Pedagogical Paradigm Shift
– Teaching for Learner Agency:

We guide educators to implement SDL progressively, adapting to the developmental stage of the learner.

• In early stages (early childhood, primary school), learning is “Teacher-Guided SDL,” where educators playfully introduce choices and foster curiosity within structured activities.

• As students mature (upper primary, middle school), we transition to “Peer-Guided SDL,” encouraging collaborative projects and mutual learning.

• By senior levels (secondary school and beyond), the focus shifts to “Self-Guided SDL,” where students have significant flexibility in choosing content, pacing their learning, selecting modalities (e.g., online courses, field research), and expressing their understanding in diverse ways (e.g., presentations, prototypes, written reports).

We integrate modern, engaging teaching methods that naturally cultivate self-direction:

• Inquiry-Based Learning: Instead of providing answers, educators frame real-world questions that spark curiosity and encourage students to explore, investigate, and construct their own understanding through research and experimentation.

• Design Thinking & Maker-Culture: Students engage in iterative problem-solving processes, from empathizing with users to ideating, prototyping, and testing solutions. This hands-on experimentation (in “Maker Spaces” or labs) fosters creativity, resilience, and practical skills.

• Learning Journals & Thinking Aloud: Students are encouraged to maintain journals where they document not just what they’ve learned, but how they learned it – their strategies, challenges, insights, and reflections. “Thinking aloud” exercises help them verbalize their thought processes, making metacognition explicit.