attach the whole of moral philosophy to a commonplace private life just as well as to one of richer stuff.”

It was perhaps to bring the point home that Montaigne offered so much information on exactly how ordinary his own life was – why he wanted to tell us,

That he didn’t like apples

“I am not overfond …of any fruit except melons.”

That he had a complex relationship with radishes

“I first of all found that radishes agreed with me; then they did not; now they do again.”

That he practised the most advanced dental hygiene

“My teeth…have always been exceedingly good… Since boyhood I learned to rub them on my napkin, both on waking up and before and after meals.”

That he ate too fast

“In my haste I often bite my tongue and occasionally my fingers.”

And liked wiping his mouth

“I could dine easily enough without a tablecloth, but I feel very uncomfortable dining without a clean napkin… I regret that we have not continued along the lines of the fashion started by our kings, changing napkins likes plates with each course.”

Trivia perhaps, but symbolic reminders that there was a thinking “I” behind this book, that a moral philosophy had issued – and so could issue again – from an ordinary, fruit-eating soul.

There is no need to be discouraged if, from the outside, we look nothing like those who have ruminated in the past.

In Montaigne’s redrawn portrait of the adequate, semi-rational human being, it is possible to speak no Greek, fart, change one’s mind after a meal, get bored with book, be impotent and know none of the Ancient philosophers.

A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

Montaigne remains the great, readable intellectual with whom we can laugh at intellectuals and pretensions of many kinds. He was a breath of fresh air in the cloistered, unworldly, snobbish corridors of the academia of the 16th century – and because academia has, sadly, not changed very much, he continues to be an inspiration and a solace to all of us who feel routinely oppressed by the pedantry and arrogance of so-called clever people.

Source: https://community.theschooloflife.com/posts/michel-de-montaigne

Cultural Mining

2019-02-23T00:00:00+03:30

Cultural Mining

Cultural mining describes the process by which the most valuable parts of culture – by which we mean the arts, humanities and philosophy – are recovered and made useful for our own times.

In cultural mining, the refined and practical essence of culture is carefully extracted, cleaned, blasted and remoulded – and then used to manufacture the utensils and mental resources that will help us navigate contemporary life; work, relationships, family, self-knowledge and so on.

It’s been a historic problem of major proportions that hugely valuable Cultural Insights have often been lodged within highly unappealing material far below ‘ground’. It has been dark and cramped in the corridors of culture and hardly anyone other than certain accredited experts have been tempted or allowed to visit. Their labours have had a lot of prestige, but in truth, the material has been like metal in ore, entirely impractical in its raw state.

For Culture to be useful to us, it needs to go through a process of refinement, which may involve quite radical, even drastic, moves. One needs to excise cultural insights from a lot of surrounding material. Insights have to be forcefully separated from contexts and then twinned with real world issues so as to bring out their dynamism. Insights have to be skilfully fitted to live contemporary problems so that their helpfulness emerges. They must be translated from an arcane language of the deep into a spoken language of the surface, culture moving from a learned to a living dialect. Finally, like in gold mining, only a very small portion of what had originally been dug out will ever be usable to make the finished precious item that is sought: a good idea.

It is around this process of refinement that the big difference between us and academia becomes apparent. We’re very grateful to academia for digging the mineshafts and keeping open the tunnels – but we have a different project, we are interested in the extraction and utilisation of the material on the surface, rather than its preservation and interpretation below ground.

The idea of cultural mining is new and still feels a little weird. But it has a critical role to play in our world because, at present, lots of people don’t – grievously – believe that culture has anything much to offer them. This isn’t their fault of course. When you look at the raw material form in which culture is generally laid out before us, that’s not surprising. But there is no need to stay stuck at this level forever.

We’ve only just started the business of cultural mining. We’re only now starting to extract the true value of culture in a systematic and ambitious way. But there is much to look forward to for, when we get to it, there is enough down there, deep in the often clammy and dark cultural ground, to help us meet the multiple confusions and anxieties of our times.

Quote of The Day

2019-02-19T20:11:20+03:30

♦️گاهی حتی زنده ماندن عملی شجاعانه است.

—لوسیوس آنایوس سنکا

🆔 @bineshafzalanguageinst

Quote of The Day

2019-02-19T20:11:20+03:30

♦️گاهی حتی زنده ماندن عملی شجاعانه است.

