The Self-Regulated Learning Guide

Teaching Students to Think in the Language of Strategies

Timothy J. Cleary

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317436133
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

The Self-Regulated Learning Guide introduces K-12 teachers to the basics of self-regulation. Highly practical and supported by cutting-edge research, this book offers a variety of techniques for seamlessly infusing self-regulated learning principles into the classroom and for nurturing students' motivation to strategize, reflect, and succeed. Featuring clear explanations of the psychology of self-regulation, these nine chapters provide teachers with core concepts, realistic case scenarios, reflection activities, and more to apply SRL concepts to classroom activities with confidence.

Section II
Digging a Little Bit Deeper

4
Forethought: Setting the Stage for Learning

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

—Alexander Graham Bell

Chapter Snapshot

In this chapter, I introduce three concepts that are linked to the forethought phase of the cyclical feedback loop: task analysis, goal-setting, and planning. These three processes are important to SRL development because they "set the stage" for learning. Using case scenarios and illustrations, I convey the meaning and importance of these processes and discuss how teacher can integrate them into classroom activities and discourse.

Reader Reflection – 4.1 Thinking Ahead and Planning

Similar to Reader Reflection exercise 3.1, think about a learning activity that is a key component of your class. How often do you get your students to reflect on the following types of questions before they begin that activity:

• What do I need to know about the activity to do well?
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• How should I approach this learning activity?
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• What am I trying to accomplish in completing this activity?
  _______________________________________________
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Introduction

Throughout your career as an educator, you probably have come across students who exhibited exceptional forethought skills – those who plan ahead, ask many questions about assignments or tests, and continuously think about the most effective ways to learn or complete their work. The unfortunate reality, however, is that a large percentage of K-12 students do not approach their schoolwork in this intentional, mindful way.

SRL researchers distinguish between reactive versus proactive learners (Zimmerman, 2000). Reactive learners tend to engage in learning activities without much preparatory thinking or planning. They do not think too deeply about the requirements of a learning activity (task analysis), nor do they develop a clear sense of the things they are trying to accomplish (goal-setting) or how they will accomplish them (strategic planning; see Tales of the Student – 4.1 Tanya). This fairly mindless and non-strategic approach to learning is problematic for several reasons. Reactive learners tend to wait for results or “signs of struggle” before attempting to figure out what or how they should be performing an activity. In some sense, reactive learners are like planes on autopilot. They travel without much thought until they encounter major forms of turbulence. It is during these moments of danger that students finally attempt to take control of the plane so that it does not crash. From a regulatory perspective, it is much more effective (and safe!) to create a flight plan and to gather all relevant information that could affect the flight (weather conditions, fuel for the plane, final destination, etc.) before leaving the runway and taking off.

Tales of the Student – 4.1 Tanya

On Tuesday, Tanya’s mathematics teachers, Ms. Martinez, informed the class that they were going to have a unit exam on Friday. Upon hearing about this test, Tanya became nervous because she had performed poorly on her last few exams. Due to her struggles, Tanya was feeling more and more like a disappointment to both her parents and teachers. For the upcoming exam, Tanya attempted to motivate herself by stating, “This time I am really going to focus … I want to get a B+ or an A.” Although Tanya dutifully completed her mathematics homework assignments on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, she did not think a lot about the test until Thursday evening. To prepare for the exam, Tanya decided to look at a few homework assignments that were in her binder and re-read some notes that her teacher distributed to the class. As Tanya studied, she thought to herself, “I hope I am looking at the problems that will appear on the test. Oh well, there is nothing I can do about it now. I just have to stay calm and confident like my tutor says.”

Because reactive learners also display vague or unclear goals (“To do my best” or “To do well”) they will often struggle to make accurate judgments about their learning progress and are likely to rely on using social comparisons to make evaluative judgments (i.e., “How did I do when compared to my peers?”). Although normative comparisons can provide useful information, they naturally lead students to think about grades and other performance outcomes in terms of their intelligence (“I am dumb” or “I am smart”). As I discuss in several chapters throughout this book, when students struggle in school and evaluate their performance relative to intelligence or “unchangeable” factors, they are likely to exhibit negative motivational reactions and continued underachievement (see Tales of the Student – 4.2 – Peter). In this book, I advocate that teachers help students use goals (“I almost reached my goal”) or prior performance (“I did better than my last test”) as the standards to evaluate performance (see Chapter 7).

