Children s Self-Regulatory Behaviors During Teacher-Directed, Seat-Work, and Small-Group Instructional Contexts Sierra

1. Children�s Self-Regulatory Behaviors During Teacher-Directed, Seat-Work, and Small-Group Instructional ContextsSierra Feliciano, Amber Cook, Seema Yedavalli

2. Definition of Terms Classroom adjustment � Student�s ability to make adjustments in a classroom setting Instructional contexts � Teaching functions Small Group -students working together in a small group on a collective task (Cohen, 1994). Teacher directed - the teacher leading instruction for the entire class Seat work - children work alone on an assigned task

3. Definition of Terms Self Regulation � the process we use to activate or sustain our thoughts, behaviors, and emotions in order to reach our goals. (Barry Zimmerman, 2002) Self-Regulatory Behaviors � Attention to instruction - children direct their behavior to the learning task (Schunk, 1986)

4. Definition of Terms: Self Regulatory Behaviors Help Seeking � seeking additional instructions or help from the teacher or peers Monitoring - monitoring of their cognitive efforts. (Pressley & Ghatala, 1990; Schunk, 1986) Organization � the combining, arranging, recombining, and rearranging of behaviors into coherent systems. (Woolfolk, 30) Metacognitive talk - children talking about their thinking

5. Purpose To extend previous research that instructional context is related to children�s self-regulatory behavior, by investigating differences between children's observed self-regulatory behaviors in three common instructional contexts (teacher directed, seat work, and small group). Significance to Educational Psychology Self-regulation influences learning and performance in educational environments

6. Methodology: Participants Ethnographic study to investigate differences between children�s observed self-regulatory behaviors in three common instructional contexts. Participants were 22 third grade girls and 29 third grade boys from a small midwestern university city, that were all white except for 1 Asian American and 3 children of mixed race. All participants came from two-parent, middle-class families.

7. Methodology: Procedure In order to assure observer agreement, the two observers were trained for 2 months by coding together in a third grade classroom not involved in the study. Observers visited each child 6 times during a mathematics lesson and 6 times during a science lesson. Observations in each subject were divided equally between the 3 different instructional contexts No more than three 5 minute intervals of data were collected for a child during one classroom observational visit in different instructional contexts.

8. Methodology: Measures Attention to instruction was rated on a 1-3 point scale with 3 being consistently following instructions. Seeking help from a teacher or peer, self-monitoring, and metacognitive talk were assessed by a frequency count of the behaviors. Disorganization was rated on a 1-3 point scale, with 3 being extremely disorganized. Teacher ratings of student grade on a scale of 1-5, 5 being excellent was collected during the spring semester.

9. Findings: Attention to Instruction Students were significantly less likely during teacher-directed instruction than during small group or seat work to attend to instructions. Almost half of the students (48%) listened attentively to and read instructions carefully during small-group instruction. Less than one third of the students (31%) did so during teacher-directed instruction. Twenty-seven percent of the students failed to follow instructions at least once during teacher-directed instruction, compared with 17% and 19% of the students during seat-work and small-group contexts, respectively.

10. Findings: Monitoring Progress Students were significantly less likely to monitor progress during teacher-directed instruction than during small-group instruction or seat work. Almost one third of the students (29%) were never observed monitoring their work during teacher-directed instruction, compared with 0% and 6% of the students during the seat-work and small-group contexts, respectively.

11. Findings: Help Seeking Students were significantly less likely to seek help during teacher-directed instruction than during small-group instruction or seat work. Over half of the students (58%) never sought help during teacher-directed instruction, whereas only 31% and 25% of the students never sought help during seat-work and small-group

12. Findings: Disorganization Students were significantly less likely to be disorganized during teacher-directed instruction than during the small-group or seat-work contexts. Few of the students (6%) were very disorganized during teacher-directed instruction. Fourteen percent and 16% of the students were very disorganized during seat work and small-group instruction

13. Findings: Metacognitive Talk Students were significantly more likely to talk about their thinking during small-group contexts compared with the teacher-directed or seat-work contexts. Almost two thirds of the students never discussed their thinking during the teacher-directed (65%) or seat-work (62%) contexts. In contrast, only 27% of the students never talked about their thinking during small-group instruction.

14. Findings: Teacher Ratings High ranks in attention to instruction, and frequent occurances of monitoring work, and metacognitive talk was correlated to higher teacher ratings. Highly disorganized ratings were correlated to lower teacher ratings Help seeking was not related to grades.

15. Findings: 4 types of students Students that do well in all contexts Students that do poorly in all contexts Students who excelled in small group contexts and were average in other contexts Students who excelled in seat work and were average in other contexts

16. Conclusions The results suggest that children are more self-regulated learners in small-group work and seat work. However, the results do not imply that teacher-directed instruction is not an effective means of teaching. Some strategies are more effectively taught and enhanced through teachers' direct instruction and modeling. Teachers' direct or explicit instruction of learning strategies can promote children's regulatory performance The classroom should include all three contexts to provide direct instruction, independent practice, and the opportunity to practice metacognitive skills in a social context

17. Reflections Teacher-directed instruction provides students with opportunities to learn while the teacher plays a role in regulating students' learning. This context may provide limited opportunities for children to practice self-regulated learning skills but will provide children with teacher regulation of their behavior, which will help their organization and attention. Seat work may provide an opportunity to practice self-regulation. Small-group work may provide both the opportunity and peer models for students to practice self-regulated learning strategies.

18. Reflections Because of the small sample size and the large number of variables, the results should be considered exploratory. It would be helpful to explore with a larger sample whether the 4 groups of students found in this study is supported in future studies. It may also be helpful to investigate what individual differences can be used to predict students� self regulation in the different instructional contexts. Possible differences that may be related to students� self-regulation in different instructional contexts are temperament, perception of control, and metacognitive skills.

19. Questions? The End