Toward self-directed learning in secondary schools: what do teachers do?

Promoting self-directed learning has become an important educational goal. This goal requires a new role for teachers: not traditional transmission of knowledge but activating and process-oriented teaching. An observational s tudy was conducted to establish the features of teaching in Dutch senior se condary education. Activating features of teaching were more predominant th an the mere transmission of knowledge, but process-oriented teaching occurr ed very little. In other words, the observed teachers did not devote much a ttention to teaching the students how to learn. Two patterns of activating were discerned: one pattern in which the teacher interacts with students fo cusing on the subject matter, and another pattern where the students are wo rking on their own and the teacher is coaching and supervising. (C) 2001 El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.