On June 20-27 group of enthusiastic people went to Padua city (Italy) for a training “Self-directed learning, learn-to-learn”. People from Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria gathered together to fulfill they knowledge about self-directed learning (SDL), and find out how SDL is connected with employability. Giulia Mastropirro and Karlis Visa shared their experience, knowledge about the subject and showed how it works.
“Self-directed learning” describes a process by which individuals take the initiative, without the assistance of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identify human and material resources for learning, choosing and implement appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes (M. Knowles, Principles of Androgogy, 1972).
Everyday was full of hard working. People were high motivated to learn as much as possible, so learning process was high quality and fulfilled everyone’s needs. We were learning not just about that what is SDL, but also worked in using this method. It is quite hard to move from education we have used to it and to try something new. But it is very important and we have made big step forward and saw how good sometimes to choose other way. We worked a lot with ourselves, in the groups and with facilitators and results were perfect, in the end of week we fulfilled our needs and got inspiration to work on it in the future. I understood how important is freedom of choose the best learning process for yourself, and how it can make your learning process more effective.
Also we had opportunity to visit Padua town. Not the biggest one, but very cute and nice. We visited University, Botanic garden, old town and other beautiful places around. It is place worth to visit, located in very good place, next to Verona and Venice; the places tourists love the most. So if you have chance, I highly recommend visiting Padua. From both cities bus ticket cost just around 6 euros, but what you will see there is really worth more.