—لوسیوس آنایوس سنکا

🆔 @bineshafzalanguageinst

Great Minds: Richard Feynman - The Uncertainty Of Knowledge

2019-02-10T00:00:00+03:30

Great Minds: Richard Feynman - The Uncertainty Of Knowledge

2019-02-10T00:00:00+03:30

یادگیری خود راهبر: یک فرآیند چهار مرحله‌ای

2019-02-10T00:00:00+03:30

یادگیری خود راهبر: یک فرآیند چهار مرحله‌ای

یادگیری مستقل می‌تواند چالش برانگیز باشد، حتی برای باهوش‌ترین و با انگیزه‌ترین فراگیران. به عنوان ابزاری برای درک بهتر فرآیندهای مربوط به این حالت از مطالعه، راهنمای آموزشی حاضر طرحی کلی از اجزای کلیدیِ مراحل چهارگانه یادگیری مستقل ترسیم می‌کند، که با عنوان یادگیری خود راهبر نیز شناخته می‌شود: آمادگی برای یادگیری، تعیین اهداف یادگیری، ورود به فرآیند یادگیری، و ارزیابی یادگیری.

مرحله 1: ارزیابی میزان آمادگی برای یادگیری

فراگیران برای موفقیت در مطالعه مستقل به مهارت‌ها و نگرش‌های مختلفی نسبت به امر یادگیری نیاز دارند. در این مرحله نیاز است که فراگیران یک خودارزیابی از وضعیت فعلی خویش، عادات مطالعه، وضعیت خانوادگی، و شبکه حمایتی در خانه و محیط آموزشی و همچنین تجارب گذشته در زمینه یادگیری مستقل به عمل بیاورند. به عنوان نمونه‌ای از یک ابزار ارزیابی مهارت‌های یادگیری، به «جدول سنجش میزان آمادگی برای یادگیری خود راهبر» مراجعه کنید. نشانه‌های آمادگی برای یادگیری خود راهبر عبارت است از خودمختاری (استقلال عمل)، نظم، انضباط شخصی، توانایی در برقراری ارتباطات مؤثر، و توانایی پذیرش بازخورد سازنده و اشتغال به خودارزیابی و خود-اندیشی.

میانگین 1 تا 3 در هر ستون نشانگر آمادگی برای مطالعه مستقل است. میانگین نمره بالاتر از 3 نشانگر این است که هنگام گذراندن دوره آموزشی، در زمینه برخی از مهارت‌های بخصوص به دریافت کمک نیاز دارید.

مرحله 2: تعیین اهداف یادگیری

انتقال اهداف یادگیری میان فراگیر و استاد راهنما امری حیاتی است. ما مجموعه سوالاتی برای فراگیران در نظر گرفته‌ایم تا با لحاظ نمودن آنها اهداف یادگیری‌شان را مشخص کنند: راهنمای تصمیم‌گیری در برنامه‌ریزی دروس(سرفصل‌های آموزشی). از دیگر ضرورت‌های دستیابی به یک درک روشن از اهداف یادگیری میان فراگیران و اساتید، قراردادهای یادگیری هستند. قراردادهای یادگیری به طور کلی عبارتند از:

· اهداف آموزشیِ بخش‌های مختلف

· ساختار و زمانبندی فعالیت‌ها

· جدول‌زمانی برای تکمیل فعالیت‌ها

· جزئیات مربوط به مفادِ منابعِ هر یک از اهداف

· جزئیات مربوط به روند نمره‌دهی

· بازخورد و ارزشیابی در هنگام تکمیل هر هدف

· برنامه ملاقات با استاد راهنما

· توافق بر سر سیاست‌های واحد، مانند سیاستی در قبال دیرکرد تکالیف

قراردادها به محض تکمیل شدن باید توسط استاد راهنما بررسی شوند و سؤالاتی پیرامون امکانپذیر بودن آنها طرح شود (برای مثال، چه مشکلاتی ممکن است پیش بیاید؟ آیا حجم کارها بیش از حد زیاد یا کم است؟ آیا زمانبندی و ارزشیابی معقول هستند؟)

مرحله 3: ورود به فرآیند یادگیری

لازم است که فراگیران خود را به عنوان یک مبتدی در نظر بگیرند تا نیازهای خود را به عنوان داوطلبان یادگیریِ خود راهبر درک کنند –ارجاع آن‌ها به منابع ما درباره اولویت‌های یادگیری می‌تواند مفید باشد. فراگیران همچنین باید پاسخدهی به سؤالات زیر را در نظر داشته باشند:

· نیازهای من در ارتباط با متدهای آموزشی چه هستند؟

· معلم مورد علاقه من چی کسی بود؟ چرا؟

· آن معلم چه می‌کرد که او را از بقیه متمایز می‌ساخت؟ فراگیران باید طی برنامه‌شان درباره این پرسش‌ها تأمل کنند و «استاد راهنما» را جایگزین «معلم» نمایند.

