Promoting Self-regulated Learning in

K-12 Schools

Dr. Allyson HadwinUniversity of Victoria

Lynda HutchinsonUniversity of British

ColumbiaStephanie HelmUniversity of Victoria

SRL CANADA: Consortium for SRL in Classroomswww.srlcanada.ca

Introductions

• Associate professor in Educational Psychology

• Co-director of the Technology Integration & Evaluation Research

• Instructor for ED-D101: Learning strategies for University Success

Allyson Hadwin

• PhD student

Lynda Hutchinson

• Research Coordinator

Stephanie Helm

Nancy Perry

Agenda8:00 – 8:30 Introduction:

What is SRL & why is it important in my classroom?

8:30 – 9:30 How can I promote SRL in my classroom?Tasks and Environments for SRL

9:30 – 9:45 Coffee Break

9:45 – 10:30 ACTIVITY 1: Planning an SRL ActivityWork with teacher in your grade level

10:30 – 11:15 Where do learners go wrong?Supporting the emergence of SRL

11:15– 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 – 12:15 ACTIVITY #2: Supporting SRL

12:15 – 1:00 How can we work together to develop SRL in our classes and school?Developing sustained SRL practices

What is SRL?

Self-regulation vs.Self-regulated learning vs.

Self-directed learning

Clarifying terms…

• Self-regulation

• Self-regulated learning

• Self-directed learning

What is Self-Regulation?

• Self-control of thoughts and actions to achieve personal goals and respond to environmental demands (Zimmerman, 2008)

• It involves …o Attending to key features of the environmento Resisting distractionso Persisting when tasks are difficulto Responding appropriately, adaptively, flexiblyo Controlling or adapting emotionso Delaying immediate gratification to meet a

more important long-term goal

Often emphasizes behaviour & emotions

Developmental vs. Educational Perspectives

early years primarily basic (executive processes) behaviour & emotion control atypical development often situated in research labs

& involving non-school tasks

school years & beyond higher order processes Learning in academic tasks metacognition typical and atypical learners mainly situated in or oriented to

classroom tasks & contexts

Developmental Focus Educational Focus

Self-regulation in LEARNING

Involves … Metacognition Motivation Strategic action

Metacognition

Awareness of learning strengths and weaknesses

Ability to analyze the demands of tasks/activities

Use of effective thinking and problem solving strategies to cope with the challenges tasks present

Knowing...What you knowWhat you don’t

knowWhat you need to

know

Motivation

Genuine interest in learning Belief that ability is incremental Focus on personal progress Willingness to try challenging tasks View that errors present opportunities to learn Belief that effort and effective strategy use will

lead to success

Strategic Action

Choosing from a repertoire of strategies those best suited to the learning situation

Applying strategies effectively and efficiently

Self-Regulated Learning refers to:• Strategic engagement -- learners are

engaged, thinking, proactive, responsive and reflective

• It involves …o Complex metacognitive & social processeso Intent, agency, and goal directednesso Dynamic interplay between tasks, teachers,

peers, parents, contexts & cultureso Personal history (knowledge, beliefs,

experiences)o Adaptively responding to challengeso Reflectively learning from past experiences

SRL develops over a lifetime

Early Years

Middle Years

Secondary &

Beyond

I self-regulate my learning …

Self-regulated vs Self-directed

Share similar components…

• Process or cycle• Involves self-control • Role of individual agency• Self-assessment• Self-monitoring• Self-management

How are they different?

Self regulated learning• Origins in educational psychology• Self-defined goals + strategies• Choosing strategies for learning• Monitor, evaluate and regulate learning

processes and products• Cognition, motivation, metacognition• Monitoring and Evaluation • Regulation or adaptation is the mark of

SRL

Self-directed learning• Origins in adult education literature• Self-defined learning objectives + tasks• Choosing means of learning • Select, manage, and assess own

learning activities• motivation, self-management• Reflection and Evaluation • Autonomy is the mark of self-directed

learning

Taking control of the

Learning tasks, objectives and

outcomes

Task Choice

Taking control of your

LEARNING Processes

Strategically regulating learning

Why is SRL important in my

classroom?

