Autonomous Education

Associate professor of Abai KazNPU UDC 81’1- 027.21

Department of foreign languages

for special purposes

Institute of multilingual

education Makazhanova Z.Sh.

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the phenomenon of autonomous education also known as self-education. The ever changing world makes it easier for young generation to express themselves, showing their talents and skills to the fullest and developing them without being attached to traditional type of learning. The roles of teacher and student, motivation and creativity are also explained in the article.

Key words: autonomous education, lifelong learning, motivation, teaching, problem solving.

This educational philosophy is rooted in the epistemology or Karl Popper, who proposed a new view of learning, no longer based on the inductive view of learning, but on the premise that true instruction comes from within.

"We do not discover new facts or new effects by copying them, or by inferring them inductively from observation, or by any other method of instruction by the environment.

We use, rather, the method of trial and the elimination of error. As Ernst Gombrich says, 'making comes before matching': the active production of a new trial structure comes before its exposure to eliminating tests." (The Myth of the Framework, pp. 8-9)

On such a theory, extrinsic motivation is ruled out as a totally ineffective strategy for learning, rather intrinsic motivation and problem solving are at the heart of learning,

The theoretical basis of the educational philosophy is that:

1. The child/learner is best placed to know what best suits her intrinsic motivation to learn provided that she has a rich and stimulating environment in which to operate as a learner.

2. Learning should follow the child/learner's questions.

3. The child is an active learner with her own unique set of interests, concerns, questions and problems that she is actively addressing at any moment. The role of education is to support this.

4. The growth of knowledge is a creative and non-mechanical process within the mind of the learner. An environment with access to a large range of resources, conversation, experiences outside the home etc, is best placed to nurture and facilitate this process.

5. Education is about every aspect of learning, every opportunity for conjecture and refutation. Autonomous education is about having the conditions for self-direction within life. Autonomous education does not divide life up into 'education' and 'not education'.

As an overall paradigm, the constructivist theory of learning is more supportive of an autonomous style of education. In this theory emphasis is placed on the learner and it is the learner who interacts with problems to construct his/her own solutions and ideas.

The autonomy and initiative of the student is a given and learning is something which takes place in the learner's mind rather than being transmitted from the outside.

Conjecture and refutation are essential features of learning and children are given the opportunity to build on earlier ideas and knowledge. The emphasis of this theory is not on the teaching, but on the learning and the process of learning is more important than an end product. The constructivist theory of learning is also more likely to operate well in real life situations.

Autonomy is the right of self-government and free will. Education is the process by which we develop intellectual potential and foster the growth of knowledge. Education relies on a rational development of conjecture and refutation. Autonomous education is simply that process by which knowledge grows because of the intrinsic motivation of the individual. In fact, the core to understanding autonomous education is in understanding the absolutely fundamental and unshakeable role of intrinsic motivation.

It is a core assumption of autonomous education that children will acquire the skills they need to take advantage of their environment and pursue their own aspirations. As such literacy and numeracy are not forced components of a curriculum, but are outcomes within the process acquired in numerous ways, both formal and informal, depending on the child's questions and developing educational priorities. What could be more efficient than a child learning something to suit his or her own intrinsic and individual purposes?

The combination of autonomy and learning in the real world with access to a broad range of social experiences spanning all age groups has an enormously positive influence on the socialisation process. In an autonomous learning situation the delicate and complicated balance between being a social creature and the growth of personal knowledge are not put under the enormous and artificial pressures for conformity and homogeneity. Rather, the child is supported in negotiating their own solutions to complex social situations.

Monitoring and evaluation are not neutral tools, but effect the process they attempt to analyse or describe. Any kind of monitoring that intrudes on the process will tend to objectify education as a discrete part of life rather than as an integral and inevitable element of life. What is therefore most relevant to ensuring that progress will occur is that parents are highly committed to ensuring that the child has every opportunity to pursue whatever it is they want to pursue for as long as it is relevant to the child.

