Shyam Barr

Blog

 

PREFACE

This blog discusses topics that exist between the fields cognitive psychology and leadership, teaching and learning. Although I make connections between research and personal experience (my attempt at bridging the age-old ‘theory-practice’ gap), I write for a general audience. It is as Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi stated in the preface of his book FLOW:

“To take this step is somewhat dangerous, because as soon as one strays from the stylised constraints of academic prose, it is easy to become careless or overly enthusiastic about such a topic” (p. xi)

To avoid carelessness, I will endeavour to include references to journal articles, books and alike (as commonly expected in academic writing), but not at the expense of accessibility and ease of reading. This will be a delicate balance and one I will endeavour to achieve.

To end, I chose the word ‘discusses’ in the first sentence of this preface, to highlight that although the blog articles themselves are very much a dialogue between myself and what I read, I encourage you to share your comments and questions, so that we may start a more authentic discussion. 

 
 

Strategies for Teaching Self-Regulated Learning in the Classroom

Self-regulated learning (SRL) can be defined as how one plans, monitors, and evaluates their learning. It is considered a required skill for navigating the changing social and work landscape. SRL is very much an umbrella term covering a range of variables (e.g., motivation, cognition, metacognition, self-efficacy)

There is consensus in the research literature that self-regulated learning can be explicitly taught. That is, teachers can support students in understanding their internal processes of motivation, cognition, and metacognition. In order to self-regulate, an individual (a student) needs to possess deep knowledge of these internal processes AND the motivational, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies that can be employed to change or regulate them.  

One method I’ve developed to help teach the motivational, cognitive and metacognitive strategies is the NEMO approach, which is Name, Explain, Model and Opportunity. 

If you’re thinking, “what are the motivational, cognitive, and metacognitive strategies that I should teach?” – good question! I’ll address these in a future piece. 

I’ll take you through each step and provide an example to help you understand the approach. 

 Name… the strategy.  

Today I’m going to share with you a metacognitive strategy called ‘self-recording’ 

Explain…what the strategy is.  

Self-recording is a strategy to help develop an awareness of a certain behaviour. For example, often when you start at a gym, a trainer might ask you to take a food diary – this is a form of self-recording, in that each day for a period of time, you record what you eat. Similarly, studies conducted with smokers have shown that when individuals self-recorded how many cigarettes they smoked per day, they reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked.

Model… how to use the strategy (e.g., demonstrate) 

I’m going to show you how to self-record your on-task and off-task behaviours 

Let’s create a table with the dates along the top and the different off-task behaviours along the left-hand side. Now, during today’s lesson, every time you notice yourself engaged in an off-task behaviour, I just want you to make a tally in the appropriate box. In essence, you will self-record when you are off-task. Once you have made your tally, I want you to return to the task (i.e.,on-task behaviours).  

At this point, I would facilitate a discussion with students about what on-task and off-task behaviours look like 

[Provide an] Opportunity… for students to practice. 

 Allow the students to then practice the new strategy during a meaningful task

When attempting to foster self-regulated learning, it requires a shift in ownership of the knowledge construction for the subject, where the teacher is responsible for facilitating learning skills rather than learning content. 

In the past few years, the focus on students’ self-regulated learning, how we can foster it in schools, and therefore, an interest in my work (my mission is to help people become better [self-regulated] learners) has grown exponentially. I’m unsure whether this is directly related to COVID-19 and the observation of students in more independent modes of learning, but either way, there is a genuine interest from schools/educators in how we can support young people to self-regulate their learning.

During 2021, I’ve had the pleasure of working with multiple schools in the independent, catholic, and public-school sectors. Below are a few examples:

  • Exploring leaders, teachers, and students thinking and practice about self-regulated learning [Funded research project, Chief Investigator], Radford College, ACT, Australia.

  • Supporting emerging leaders to develop their reflexive and reflective practice [Keynote address] with Independent Primary School Heads of Australia (IPSHA), Adelaide, Australia

  • Learners doing the heavy lifting: How can we, as educators, develop goal-setting strategies to support students becoming self-regulated learners? [Critical Friend, Teachers as Researchers initiative], Bonython Primary School, ACT, Australia

I’ve also had the opportunity to speak with educators from Canberra Grammar School, Dickson College, and the Association of Independent Schools (AISAACT). 

If you’re interested in promoting self-regulation for your students, teachers, and leaders, then please get in touch.  





Shyam Barr