Freedom for students to choose their own materials
Part 1: New year, fresh start
With the new academic year in sight I decided it was time to finally dust the bookshelves, recycle any unwanted papers I had held onto “just in case”, and make space for new books and journals. The autumn clean also involved rearranging and tidying the bookshelves, which lead to the idea for this post and others to come in the near future. Amongst all the books and papers was a pile of dog-eared notebooks that I have accumulated from conferences, talks, and workshops.
So, with no further ado, I have decided to spend some time going through the notes and scribbles that I made with gust and vigour at the time, but that have stayed safely squirrelled away and not seen the light of day since they were originally written down!
So I’ve decided to embark on a long journey of teacher development as I try, test and experiment with the ideas that others in the field have kindly taken the time to share.
In the first notebook I randomly opened I found “Freedom for students to choose their own materials & why chosen”. Obviously giving learners the freedom to choose their learning material is not appropriate for every context but it is certainly an idea that I feel will give them more learner autonomy and make them more mindful and aware of what they are learning and why. I intend to try this with my classes during the next few days, and share their ideas and findings here!