Abstract:
Learner autonomy has for many years been an objective in a number of teaching and learning environments and has been prominent in the literature. But whereas it seems to be a natural aim for small children who strive to do things on their own it seems to be hard to achieve in the more formal situation of learning at school and even in higher education.
However, collaborative learning and autonomy are essential objectives in academic contexts and higher education, and one would assume that students come from high school with an idea of what learner autonomy means. But quite often they are anything but independent autonomous learners. They want to be taken by the instructor's hand, so to speak, and guided through the study programme. Sometimes they are intimidated by the daunting university environment or they perceive themselves as being rather reluctant to participate in large courses, let alone in lectures. Their self-concepts may be characterized by doubts about their own skills and competences. And there are doubtlessly communicative differences between seminars and formal lectures, which more often than not have to accommodate large numbers of students. The larger the learning community is the less can it make allowances for students' individuality and diversity.
My own background is teacher training, and I am convinced that future teachers who will be called upon to carry out group work in their classes have to learn not only theories of group work, but, more importantly, to learn experientially what group work means and what it can achieve. My research interests are interactions in university sessions, i.e. instructor-student as well as student-student interactions, which may both be related to students' subjective theories. In various projects I tried to find out, how group work can best be organized, carried out and reflected upon as well as what students actually learn in groups and how they can be guided to more independence and autonomy.
I will therefore discuss theories of group work and autonomy and introduce the audience to my own projects and findings with regard to students' growing autonomy through group work and the accompanying learning and reflection processes.