Inclusive Learning and Educational Equity 5

Self-directed Learners: Transformation of Teacher-Guided Student Learning 
into Self-directed Knowledge Creation
The application of the UDL approach 
helped the teachers to gradually decrease their direct leadership and encourage stu-
dents’ self-directed learning. Several aspects of lesson organising that increase pos-
sibilities for students’ self-directed learning and facilitate students’ reflection were 
identified during the action research. In the context of contact learning, situations of 
self-directed learning were created using multimodal presentations of information 
and pair or group activities that promoted learning from each other. During the 
period of distance learning, group activities for learning something new were not 
used almost at all due to technical limitations and the quarantine restricting social 
interactions. However, employing multimodal presentations of information and 
gamification facilitated the creation of self-directed learning situations and stu-
dents’ self-directed checking and correction of their completed work. The creation 
of an inclusive education environment applying the UDL principles improved the 
development of every students’ self-directed learning skills, ensuring greater suc-
cess in learning.
Self-directed Discovery of Word Meanings in the Context of Multimodal 
Presentation of Information and Team Learning
The self-directed learning of 
students is encouraged by situations in which the learning material is presented and 
the learning process is organised in different ways, creating conditions for the stu-
dents to independently clarify and understand new information. The creation of 
such a learning situation is illustrated in one of the observed English lessons 
(Observation, 14). The goal of the lesson was ‘to learn new words/phrases related to 
food’. In order for students to clarify the meanings of unknown English words and 
phrases themselves, they were asked to watch Jamie Oliver’s video ‘15-Minute 
Meals’. While watching the video, one group of students was asked to write down 
the words of ingredients and the other group was assigned the task to select the 
verbs related to actions of food preparation. Later, both groups created sentences 
together: one group gave an action of food preparation, the other—an ingredient. 
The three observed girls successfully used the video material to develop their 
vocabulary on food preparation. In their reflections, they pointed out that the video 
material helped them to independently ‘discover’ the meanings of words and 
phrases. The girls understood and clarified the simultaneity of information received 
in different modalities—the video helped them hear the word and see the object or 
action performed by the doer. The simultaneity of receiving information by hearing 
and sight ‘unlocks’ the word meaning and helps the students to learn words on their 
own. For example, Vaida commented, ‘The video was most useful. ... They say what 
they do, you hear and see and understand the word this way
’. Teamwork, when one 
team gave a verb and the other provided a related ingredient, helped the girls to 
make collocations. Just
ė said, ‘This allowed connecting a particular food word with 
a cooking action
’. When asked about challenges or obstacles, the girls identified the 
problem of writing down the heard and understood words: Sofija stated, ‘To write 
the words down was most difficult
. ... We understood all the words, but it was diffi-
cult to write them down without mistakes
’ (Reflection with students, 14). The expe-
A. Galkien
ė and O. Monkevičienė

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riences of the girls as expert learners show that properly chosen video material 
promotes the self-directed enrichment of vocabulary. However, no thoughts were 
given about any scaffolds in the lessons that helped the students learn the spellings 
of the new words. Teamwork partially contributed to overcoming this challenge: 
Sofija said, ‘For example, [my team member] helped me with the spelling of the 
word I did not know how to write it’
(Reflection with students, 14). Thus, appropri-
ately used modalities of receiving new information, especially if more than one is 
applied in the lesson, as well as teamwork that is favourable for learning from each 
other, promote students’ self-directed learning and becoming expert learners. By 
modelling situations of self-directed learning, the teacher has to foresee what obsta-
cles may be encountered by the students and to create scaffolds useful for coping 
with barriers.