Self-regulated learning: a practical guide

1. Self-regulated learning: a practical guide September 15, 2009

2. Before we begin • I want this to be helpful for you • Focus on your interests, questions, experiences… • We’re going to have to self-regulate (co-regulate) during our time together • Define the task / activate relevant prior knowledge • Make a plan • Execute, monitor, and adapt plan as necessary • Speak up! Interject! • Once finished: evaluate our effectiveness

3. Defining the Task

4. Questions for you • How can school counselors contribute to the academic mission of the school? • Who taught you how to study? • Learning strategies? • Monitoring? • Adaptation when things go awry?

5. Activating Prior Knowledge

6. Self-Regulated Learning • SRL is “an active, constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation and behavior, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features in the environment” (Pintrich, 2000, p. 453) • Four assumptions: • Students are not passive learners • Students monitor and adapt • Students use goals to monitor and adapt • SRL mediates between learner, context, and performance

7. Self-Regulated Learning • SRL “compensates” for individual differences • Intelligence • Personality/temperament • Processing differences • SRL is not a skill or ability • Self-directive process

8. Zimmerman’s Model

9. SRL Processes • Setting specific, proximal goals • Adopting powerful strategies to attain goals • Monitoring one’s performance • Restructuring context • Effective time management • Adapting future processes

10. Boekaerts’ Model of SRL • Key points: • Social goals and cues influence upon how SRL is enacted • Social influences can lead to negative affect that must be regulated, or else rumination • Argues for dual-processing SRL model: • Growth pathway: students value academic goal, want to put energy into achieving, initiate activity • Well-being pathway: students focus on cues in learning environment, sensitive to unfavorable learning conditions, obstacles, drawbacks • Use energy to prevent more bad things from happening

11. Boekaerts’ Model • SRL can be adaptive OR maladaptive • Regulate to achieve academic and social goals • Students self-regulate to: • Develop competencies • Increase sense of belonging • Assist and empower others • Protect own well-being and self-esteem • Protect well-being and self-esteem from others • Above goals may be incompatible • Students must then balance performance and well-being

12. Making a Plan

13. Why Don’t Students Self-Regulate? • “It looks boring!” – Situational and long-term interest (catch and hold) • “It IS boring!” - Motivation • “Whatever, I’m not even paying attention” – Self-handicapping • “I’m just not smart enough” – Implicit Theories of Intelligence • “I don’t think I can do it” – Self-efficacy • “I don’t know how” – Expertise development • “I don’t need to SR to do well” – Classroom context; the dangers of “innate ability”

14. Executing, Monitoring, and Adapting the Plan

15. INTEREST

16. Interest • Personal • Situational • Both related to greater cognitive engagement, persistence, enjoyment • Some evidence situational may lead to less cognitive processing, poorer recall, inability to transfer learned info • Catch and hold ideas

17. Interest • Situational interest fostered by: • Variety • Novelty • Diversity • Meaningfulness • Relevance • Fantasy embellishment

18. MOTIVATION

19. Motivation matters! • Two dominant theories of motivation: • Self-determination theory • Achievement Goal/Goal orientation theory

20. Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci) • Emphasizes intrinsic motivation: need to be competent and autonomous in relation to environment • Intrinsic motivation is a natural state; it does not need to be created; rather, it is often extinguished • Extrinsic motivation: motivation to engage in actions that lead to desired results

21. Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci) • Relative to extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation associated with more: • Interest • Excitement • Confidence • Persistence • Creativity • Vitality • Self-esteem • All of above associated with better academic performance

22. Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci) • Intrinsic motivation fostered when needs met • Focus on three innate psychological needs: • Competence: need for mastering environment • Autonomy: internal locus of control • Relatedness/belongingness: desire to belong to or feel connected to group(s)

23. SDT • Intrinsic motivation decreases when people cannot be autonomous/self-determining • Not free to make choices • Not free to take responsibility for actions • Believe actions are extrinsically determined • External rewards squelch intrinsic motivation (sometimes) • Extrinsic motivators are not all bad! • Working on paper to earn BA and get a good job: ok • Working on paper just because parents will give you $50: bad

24. SDT • Extrinsic motivation can grow into intrinsic • External regulation can grow into self-regulation • How? By meeting these needs: • Competence: optimal challenges; informative, encouraging but honest feedback; foster self-efficacy • Autonomy: feeling of choice, opportunities for self-direction, educators creating climate of support for choice, lack of perceived threats/consequences • Relatedness: feeling of connection with others

