Encouraging the independence of students through the project-method

Pupils’ independence is a necessary condition of the quality of their education. Therefore, it is important to encourage and develop their independence. It is necessary to provide experience which supercedes the cognitive aspects of learning and which stimulates their holistic development. By the encouragement of pupils’ independence, teaching becomes of a higher quality, in that it presumes their greater activity and an engagement with various skills and abilities. Significant learning is grounded mostly on the pupils’ active investigations and projects.

In this work the results of two years of an action research inquiry are presented. It describes the students’ processes of becoming independent through their teaching-project. The main conclusion is that such processes of teaching contribute to the essential learning of the students and their teacher.