Self-Regulated Learning

Self-Regulation Learning or Metacognition Improved with Training.

The capacity for Self-Regulated Learning is evident in very young children and develops gradually with their growing knowledge and experience.

Developing “strategic competence”:

Children come to understand “how to go about planning, monitoring, revising, and reflecting upon their learning” (National Research Council, 2000, p. 112).

Students have difficulties regulating their own learning

> the challenge to correspond the training amount to improve this capacity.

The need for effective strategies:

Learners process the content of a subject or an activity differently and need to characterize the necessary strategies associated with learning goals.

Overviews of research on learning strategies and self-regulation:

> Identification of more than 400 learning strategies; for 302 of those strategies, 228 meta-analyses of the literature - Hattie and Donoghue (2016).

Relationship between the learner’s use and academic achievement outcomes based on 3 critical elements:

(a) the will to invest in learning,

(b) curiosity and a willingness to explore what one does not know, and

(c) the skills associated with coming to a deeper understanding of content.

A broad definition of “strategy” includes:

> ways of managing the environment (e.g., providing student control over learning and lessons in time management)

> participation structures (e.g., peer tutoring and collaborative/cooperative learning).

Training for Self-Regulation is based on three different theoretical models:

(1) strength (self-regulation is a strength or ability that can be deployed in any domain),

(2) motivation (the key is developing the motivation or will to regulate one’s self), and

(3) cognitive processes (the key is mobilizing cognitive functions by, e.g., developing a habit or changing beliefs about self-efficacy).

Teachers’ roles in teaching self-regulation are their active involvement in a student’s learning with positive academic outcomes (encouragement, feedback, etc), and guidance toward the learner’s goals and strategies (motivation).