فراگیران همچنین نیاز دارند که رویکرد خود به مطالعه را درک کنند:

· رویکرد عمیق به مطالعه نیازمند تغییر بوده و برای یادگیری خود راهبر ایده‌آل است. این رویکرد درباره فهمیدن است: فهم ایده‌ها توسط خود فرد، بکاربگیری دانش در موقعیت‌های جدید و توضیح یک مفهوم با مثال‌های نو، و بیشتر از حد لازم آموختن.

· رویکرد سطحی شامل بازتولید است: از عهده ملزومات درس برآمدن، یادگرفتن تنها آنچه که برای تکمیل یک درس با وضعیتی قابل قبول لازم است، و آمادگی برای بازتولید مثال‌ها و توضیحات بکار رفته در مطالعات انجام شده.

· رویکرد استراتژیک شامل سازماندهی است: کسب بالاترین نمرات ممکن، یادگرفتن آنچه که برای قبولی در آزمون‌ها لازم است، حفظ کردن داده‌ها، وقت گذاشتن برای تمرین کردن آزمون‌های گذشته.

سابقه فعالیت آکادمیک ممکن است رویکردهای سطحی و استراتژیک به مطالعه را تشویق کنند. این رویکردها برای یک مطالعه مستقل موفق کافی (یا حتی مناسب) نخواهند بود. مطالعه مستقل نیازمند یک رویکرد عمیق به مطالعه است که فراگیران در آن باید ایده‌ها را درک کنند و بتوانند دانش را در موقعیت‌های جدید بکار بگیرند. فراگیران نیاز دارند که ارتباطات خودشان را ایجاد کنند و مشوق خودشان باشند.

مرحله 4: ارزیابی یادگیری

فراگیران برای موفقیت در یادگیری خود راهبر باید بتوانند به خود-اندیشی و خود-ارزیابیِ اهداف یادگیری‌ خود و پیشرفت در یک بخش از مطالعه متعهد باشند. برای پشتیبانی از این فرآیند خود-ارزیابی باید:

· مرتباً با استاد راهنما مشورت کنند.

· تقاضای بازخورد بکنند و

· به تأمل در دستاوردهایشان اشتغال داشته باشند، که این شامل پرسیدن سوالات زیر است:

o از کجا بدانم که یاد گرفته‌ام؟

o آیا در انطباق و بکارگیری دانش منعطف هستم؟

o در توضیح دادن اطلاعات اعتماد به نفس دارم؟

o چه زمانی می‌دانم که به قدر کافی یادگرفته‌ام؟

o چه زمانی وقت خود-اندیشی یا وقت مشورت با استاد راهنما است؟

مسئولیت‌ها در فرآیند چهار مرحله‌ای
مطالعه مستقل موفق نیازمند وظایف یا مسئولیت‌های بخصوصی از جانب فراگیران و اساتید است. آنچه در ادامه می‌آید فهرست مختصری از مهم‌ترین وظایف است. مرور کردن این لیست در فواصل معین و بحث پیرامون این که آیا هر یک از طرفین مسئولیت‌های خود را انجام داده است یا خیر، برای فراگیران و اساتید مفید است.

وظایف فراگیران

· آمادگی خود برای یادگیری را ارزیابی کنید

· اهداف یادگیری‌تان را تعیین نموده و یک قرارداد یادگیری تنظیم کنید

· فرآیند یادگیری خود را تحت نظر بگیرید

· برای تمامی مراحل فرآیند یادگیری پیشقدم باشید –خود-انگیخته باشید!

· در صورت لزوم در خلال مطالعه اهداف را مجدداٌ ارزیابی کنید یا تغییر بدهید.

· در صورت لزوم با استاد راهنمای خود مشورت کنید.

