Autonomous Learning
A self-taught learning process which entails that the learners initiate the idea by determining what they need to learn, setting their own goals, looking for resources and evaluating their progress is autonomous learning. The main thing it focuses on is personal accountability and drive, hence, it is a major part of the concept of lifelong learning and the ability to adapt to fast-paced changes in society.
Self-motivation, goal-setting, resourcefulness, and self-evaluation are essential features of autonomous learning. Instead of tracking or being told what to learn and assessing their knowledge, learners carry out their learning journey by deciding on what they need to learn, hunting for relevant materials or experiences, and judging their understanding and progress. For instance, a student can acquire a new programming language such as HTML by taking online courses, reading e-books, and applying the skills learned in personal projects.
Giving rise to the educators' efforts boosting autonomous learning is the ability of the latter. One way of doing this is to foster a supportive learning environment that enables students to discover and study independently. It can be accomplished by making available to students a wide range of resources; encouraging them to develop a growth mindset; and teaching them about metacognition so that they can evaluate their own learning. A good example of this is when teachers use project-based learning methods, allowing students to choose their individual projects from the topics of their choice, which in turn leads to the students' responsibility.
The profits involved in autonomous learning are more involvement in the activity, better critical thinking not to mention the development of better problem-solving skills. By undertaking the operations, students who learn independently unsurprisingly take a more active role and develop a fuller appreciation of the subject. To illustrate, a pupil who looks up a subject on his own and does the research may memorize it better than the one who stays passive and receives the data straight in a lecture.
Autonomous learning may present difficulties to learners like no drive, assessing their weaknesses and developing time limits. When left to himself, a learner may not figure out which effective learning strategies to make use of or may not have the power to keep himself in discipline. An illustration of this is that a person or learner may have trouble sticking to their self-instructed project by finding things that distract them, so as a result, one needs to cultivate the ability to self-regulate.【/Rephrasily】