Tales of the Student – 4.2 Peter

Peter thinks school is boring and, at times, does not see the point in devoting a lot of time to something that will not help him in his life. Further, he has recently formed a musical band with a few of his friends because of his interest in music and playing the guitar. When talking to his mathematics teacher, Ms. Maino, about his experiences in the band Peter said, “I love my band. Playing guitar is one of the few things that I am really good at and I want to be a great musician.” As the conversation shifted back to his schoolwork, Peter noted, “I do not do as well as other students and I am tired of feeling like I don’t measure up. In response to his teacher’s questions about his academic goals, Peter indicated, “I don’t know. I never really set any goals for school. I just try to get by. I probably won’t go to college, so what is the point in trying?” Though Peter said these things to his teacher, on some level he wanted to do better. However, because he constantly felt that he was stupid and less intelligent than his classmates, he wanted to avoid school altogether.

A final problem with reactive thinking is that it leads to a “trial and error” approach to learning. Rather than thinking ahead about the best approach to learn, reactive learners like Tanya, try to come up with quick fixes and short-term solutions to their learning challenges. Although they will occasionally stumble upon a good idea regarding how best to learn, their performance tends to be highly inconsistent and uneven. To help you to think more deeply about the meaning of forethought processes, please complete Reflect and Connect exercise 4.1.

Reflect and Connect – 4.1 Understanding Forethought

Re-read Tales of the Student – 4.1. As noted in the scenario, Tanya is a student who exhibits poor forethought skills.

• In your opinion, which behaviors or thought processes suggest that Tanya exhibits poor forethought?
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• If Tanya was one of your students, what would you do to help her?
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A key premise of this chapter is that students need to hone and sharpen their forethought skills (the thoughts and actions that occur before a learning activity) in order to engage in effective SRL. Forethought skills includes task analysis/interpretation, strategic planning, and goal-setting. Collectively, these SRL processes initiate a chain reaction of regulatory thinking and action involving the use of task-focused and SRL-focused strategies (Chapter 3), monitoring behavior and learning (Chapter 6), and evaluating the quality of learning (Chapter 7).

Core Concept 4.1

Getting students to think ahead and plan is not a waste of time … it sets the tone and lays the foundation for how students think about and approach learning activities.

Forethought Skills – Charting the Regulatory Path

Similar to an earlier comment made about reactive learners, students who struggle in school are often like a plane rumbling down the runway with a half-empty tank of gas and its navigational system turned off. Although the plane may stay airborne for a little while, it will likely not arrive at the anticipated destination. Eventually, the pilot will need to radio in to air-traffic control for assistance or, like many students in today’s schools, simply hope for the best. From an academic lens, students with poor forethought skills will often:

• display a poor understanding of what is expected, needed, or required to perform a given activity (an understanding of activity issue)
• begin the activity without making a plan about how to complete the activity (a strategy planning issue)
• display a vague sense of what they are trying to attain/accomplish (a goal issue)
• resist completing the activity (a motivational issue).

It is important to underscore that these forethought skills are not traits or fixed aspects of students’ personalities (see Figure 4.1). They collectively represent a set of skills and processes that can be improved through instruction, coaching, and practice. Further, forethought skills do not operate in isolation; they intersect and complement each other in important and reciprocal ways.

Figure 4.1 Key components of forethought thinking

Core Concept 4.2

Forethought represents a set of task analysis, goal-setting, and planning skills as well as the motivation or desire to perform these skills.

Task Analysis: What Are Students Being Asked to Do?

One of the most important things that students can ask themselves upon receiving an assignment is, “What am I being asked to do?” It sounds like such a simple thing, but most students do not deeply analyze the key components and features of your assignments. As I illustrated with Tanya (see Tales of the Student – 4.1), when students’ task analysis skills are underdeveloped, they will struggle to approach learning activities in a strategic and purposeful manner.

Task analysis is fundamental to reading, mathematics, writing, and many other types of learning situations (Butler & Cartier, 2004; Zimmerman, 2000). Deborah Butler, a notable scholar in SRL instructional practices, underscored the value of task analysis. She writes, “In sum, we suggest that task interpretation sets learning in motion and establishes direction for learning. As such, students’ adopting the habit of interpret...