Why should teachers care about SRL?

Why is SRL important?

• Self-regulated learners are successful in and beyond school. Higher motivation and confidence Productive thinking skills and strategies(cognition) Better academic performance On task behaviours

• All students benefit from instructional contexts that support SRL, even students with exceptional learning needs.

• SRL promoting practices prompt teachers to consider the needs of all learners.

...for early success in school Low levels of self-regulation before school predict academic

difficulties in school. Emotional regulation (coping with frustration, persisting) Behaviour regulation (following directions, working independently)

Children with poor regulation have problems with behaviour, completing academic tasks, and relating to peers and their teachers.

Performing well on tasks that require self-regulation predicts early school achievement even more powerfully than IQ scores and knowledge of reading and math.

Successful self-regulation in kindergarten predicts achievement through grade 6.

... for middle years success

Stage Environment Implications for SRL

Desire for autonomy Tighten control Fewer opportunities

Self-consciousness Increase social comparison

Lower motivation

We need to create environments that are psychologically safe and intellectually challenging—encourage autonomy but provide appropriate levels of support.

See J. Eccles & Colleagues writings on the topic stage-environment fit.

... for high school success

• Learning to take responsibility for their learning and motivation

• Preparing for transitions to work or post-secondary where they will need to work and learn independently & collaborativelyo Learn to grapple with complex tasks o Experience learning challenges – challenges are

opportunities to learn to SRLo Effort appropriately applied not just more efforto Context of tasks – bigger purpose, not just “things the

teacher needs to have a grade”

...for post-secondary successSelf-regulation is associated with:

Higher grade point averageHigher motivation and self-efficacy Increased effort and persistence

Students who take ED-D101:Higher GPA after taking the courseVery low risk of dropping out Increased knowledge of self Increased knowledge and use of strategies

... in life outside of school

• Ian Thorpe talks about goal setting (and self-regulation) in his training.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y9tZy9EXOs

Why promote SRL?

• Critical 21st Century skills that extend beyond academic work to support learning and success:

Self-regulated learning occurs in

classrooms where….

Adapted from: Perry, N. & Drummond, L. (2003). Becoming self-regulated readers and writers. The Reading Teacher, 56, 298-310.

(1) Students have lots of autonomy

Choices

Control over Challenge

Opportunities to collaborate with peers

Responsibility for evaluating their work

(2) Teachers provide instrumental support

Establish routines and consistent participation structures

Model & teach learning and problem solving strategies

Guide students’ thinking & performing Guide students’ choices Guide use of learning strategies Provide informative and corrective feedback Offer encouragement Engage students in discussions about learning

and self-regulated learning

(3) Teachers engage in non-threatening evaluation practices

Embedded in on-going activities Emphasize processes as well as products Focus on personal progress Encourage students to view errors as

opportunities to learn Involve students in setting criteria for evaluation

and self-evaluation

(4) Students experience complex tasks that provide opportunities to:

Have multiple goals

Focus on large chunks of meaning

Integrate content across curricular areas

Extend over long periods of time

Engage students in a wide range of cognitive and metacognitive processes

Allow for a wide range of processes and products

• Complex tasks often are manifested through collaborative projects and themes, inquiry and problem-based approaches to learning.o Studying the lifecycles of plants and animalso Developing a school-wide composting plan

from a study of ecology and conservationo http://www.teachtoutges.blogspot.com/

o Designing board games that reflect principles of probability and statistics

o Creating a school-community garden

SRL and Personalized Learning

How can you promote SRL?

Adapted from: Perry, N. & Drummond, L. (2003). Becoming self-regulated readers and writers. The Reading Teacher, 56, 298-310.

Start with a complex taskThat includes

• Multiple goals that are connected in a meaningful way

• Big ideas and large chunks of meaning

• Content from across units or curricular areas

• Extended work over time so students have opportunities to learn from experience and apply what they have learned

• A range of processes and products

Create opportunities for…

Choices such as:

The topic to be studies How learning will be demonstrated Where to work Who will help or who to collaborate with How time will be utilized or managed

Create opportunities for…

Control over challenge such as:

Choosing a familiar topic (new but interesting & important)

Drawing from strengths (balance writing, drawing, speaking etc.)

