Bruce Harris

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Strategies for Helping Students Become More
Effective Self-Regulated Learners

• Bruce Harris
• Director, Center for Teaching
• and Learning Excellence

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Introduction

• To be discussed in session.

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Objectives of Workshop

• Recognize the importance of helping students go
  beyond basic study skills to help students become
  more effective self-regulated learners.
• Recall five self-regulated learning strategies
  that we can teach our students.

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Workshop Agenda

• Background and Nature of Self-regulated Learning
• Five Self-regulated Learning (SRL) Strategies

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What is a Self-regulated Learner?

• Students who are academically successful tend to
  be self-regulated.
• The term self-regulated can be used to describe
  learning that is guided by executive processing
  (metacognition, conditional awareness,
  self-monitoring, etc.), cognitive processing
  (planning, declarative knowledge, procedural
  knowledge, etc.), and motivation (self-efficacy,
  goal orientation, attributional orientation,
  etc.) to learn.

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What is a Self-regulated Learner?
Self-regulated learners systematically direct
their thoughts, feelings, and actions toward the
attainment of their goals. They are cognizant of
their academic strengths and weaknesses, they
have a repertoire of strategies they
appropriately apply to tackle the day-to-day
challenges of academic tasks, and they are
self-motivated.
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Basic Model of Self-Regulated Learning
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Dual System Model of Cognition/Learning
Contemporary cognitive psychologists distinguish
between two levels of cognition Level1 (S1)
Implicit cognition largely intuitive,
hard-wired, effortless focused on typical,
stable problems and skills. Level2 (S2)
Explicit cognition - conscious, effortful
focused on novel problems and skills. L1
processing is the default mode.
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Example of two systems interacting
To be discussed in session.
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Academic Cognition/Learning
To be discussed in session.
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Five SRL Strategies

1. Conditional Awareness
2. Self-monitoring
3. Self-evaluation
4. Self-motivation
5. Self-explanation

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Conditional Awareness

• Defined a students ability to identify and
  execute appropriate learning strategies by
  recognizing contextual clues in a particular
  learning situation and context.

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Conditional Awareness

• Instructional Strategies
• Encourage students to set goals and develop a
  strategic plan based on contextual clues.
• Sources of contextual clues
• Syllabus
• Instructors lessons
• Help seeking resources

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Conditional Awareness
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Self-monitoring

• Defined as a students awareness of their
  comprehension or performance during or shortly
  after completing an academic task.

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Self-monitoring

• Instructional Strategies
• Encourage students to review their work to
  determine whether it meets all the criteria
  specified by the instructor.
• Encourage students to ask themselves
• Have I identified all of the key points in this
  article?
• I didnt do as well as I thought I would on the
  last test. What learning strategies do I need to
  use to prepare for the next exam so I get an A on
  the exam?
• My attention is beginning to drift. I need to
  stay focused for the next 45 minutes and then I
  will take a 10 break.

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Self-monitoring
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Self-evaluation

• Defined as a students self-judgment on their
  performance by comparing it to their goal.

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Self-evaluation

• Instructional Strategies
• Encourage students to review their strategic plan
  and determine what adjustments, if any, they need
  to make.
• Encourage students to ask themselves
• If I were to take a quiz on this topic right
  now, what grade would I expect?
• Now that I have finished reviewing my notes, I
  need to ask myself how well am I understanding
  this topic.
• Now that I know my score on this exam, what
  would I do differently for the next exam to do
  better?
• To what degree am I following the plan I made
  for achieving my goal?

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Self-evaluation
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Self-motivation

• Defined as a students awareness of his/her
  motivation level in regards to achieving his/her
  goal.

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Self-motivation

• Instructional Strategies
• Encourage students to assess their motivation
  level and to increase their motivation if
  necessary.
• Encourage students to say to themselves
• I feel like my motivation is low. I need to
  remind myself that I have been a successful
  student in the past and that I have overcome
  difficult challenges on other occasions.
• As soon as I complete the self-test, I am going
  to reward myself.
• Even though this article is taking much more
  time than I anticipated, I am not going to give
  up until I complete it.

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Self-motivation
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Self-explanation

• Defined as a type of metacognitive activity
  wherein students attempt to analyze, clarify,
  amplify, draw inferences, interpret, and then
  explicate to themselves the subject matter of the
  course.

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Self-explanation

• Instructional Strategies
• Encourage students to attempt to generate
  self-explanations as they study.
• Encourage students to ask themselves
• How would I describe the situation, problem,
  concept, activity, etc.?
• What possible implications or predictions can I
  draw from the information thus far?
• How would I sum up, interpret, or explain the
  situation, problem, concept, activity, etc. thus
  far to someone else?

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Self-explanation
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Review

• We can help our students to become more effective
  self-regulated learners in both F2F classes and
  online courses however, it will not happen
  overnight.
• Five self-regulated learning strategies we can
  teach our students
• Conditional Awareness
• Self-monitoring
• Self-evaluation
• Self-motivation
• Self-explanation