وظایف استاد راهنما

· یک محیط یادگیری مشارکتی ایجاد کنید

· فراگیران را در تجربه یادگیری‌شان هدایت نموده و برای آنها انگیزه ایجاد کنید

· آغاز یادگیری را برای فراگیران تسهیل کنید

· در طی فرآیند یادگیری به نحو مقتضی برای ارائه مشاوره در دسترس باشید

· به جای یک مدرس رسمی، به عنوان یک راهنما عمل کنید

Self-Directed Learning: A Four-Step Process

2019-02-03T00:00:00+03:30

Self-Directed Learning: A Four-Step Process

Learning independently can be challenging, even for the brightest and most motivated students. As a means of better understanding the processes involved in this mode of study, this Teaching Tip outlines key components of four key stages to independent learning, known as self-directed learning: being ready to learn, setting learning goals, engaging in the learning process, and evaluating learning.

Step 1: Assess readiness to learn

Students need various skills and attitudes towards learning for successful independent study. This step involves students conducting a self-evaluation of their current situation, study habits, family situation, and support network both at school and at home and also involves evaluating past experiences with independent learning. For a detailed Learning Skills Assessment Tool, read our Readiness to LearnTeaching Tip. Signs of readiness for self-directed learning include being autonomous, organised, self-disciplined, able to communicate effectively, and able to accept constructive feedback and engage in self-evaluation and self-reflection.

Step 2: Set learning goals

Communication of learning goals between a student and the advising instructor is critical. We’ve developed a set of questions for students to consider as they map out their learning goals: our Unit Planning Decision Guide). Also critical in developing a clear understanding of learning goals between students and instructors are learning contracts. Learning contracts generally include:

Goals for the unit of study
Structure and sequence of activities
Timeline for completion of activities
Details about resource materials for each goal
Details about grading procedures
Feedback and evaluation as each goal is completed
Meeting plan with the advising instructor
Agreement of unit policies, such as a policy on late assignments

Once created, contracts should be assessed by the advising faculty member and questions about feasibility should be raised (e.g., What could go wrong? Is there too much or too little work? Is the timeline and evaluation reasonable?).

Step 3: Engage in the learning process

Students need to understand themselves as learners in order to understand their needs as self-directed learning students — referring students to our resource on learning preferences may be helpful. Students should also consider answering the following questions:

What are my needs re: instructional methods?
Who was my favourite teacher? Why?
What did they do that was different from other teachers? Students should reflect on these questions throughout their program and substitute “teacher” with “advising instructor”

Students also need to understand their approach to studying:

A deep approach to studying involves transformation and is ideal for self-directed learning. This approach is about understanding ideas for yourself, applying knowledge to new situations and using novel examples to explain a concept, and learning more than is required for unit completion.
A surface approach involves reproduction: coping with unit requirements, learning only what is required to complete a unit in good standing, and tending to regurgitate examples and explanations used in readings.
A strategic approach involves organization: achieving the highest possible grades, learning what is required to pass exams, memorizing facts, and spending time practicing from past exams.

Earlier academic work may have encouraged a surface or strategic approach to studying. These approaches will not be sufficient (or even appropriate) for successful independent study. Independent study requires a deep approach to studying, in which students must understand ideas and be able to apply knowledge to new situations. Students need to generate their own connections and be their own motivators.

Step 4: Evaluate learning

For students to be successful in self-directed learning, they must be able to engage in self-reflection and self-evaluation of their learning goals and progress in a unit of study. To support this self-evaluation process, they should:

regularly consult with the advising instructor,
seek feedback, and
engage in reflection of their achievements, which involves asking:
- How do I know I’ve learned?
- Am I flexible in adapting and applying knowledge?
- Do I have confidence in explaining material?
- When do I know I’ve learned enough?
- When is it time for self-reflection and when is it time for consultation with the advising faculty member?

Responsibilities in the four-step process

Successful independent study requires certain responsibilities or roles of both students and advising faculty members. The following is a brief list of the more important roles. It is useful for both students and advising faculty members to periodically review this list and communicate as to whether each feels the other is fulfilling their share of the responsibility.

Students’ roles

Self-assess your readiness to learn
Define your learning goals and develop a learning contract
Monitor your learning process
Take initiative for all stages of the learning process — be self-motivated
Re-evaluate and alter goals as required during your unit of study
Consult with your advising instructor as required

Advising instructors’ roles

Build a co-operative learning environment
Help to motivate and direct the students’ learning experience
Facilitate students’ initiatives for learning
Be available for consultations as appropriate during the learning process
Serve as an advisor rather than a formal instructor