Autonomous learning takes place all the time, in all contexts and is efficient by definition (see above)

The aims of autonomous education are:

1. To respect the child as a real person with a right to her own thoughts.

2. To maximise the innate impulses to learn.

3. To maximise children's opportunities to participate in real life contexts for learning and to succeed in a modern society.

4. To give full scope to successful learning systems. Particularly conversation and multimedia opportunities.

5. To allow for undamaged emotional and personal development.

6. To allow children to develop such abilities as being able to define problems, ask hard questions, work independently, argue coherently and use a wide range of thinking strategies.

7. To establish a model for lifelong learning.

There was a time when online education meant “distance education,” and the chief advantage of learning online was that you did not need to travel to a physical location. Today, I think online education is more about time than location. Students wish to learn at times convenient for them, for those who wish to include schooling as part of their busy work schedules.

Going forward, online/technologically-mediated education will deliver self-paced learning. This is a different kind of time management; students who desire online learning options will be seeking to learn at a speed they will determine. I sense that online education (and indeed higher education as a whole) will start to look more like Rosetta Stone. For those who have not yet tried to learn a language via this method, Rosetta Stone has developed sophisticated courses that allow a learner to move at his or her own pace through an online course. In theory, a learner who is particularly adept can successfully finish a course in six weeks; another leaner might take six months to move through the same materials. As Salmon Khan has popularized in his Khan Academy, learners should be permitted to master the material at their own rate, determined by their own abilities.

What will a physical campus mean to autonomous learners? These students, I suspect, will still wish to meet with faculty, who will serve more as personal tutors than as traditional instructors. Autonomous learners will teach themselves via online courses, but will seek out one-to-one discussions with knowledgeable faculty practitioners when they need help, or when they crave deeper discussion of a topic. Learners might work directly with faculty on research projects, as an extension of the learning they gain through their self-paced courses.

Autonomous learners will soon represent a significant fraction of the overall student population.  However, there will continue to be those who will crave the discipline and routine of the traditional classroom experience. Many students will seek out a face-to-face, physical, time- and space-bound campus experience, complete with the other trappings of campus life: dorm parties, seminar discussions, inspiring lecturers. Like a college football game, there is something about the traditional campus experience that will not be disappearing anytime soon.

Conclusion

• Autonomous education is a valid system of education, which allows children and young people to develop the lifelong habit of being self-directed and intrinsically motivated learners.

• Autonomous education takes as its premise the idea of instruction from within.

• Education is the process by which we develop intellectually as our knowledge grows and it relies on the rational development of conjecture and refutation.

Autonomous education is simply that process by which knowledge grows because of the intrinsic motivation of the individual.

• The core to understanding autonomous education is the primacy of intrinsic motivation.

• Autonomous education, in addition to being centred in the child's intrinsic motivation, demands a broad definition of education, a step back from the products and outcomes thinking of conventional education, a positive view of children as creative and rational and an ability to conceive of problems as having solutions.

• Autonomous education does not have a list of essentials, but considers that children will learn whatever they need to live the lives they choose and they will do so at ages that suit their own particular and individual processes.

• Education is not something that can be demarcated from the bulk of life, but rather involves the whole of life, in both breadth and duration.

• Autonomous education is not only theoretically supportable, but also a consistent legal way for parents to discharge their duties to educate their children under section 7 of the 1996 Education Act

• It is the optimal approach for ensuring that a process of flexible, creative, lifelong learning is set in motion.

REFERENCES:

1.David Staley | Director of the Harvey Goldberg Center, The Ohio State University Autonomous Learning and the Future of Higher Education. http://evolllution.com/opinions/autonomous-learning-future-higher-education/

2.An Autonomous Educational Philosophy. © Jan Fortune-Wood http://www.home-education.org.uk/articles/article-autonomous-education.pdf

Аннотация: Статья посвящена феномену автономного образования, также известного как самообразование. Постоянно меняющийся мир облегчает молодому поколению дорогу к самовыражению, полному раскрытию своих талантов и умений без привязки к традиционному типу обучения. Роли преподавателя и студента, мотивации и креативности также объясняются в данной статье.

Ключевые слова: автономное образование, пожизненное обучение, мотивация, обучение, решение задач.