30/08/2026
One of the areas where I believe AI can be genuinely useful is self-directed learning.
AI can help learners clarify goals, locate resources, ask questions, receive feedback, develop learning plans, and reflect on their progress. In many ways, it can provide forms of support that were not easily available to independent learners before.
But access to AI does not automatically make someone a self-directed learner.
Learners first need a strong foundation in AI literacy. They need to understand what AI can and cannot do, verify the information it provides, recognize its biases and limitations, and know when it is supporting their thinking—and when it is beginning to replace it.
Talking about self-directed learning, here is one of the most widely cited papers in the field: D. Randy Garrison’s 1997 article, *Self-Directed Learning: Toward a Comprehensive Model*.
According to Garrison, self-directed learning is an approach in which learners are motivated to assume personal responsibility and collaborative control of the cognitive and contextual processes involved in constructing meaningful learning outcomes.
His model brings together three closely connected dimensions:
1. Self-management involves taking control of the learning task—setting goals, choosing resources, organizing time, and creating the conditions needed to learn.
2. Self-monitoring involves thinking about one’s own thinking. Learners assess their understanding, connect new ideas with what they already know, evaluate their progress, and adjust their strategies.
3. Motivation involves both deciding to begin and sustaining the effort needed to continue. Learners must see value in the goal, believe they can succeed, and persist when learning becomes difficult.
I find this model even more relevant in the age of AI.
AI can support all three dimensions. It can help learners develop a plan, suggest resources, provide feedback, explain difficult concepts, and encourage reflection. But it can also weaken all three if it begins setting the goals, making the decisions, evaluating the work, and doing the difficult thinking on the learner’s behalf.
If AI manages the learning process while the learner simply follows its directions, that is not self-directed learning. It is AI-directed learning.
The real educational opportunity lies in helping learners use AI while retaining responsibility for their goals, judgments, decisions, and understanding. AI should expand learner agency, not quietly take it over.
This may be an older paper, but the questions it raises about motivation, responsibility, monitoring, and control could not be more timely.
Link in the first comment!
Reference:
Garrison, D. R. (1997). Self-directed learning: Toward a comprehensive model. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(1), 18–33.
