Transforming Classroom Practices of Teachers and Students Through Training in Self-Regulation

• In Event: Promoting College and Career Readiness Through Self-Regulated Learning in the Classroom

Abstract

Research on self-regulation of learning (SRL) has revealed that when learners engage in self-regulatory processes, students achieve high levels of personal, academic, and professional outcomes in diverse contexts and social domains (e.g., Winne & Hadwin, 2008; Zimmerman, 2000). SRL has been applied to preparing future teachers to influence their students' learning (Dembo, 2011). Instruction in SRL serves as a framework for metacognitive knowledge and skill acquisition that in turn builds students who are college and career ready (White & DiBenedetto, 2015). Most teachers agree with the concept of supporting their students to become self-regulated learners; yet many of the teachers that they investigated reported to feel unsure about how that is done (Perry, Hutchinson, & Thauberger, 2008).
There are pedagogical approaches, curriculum choices, and student learning processes evident in learning environments that support self-regulation and are helping teachers and teacher educators transition successfully into standards based education. When viewed through an SRL lens, educational standards (e.g., Common Core) serve as an invitation to teachers and learners to use higher order thinking and employ the dimensions of learning through metacognitive awareness. Teacher educators from an urban institution incorporate SRL as the conceptual framework for training aspiring teachers (Bembenutty, White, & Velez, 2015). They aimed to help teacher candidates develop self-regulatory skills and to help them teach these same skills to students in their classrooms as agents of change in urban and culturally diverse educational settings.
This presentation will provide evidence of teaching approaches used to promote SRL among teacher candidates so that they can become models and implementers of SRL in their classrooms. Teacher records show a) the impact of incorporating self-regulated learning skills into test preparation, which helped students increase their scores on state exams; b) the impact of helping students in creating realistic goals and using a graphing strategy to self-monitor performance; and c) how students attributed their improvement to their self-regulatory behaviors and increased in self-efficacy lessening their anxiety for the test.

Authors

• Marie Catherine White, Nyack College

• Hefer Bembenutty, Queens College - CUNY