digital pedagog

By: Frances Rowe
Director of Instructional Design, Quinnipiac University Online

Models for self-regulated learning (SRL) are important to teachers attempting to understand why some students succeed and others have difficulty in any academic setting. Understanding SRL in online courses is especially vital because there is much agreement that successful online students are more self-disciplined and self-monitoring.

What is self regulated learning?

Self-regulation is a skill that keeps people focused on monitoring their task-completion progress and assists with multiple areas of human functioning, such as management of a chronic illness, athletic training, or learning in academic settings. SRL is a process which involves students’ intentional efforts to manage and direct complex learning activities in the pursuit of academic success.

What are the components of self-regulating the learning process?

• cognitive - refers to any learning strategies used to accomplish a given task

• metacognitive - the knowledge and self awareness students have to monitor their understanding and cognitive processes

• motivational -  the will to learn and students’ confidence in their ability to organize tasks and make judgements in executing the necessary course of action to achieve explicit types of outcomes

Unfortunately, not all students make the best use of cognitive strategies, are not self-motivated enough or do not self-monitor sufficiently. This may be particularly important in online courses where students are expected to complete academic activities with varying or limited guidance.  Nevertheless, researchers seem to agree that prompting students to follow SRL skills in online courses can facilitate student success.

So what does SRL look like in traditional courses?

Online students draw upon many of the same strategies as traditional students to monitor their learning such as:

• calendars and organizers
• self-imposed deadlines
  
• reducing distractions
  
• printing out and marking up instructional materials
• note taking
  
• keeping records of completed assignments
  
• assignment criteria, checklists or rubrics
  
• instructor comments and grades
  
• peer feedback to make judgments about the quality of their own work

and in cyberspace?

Online students take the above strategies a step further by devising unique ways to systematically manage the online environment in order to improve their learning including:

• daily logons to course Web site
• creating a psychological space like it is being in the classroom
• weekly plans for coordinating offline and online work
• planning for technical problems
• drawing on other students’ posts as models
• composing posts offline and then copying and pasting into the online forum
• tracking the number of comments or replies received on postings
• rereading and editing posts so that other students will want to comment
• frequent checks of the electronic grade book
• backing up any assignments submitted or posted to the electronic classroom
• reaching out to others to help them keep motivated

In short, successful online students use SRL in ways that are particular to the online environment in order to enhance their learning. However, not all online students understand how to leverage SRL therefore instruction and prompting for SRL in online courses may be something teachers will want to consider as they strive to design better online courses for their students. What are your thoughts on encouraging SRL in your online courses?

References:

Chang, M. (2007). Enhancing web-based language learning through self-monitoring. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 23(3).

Chen, B. (2007). Effects of advance organizers on learning and retention. College of Education, University of Central Florida.

Kauffman, D. (2004). Self-Regulated Learning in Web-Based Environments: Instructional Tools Designed to Facilitate Cognitive Strategy Use, Metacognitive Processing, and Motivational Beliefs. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 30(1).

Santhanam, R., Sasidharan, S., & Webster, J. (2008). Using Self-Regulatory Learning to Enhance E-Learning-Based Information Technology Training. Information Systems Research, 19(1.

Whipp, J., & Chiarelli, S. (2004). Self-Regulation in a Web-Based Course: A Case Study. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(4).