Exploring the autonomy of learning - Teachers’ point of view

Abstract

The learner autonomy has been considered a relevant field of research for a long period and it is impossible to have a good promotion of such autonomy without an adequate school system. The aim of the present study is to understand the relationship between the Italian school system, the request for autonomy and the development of the European competences for lifelong learning. The demand for 'learning to learn', implies the concept of autonomy in the action of students, while the traditional teaching paradigms fail to fully meet the new needs. A change in the didactic approach that makes the role of the teacher central, more than ever, necessary and indispensable is required, even if it is performed in a function fundamentally different from before. In this study ten teachers of Italian secondary school were interviewed answering six open questions and forty-one teachers answered a multiple-choice questionnaire. The scope was to investigate the meaning of autonomy in learning for teachers, which is its role in the promotion of learner autonomy and especially how often we can find the promotion of the learner autonomy in the Italian school system. The relationship between competence and autonomy as well as the implications of autonomy within teaching methods was also investigated. As the last point, the status of the implementation of the main goal of the Lisbon strategy, i.e. lifelong learning, in Italy is analysed to understand if it is possible to talk about positive results. Hence, this study attempts to demonstrate that the teachers know the importance of encouraging the development of each student’s personal skills, but they have several difficulties in enabling students to achieve a condition of autonomy in learning, due to the old Italian school system and often to the difficulties to pursue methodological discussion with the class.