Choosing an appropriate workplace (who to sit with or a low distraction location, or room to spread out)

Choosing an appropriate partner, collaborator, or helper

Access to strategies to help when they get stuck

Create opportunities for…

Self-evaluating learning by:

Keeping a learning log or reflective journal Choosing work samples to submit Preparing for student-led conferences Asking good questions

• What have I learned• What would be a good topic for me• Where is a good place for me to work• Who would be a good person for me to work with

Rating processes (reading, writing, attention, helping) on a scale of…

Generating criteria for evaluating good learning

Consider how to support the development of SRL through…• Talking about learning, making thinking public

• Modelling strategies for SRL

• Building conditional knowledge about strategies (when, where, why)

• Using coaching rather than telling (What could you do differently? How will you know?)

• Helping students make good choices about learning & evaluation

Create opportunities for students to support each other by…• Sharing ideas (browse, borrow, build)

• Sharing and comparing strategies

• Sharing resources

• Collaborating on projects

• Seeking and giving assistance & feedback (suggestions)

• Helping students make good choices about learning & evaluation

• Acknowledging each other’s expertise

Implement non-threatening evaluation practices…• Embedded in on-going activities• Emphasize processes as well as products• Focus on personal progress, vs. social

comparisonso Excellence is defined on an individual basis

• Encourage students to view errors as opportunities for learning

• Cycles of activity so students can learn from errors and make it count

• Involve students in setting criteria for evaluation and self-evaluationo Make expectations explicit

Task: Building Volcanoes in Kindergarten Task Goals/Objectives

•Hone reading skills.•Learn to follow directions.•Practice collaboration and develop social skills.•Learn about the scientific method. •Generate hypotheses based on children’s prior knowledge/learning of volcanoes.•Describe what they observed when they carried out the volcano experiment.

Task: Building Volcanoes in Kindergarten (cont’d)

Description•The volcano task was part of a larger unit of study on nature that had been taking place in Teresa’s classroom for approximately four weeks prior to the observation.•Children were learning about features of different landscapes/terrains (e.g., deserts, mountains, volcanoes, jungles), insects, and animals in nature and the volcano task was one of the extensions of their learning on terrains.

Task: Building Volcanoes in Kindergarten (cont’d)

Choice and Control Over Challenge

Self-Evaluation

•“You can decide to work by yourself or with friends”.•Children could choose what they learned.•Children could choose how to present information they learned.

•What do you notice about [the behavior of] other children [when they are working together]?”

Task: Building Volcanoes in Kindergarten (cont’d)

Teacher Support Peer Support•How could you [approach the peer to] say how you feel?” •“See if you can solve the problem on your own”

•“We’re almost out of baking soda so we should leave some for people who haven’t had a chance [to try out the volcano experiment]”

Task: Building Volcanoes in Kindergarten (cont’d)

Non-Threatening Evaluations•Children summarized their work and learning in their learning journals. •Children could write and/or draw what they had learned; they also had the opportunity to photograph their work and describe their learning.

Task: Building Volcanoes in Kindergarten (cont’d)Communities of Learners

•Children were observed sharing their work and the results of their experience completing the volcano task with their peers.

BREAK

9:30-9:45

ACTIVITY 1: Planning for

SRL

9:45-10:30Work with 1-2 peers:

(a) within your school if you want to design an activity you can do together across grades or subjects, OR

(b) from another school (same grade or subject) if you want to design an activity you each try to implement in your own school.

Where do learners go wrong?

Supporting the emergence of SRL

Allyson Hadwin and Stephanie Helm

SRL unfolds over 4 phasesKey processes in SRL

Monitoring

Evaluating

Task Perceptions

Goals & Plans

Large Scale

Adaptation

Task Enactment

What you are supposed to do and why.

