K-12 School Computer Networking/Chapter 25/The Use of Distance Learning Environments to Support Students' Self-regulation

Introducing Self Regulation

Self-regulation is a term that has increasingly moved to the forefront on pedagogical conversations. It refers to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are oriented to attaining goals (Zimmerman, 2000). This notion therefore, focuses on what students need to know about themselves in order to manage their limitations during efforts to learn. Consequently, metacognition: the awareness of and knowledge about one’s own thinking, becomes indispensable for the development of self-regulation.

In a study done by Shapiro (1984), he found that simply asking students to self-record some aspect of their learning, such as the completion of assignments, led to improvements in their overall functioning. Although there have been several studies establishing the relationship between self-regulation and success in school, there is still a lack of preparation for this purpose (Zimmerman, 2002).

Schunk & Zimmerman (1994;1998) have found that a student’s level of learning varies based on the presence or absence of these key self-regulatory processes:

1. Setting specific proximal goals for oneself 2. Adopting powerful strategies for attaining the goals 3. Monitoring one’s performance selectively for sign of progress 4. Restructuring one’s physical and social context to make it compatible with one’s goals 5. Managing one’s time use efficiently 6. Self-evaluating one’s methods 7. Attributing causation to results 8. Adapting future methods

Other authors refer to this goal as “learning to learn”, which can be understood as facilitating that each student is continuously learning how to improve their learning. The NORM acronym is an example of a set of powerful strategies, and emphasizes the importance of Note taking, Organizing, Relating, and Monitoring (Kiewra, 2002).

However, to actually go through these processes, students need to have the motivation, self-awareness, and behavioral skill to implement these strategies. The good news is that external support and providing a structure for this purpose can greatly enhance students becoming self-regulated.

The strategic distance that virtual learning environments could cover

Even though distance learning has not been applied in the K-12 context as extensively as in adult education, younger generations are increasingly relating to virtual environments earlier in life. This creates the potential to include blended curricula and web-based support at younger ages. As this has been progressively the case, children are interacting with and learning through virtual environments. Most of the cases these environments are designed to complement class objectives in some area of study or facilitate collaboration through online participation. As many colleagues have advocated, stimulating students’ participation on virtual environments that support their learning might allow them to develop an increasingly important skill for lifelong learning, in addition to their learning of the subject at hand. However, and even though I agree with the argument, I think that these environments should not only focus on providing a continuity and support for what’s been taught in the classroom.

As discussed above, even when self-regulation is directly responsible for school success, very few schools actually have explicit curricula for this purpose. Reasons for this may relate to the teachers capacity to support each student’s individual process, and the pressure to focus on the what’s been taught instead of the how it’s been learned.

The opportunity presented here is to find a way to facilitate the process of becoming a self-regulated student through the use of virtual environments. In this case, the attempted distance to be covered is not the one between the teachers’ knowledge and the student—as the notion of distance learning is usually understood, but the one between the students’ learning process and him or herself, and between this generated knowledge and the teachers and family of the child.

The advantages of supporting this process through virtual environments are manifold. It allows the creation of a “safe space” for this conversation, where students go to instead of being seen as something they deliver to someone else (i.e., homework). Virtual environments create a much better space for ongoing interaction, giving students, teachers and parents freedom to contribute. Imagine having a the possibility of structuring a process where students reflect about their on learning continuously, receiving feedback and support from teachers and parents. Now imagine having this recorded throughout the years, where each year, teachers have the possibility of learning from the journey that a particular student has traveled. What has worked, what hasn’t, what’s their current level of self-regulation? Imagine how empowering it would be to have a personalized space where each students works out the process of learning how to learn. Formalizing this process through a fun and interactive process might make a significant difference in students overall learning, and thus in the opportunities they will have in the future (Kiewra, 2002).

The challenge involved in this initiative consists on coming up with cues and probes that stimulate the development of the key self-regulatory processes mentioned above, and use self-reflection to support this process. The design of these contexts needs to be appropriate for each level of schooling in form and content, and role of the technical coordinator becomes crucial. They have the challenge of designing a virtual environment where students feel invited to share about their classroom experience, the way they’re relating to the material, what are they having difficulty with, what seems really easy, how are they experiencing the teaching method, what are they trying out to help themselves, are they asking for support, and if so, what kind of support? These of course are just examples of the type of knowledge this environment should generate. The level of participation of students is of course going to vary depending on their age, and therefore this environment should consider the participation of teachers and family, especially at young age.

What are the new demands that this initiative involves?

For any new initiative to become viable, we need to consider what are the demands involved and who must be willing to satisfy them. At this point, it is clear that the process of becoming self-regulated involves an important demand on the student. The difficulty of introducing a new practice requires support, and we have been discussing how a virtual environment might provide the appropriate context to bring these supports. Teachers are clearly the critical support of this process, their participation and full involvement gives formality to the process and assures that the insights and struggles of students will inform the pedagogical relationship. Therefore, the demands that a system like this places on the teacher are not trivial. It is crucial that its design is aligned with what the teacher is willing and agreeing to do, and should facilitate their participation.

The role of parents and other caregivers is also extremely relevant. Parents modeling self-regulatory skills as well as actively supporting their children’s use of these skills, give kids a significant advantage (Martinez-Pons, 2002). However, this type of parental support might not be easy to achieve in many homes. Family participation should be established a priori and made a priority between teachers and parents.

Conclusions

As technology coordinators become more of a strategic partner for faculty than technical advisers, they will play a role in introducing innovative curricula emerging from the advantages that instruction technology allows. The use of distance learning environments to promote the development of students’ self-regulation is a good example of this. The importance of self-regulation for academic success has been well established, though still not implemented in most schools. Creating virtual environments where teachers learn how to better support students, informed directly by students’ reflections about their learning process, has an enormous potential for enhancing the student-teacher partnership. In addition, stimulating continuous reflection about learning, creates a virtuous cycle of learning how to learn, thus contributing to students overall self-regulation and therefore to their possibility of succeeding academically.

Bibliography

Martinez-Pons, M. (2002). Parental Influences on Children's Academic Self-Regulatory Development.Theory into Practice, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 126-131.

Kiewra, K. A. (2002). How Classroom Teachers Can Help Students Learn and Teach Them How to Learn. Theory into Practice, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 71-80.

Shapiro, E. S. (1984). Self-monitoring procedures. In T.H. Ollendick & M. Hersen (Eds.), Child behavior assessment: Principles and procedures (pp. 148-165). New York: Pergamon.

Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attainment of self-regulation: A social perspective. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.) Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13-39). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner: An Overview. Theory into Practice, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 64-70.