25. SDT

26. Achievement Goal Theory • Achievement motivation • Goal theory • Goal orientation theory • Why do students choose to engage in some tasks and not others? • What are students’ goals when engaging in learning and academic tasks? • Standards of comparison • Personal v. classroom goals

27. Goal Orientations • Mastery goals: (learning or task goals) desire for increased knowledge or academic competence • Internal success criteria, self-comparison • Willing to work toward understanding • Value learning • Take risks to achieve goals

28. Goal Orientations • Performance goals:(ability, relative ability, competitive, ego-involved goals) desire to do well to get recognition or avoid shame/embarrassment • Want to be seen as smart • Comparisons with others as the standard • Competition, ranking = success • Avoid errors, loss of status • Grades more important than knowledge

29. Goal Orientations • Work-avoidant goals: exert the least amount of effort to complete work • Newer view • Reasons for work-avoidant goals • May see no purpose to learning • May find work boring, easy • May be socially uneasy in classroom • Beliefs about intelligence: • work hard = dumb • May have other needs

30. Elaborating Mastery and Performance Goals

31. Performance Avoidance • Do not want to look dumb • Self-handicapping • Reducing effort • Setting unattainably high goals • Taking on too much • Procrastinating • Cheating • Using alcohol, drugs • Allows students to justify poor grades using something other than their ability (or lack thereof) • These students consistently do the worst in school

32. Goal Orientations and Achievement • Mastery: consistently found to relate to positive outcomes, choice, persistence • Deep metacognitive and self-regulatory strategy use • Less frequent self-handicapping • BUT NOT ACTUAL GRADES! • Performance: findings mixed • Due to failure to consider approach v. avoid? • Pav: bad • Pap: mixed

33. Implicit Theories of Intelligence • Entity to incremental • Predictive of persistence, academic performance • Can lead to self-handicapping

34. SELF-EFFICACY

35. Self-Efficacy • Bandura • Judgments about ability to perform task • Domain-specific • Future-oriented • Controllable outcomes only • Self-Efficacy = “How well”

36. Sources of Self-Efficacy Beliefs • Verbal persuasion: feedback • Mastery experiences: past actions • Vicarious experiences: observations of like others • More similar = more impact upon self-efficacy • Physiological arousal: “My heart is racing, I must be worried about doing this.”

37. Other Influences on Self-Efficacy • Environmental conditions • Complexity of task, materials • Nature and quality of support • Importance of task • Kind of evaluation • Significance of feedback • Person’s domain knowledge and beliefs

38. Effects of Efficacy Beliefs • Choice of tasks • School/career choices • Motivation • Effort • Persistence • Low efficacy = less effort, persistence • Learning

39. EXPERTISE

40. What is expertise? • Expertise = • Ability (less important) + • Effort + • Deliberate, sustained practice + • Expert feedback

41. What is expertise? • Sternberg says: • Large schema/strategy/skill toolbox • Choosing good strategies • Understanding problems quickly • High levels of automation • Monitoring of problems and self • Takes 5-10 years / 50,000 hours

42. Skill Acquisition • Stages • Knowledge accumulation: declarative • Knowledge integration: conceptual knowledge and scripts • Automation and tuning: faster, stronger, better • Do skills differ from strategies?

43. Deliberate Practice • Intentional • Goal oriented • Systematic • In authentic setting • Feedback • Experts • Self • Books/guides

44. What comes first?

45. Limits of expertise • Can’t be expert >1 field? • Expertise is domain-specific • Conceptual rigidity • Expert blind spot effect

46. CLASSROOM CONTEXT, INNATE ABILITY

47. Classroom Tasks that Support Student Motivation • Think about context! • Dewey: interesting, complex, authentic tasks • Blumenfeld: classroom tasks socialize students to academic domains, expectations • McCaslin: kinds of tasks in classrooms help students determine importance of academic domain

48. Classroom Tasks that Support Student Motivation • Task characteristics are not static! • Vary by: • Personal characteristics (understood prior to sociocultural) • Domain of study • Instructional goals • Familiarity with instructional processes • Time of year

49. Classroom Tasks that Support Student Motivation • Motivation fostered by: • Moderate challenge • Interest • Curiosity • Increased student control • Embedded short-term goals • All of above determined by interaction of individual with context • How teacher designs, presents task • Sociocultural values

50. Classroom Tasks that Support Student Motivation • Students want a sense of control of tasks and their difficulty • Start complex but allow for control • Hands-on experimentation and research • Problem-based science • Students also want a sense of meaningfulness of tasks, and themselves to teachers