Self-set goals & standards, Planned approach

Task approachStrategies used or experimented with

Recognizing what is working and what isn’t. Making changes or adapting

Winne & Hadwin (1998)

5 Challenges students encounter

Lack of monitoring or inaccurate self-

evaluation

Incomplete or inaccurate Task

Perceptions

Goals-Plans without precision or commitment

Failure to adapt or turn challenges into opportunities

Weak strategy choices or no

strategy

Where we usually intervene

Planning

Why is planning so important?

Fuels

RegulationDirects effort &

strategic action

Foundation for Metacognitive monitoring

Complex tasks

• Prepare students for the real world• Can create more opportunities for challenge• Are more motivating

BUT ALSO• more difficult to understand• Understanding implicit purpose becomes very

important for strategically flexing task features and requirements

Task Understanding Challenges

Explicit Task

Information

Implicit Task

Information

Socio-contextual

TaskInformation

Information that is directly stated or provided

(Instructions, terms, Grading schemeAssignment details)

Information that is inferred(Task purpose,

Intended thinking or processing, relevant course concepts)

Epistemological & pedagogical intent(disciplinary beliefs & values

– bigger WHY)

Facilitating Task Understanding

HINT• Don’t do the task interpretation for

them

• Guide them through the process of co-constructing perceptions of those task features

Invite classroom discussion

IMPLICIT TASK FEATURES

• What am I asking you to do?• Why are we doing this?• What do I want you to learn through this?• Where might you find a good example of this?• What have we learned that is relevant?• How does this relate to what we have been doing?• What would make an A+ piece of work?• How might you start a task like this?

Invite small group discussion

Have students:

• Compare answers to the previous questions

• Compare plans for completing the work

• Peer read and discuss drafts of the work prior to submission

Assess task understanding

Formal class quizStephanie Helm’s task understanding quiz

2 minute informal feedback in classWhy am I asking you to do X? Why might an assignment like that

be important in this course (beyond just assessing how you are doing)

Formal task analysisCompare with peersEach group generate 2 questions for the teacher.

Grade 2 – Explicit taskStephanie Helm’s MA Thesis

Grade 2 – Implicit task

Stephanie Helm’s MA Thesis

Shift discussionAway from you giving the answers to

helping students construct the answers

o What do you think?o How could we find an answer to that question?o How are the concepts we have discussed in

class linked to this assignmento How does this assignment prepare you to do the

kind of work a (sociologist, biologist, psychologist) does?

Model your thinking about tasks• What am I being asked to do?• How you am I being asked to think or make

meaning?• Why am I being assigned a task like this in a course

like this?• What big ideas, resources, styles, genres, might be

important for this task?• What does this have to do with the rest of this

course?• Model how you find the answers:

Why are goals important?

• Good goals help you...o Deal with 1 little piece at

a timeo Know how to get startedo Know which strategies to

useo Generate feedback on

how well you’re doing o Get motivatedo Plan & manage your time

Goals become important when…

• Complex tasks by design• Choices are made available• Multiple ways to demonstrate mastery• Work extends over time (multiple

classes)• Student self-evaluation & peer

evaluation are promoted

The kinds of personalized learning tasks you were developing earlier

Goal setting for SRL

• Setting goals is very important BUT not all goals work equally as well

•TASC goals for SRL in academic tasks...o Focus on smaller (2-hr) Time blockso What thinking processes or Action(s) to

takeo To what degree, amount, or Standardo Specific about Concepts or content to be

learned

Developing goal setting skills• When students learn to set goals and

reflect on goal attainment and challenges on a weekly basis

Increased self efficacy for achieving goals

Increased goal attainment

Increased goal quality

65

Danger of Weak goals

Experience Motivational Challenge

Set a behavior-focused goal

The goal is usually not specific or proximal

MOT CHLG:  This past week i found it difficult to do as much

work at home as i should have. I didn't have any deadlines in the near future. I found it difficult to

keep myself motivated and focused on my course work for

more than about half an hour at a time.

In this past week i had a hard time motivating myself to get ahead in

my classes. I found that i was pushing things of and

procrastinating.

