During quarantine this past year, everyone’s lives changed in some way. With all of the extra free time that was thrown at us, we had the opportunity to ponder what we could do to make use of all this time. Some chose to simply relax and enjoy having time off school, while others like me discovered new hobbies, interests, and resources. Specifically, I discovered the power of self-learning. I realized that self-learning isn’t a choice, but rather a form of learning that everyone engages with, either consciously or unconsciously, in the current era of modern technology. We are self-learning whenever we search something up on Google. We are self-learning whenever we borrow books from the library and watch tutorials on YouTube. I also realized that if more students like me can be more willing to explore the infinitely vast selection of online resources available for self-learning and recognize how much knowledge and skills they can potentially gain, self-learning will be the key for students to achieve academic motivation and success.
Any form of learning starts with curiosity. What do you want to learn more about? What subjects are you passionate about? These are some of the questions that I asked myself before starting to self-learn back in March. With nearly all of my activities cancelled, including school, I decided to learn about something I’ve always had curiosity for: US History. My mom suggested that I use Khan Academy, a free non-profit educational organization online, and I did. Now, it’s one of my proudest achievements to have discovered KA. I remember being astonished and even disappointed in myself that I didn’t take advantage of such wonderful learning platforms earlier. I encouraged my friends to start learning on KA as well, and by the end of summer, we were all exhilarated at the sheer improvement of our academic understanding and knowledge not just of US history, but all subjects, how the universe governs itself, and most importantly, ourselves. I finally perceived that I had immense interest in STEM subjects such as chemistry and biology all along, it was just a matter of being able to develop that interest through self-learning. It would be reasonable to say that KA had turned into my new school in quarantine, and I still consider it to be a second school that I can access at home after regular school has resumed in September.
The pandemic has given me the chance to experience the advantages of self-learning, and I have witnessed them coming to life. So, what are these advantages? First, self-learning is very effective because you are in control of what you learn and how you learn. This immediately generates engagement with your learning and adds meaning and purpose to it. Instead of having teachers give you the learning material, you have to give yourself the learning material. You are also in charge of how much time you spend each day to self-learn. In result, you will become more familiar with how you learn best and develop a more positive attitude towards learning in general. Second, self-learning improves problem-solving skills. This will be helpful not only in the classroom but for real-life situations and skills as well, such as time management and setting goals. Teachers and peers won’t always be right next to you to help find the solution to practice questions or offer their opinions on your work. As you take part in self-learning more and more, you will be equipped with a progressively critical mind and feel more motivated to perform well at school. Third, self-learning builds self-esteem and encourages curiosity. Because self-learning doesn’t follow the traditional school curriculum, you will find that you may have already encountered areas introduced at school and that you have a deeper understanding of the subject than most of your classmates. This will motivate you to go beyond your school education and be actively involved with learning about a variety of subjects. Confidence, motivation, curiosity, and growth are crucial factors to an engaging and productive life, and making the choice to self-learn could be all it takes to lead the way towards this.
Self-learning does indeed come with challenges and obstacles, but with the right tools, you can overcome and grow from them. These include being in the right frame of mind, having clear learning goals, deciding the best resources to use, and applying your learning. Understand why the subjects that you choose to learn are important to you and what you want to accomplish not just in every learning session, but also what milestones you want to reach for. This is what will create that meaning and purpose to self-learning which I mentioned in the last paragraph, as well as help you be able to clearly evaluate your learning as you go. An infinite amount of resources are available to you, so it’s best to decide what you will use to learn which subjects so that you won’t be all over the place with self-learning. I personally enjoy learning STEM subjects on Khan Academy and learning about history with Crash Course from YouTube. I also take notes about every video and article that I learn from to revise what I have learned. However, keeping all that knowledge inside of your brain forever isn’t going to be very useful for yourself. By applying your learning to real life, you can make use of self-learning to help those around you and build up your own skills. This can mean teaching your friends about what you have learned and using your knowledge to solve problems in the community. Ultimately, the power of self-learning flourishes in ourselves and our own choices to contribute to a better world. Quoting Stephen Downes, "We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something provided for us, and toward the idea that an education is something that we create for ourselves."
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Resources
Njeri Karanja. (2018, June 13). Why And How Self-Learning Is Important: BrighterMonday. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://www.brightermonday.co.ke/blog/self-learning/#:~:text
Ho, L. (2020, March 11). 7 Steps to Make Self-Learning Effective for You. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://www.lifehack.org/853724/self-learning