Lower efficacy for next goal

This next week i would like to finish catching up on my political sciences reading and also get a

head start on my computer science project. My goal for the end of next week is to be up to date on the readings and create

an outline for my computer science project

Maladaptive Motivation Cycle

Hierarchy of goal quality

Low• Study

Moderate• Read pages 10-40 on Wed night

High

• Goal: Explain 4 factors contributing to World War 2 using the correct terminology but explaining it in my own words (Wed 7-9pm)

• Plan – create a fishbone cause and effect diagram as I am reading the chapter

Weak strategies or strategy choices

To be strategic students need to know:

• when to use the strategy

• why the strategy works

• how to apply the strategy

• how to check if the strategy works

• Customize strategies IF……THEN…..ELSE

Reading tactics vs. strategies

https://sites.google.com/a/fessenden.k12.nd.us/hovland/homework/reading-strategieshttp://teachers.scholarschoice.ca/products/Reading-Strategies-B

ulletin-Board-Set-p10860/?pstart=

Study skills instruction tends to…

• Focus on how to do it

• Ignore the importance of task understanding

• Fail to address the connection between goals and strategy choice

• Rarely provide instruction about monitoring the effectiveness of strategies

• Rarely explain the reasons why the strategy works…..thinking and cognition

Challenge 4: Monitoring difficulties

• Do not monitor or check how they are doing along the way

• Innaccurately monitor

But to monitor progress, you have to:o Understand the work to be doneo Have clear goals/standards for the work

To improve monitoring

• Students need opportunities to monitor

• Feedback from teachers and peers

• Not just monitoring perfomance, also monitoring strategy use and learning processes

Example of self-monitoring form• Ally fill in examples

BREAK

11:15 to 11:30

Supporting SRL

11:30 to 12:15

Working together to

support SRL:

Becoming self-regulated teachers12:15 to 1:00

$$STILL TO REVISE BELOW

Helping Teachers Support SRL• Create a community of professionals• Allow teachers to tailor instruction

about SRL to the unique teaching and learning needs of their classrooms

• Encourage them to be innovators and problem solvers (Duffy, 1997)

• Allow them to learn from one another.

• Provide them with guided and sustained support (Borko & Putnam, 1998).

Action Research Groups

• Free write• Air time• Focused discussion• Work time• Reporting out

SRL Cohort at UBC• Community of professionals that includes

practicing and preservice teachers.• Student teachers are paired with mentors

who share our goals for promoting SRL.• Mentoring relationships are reciprocal.• Preservice teachers are in classrooms as

much as possible.• We articulate preservice teachers in-

school and on-campus experiences as much as possible.

Courses for SRL (ED-D101)

Learning Objective DescriptionLearning strategies Understand how strategies work; identify strategies that

meet individual and contextual learning needs; experiment with, evaluate, and generate new strategies in authentic university tasks.

Self-regulated learning Acquire knowledge of self-regulated learning and how it contributes to undergraduate learning; apply a model of self-regulated learning to overcome challenges by analyzing task requirements, setting goals, making plans, using strategies, monitoring and evaluating learning, and making small- and large-scale adaptations.

Knowledge of self Recognize individual strengths and weaknesses in learning; monitor and evaluate changes in learning knowledge, beliefs, and motivation.

Learning processes and mechanisms Understand how people remember information; understand how people process information.

Learning Objectives of the ED-D 101 Course

SRL in our SchoolsProfessional Development

Classroom Practices Learners and Parents Strategic planning

How could SRL fit with what we are currently doing? (Opportunities/fit in my school’s ProD plan) What are the potential ProD barriers or challenges for transforming learning in my (a) classroom and (b) school for SRL?What Do I need to have in place to promote/support SRL focused Pro-D in my school

How could SRL fit with classroom practices and activities currently happening in our classrooms? What are the potential challenges or barriers transforming learning in my (a) classroom and (b) school for SRL?What Do I need to have in place to promote/support SRL focused classroom practices in my school

How can SRL learners and parents be supported in SRL initiatives What are the potential challenges or barriers transforming learning ?What Do I need to have in place to support learners and parents to make this transition to SRL

How does SRL fit with my schools strategic plan What are the potential challenges for transforming my school ‘s strategic plan with respect to SRL practices ?What Do I need to have in place for our strategic plan to mesh with SRL transformation?