My Reflection on the LET Program so Far – Mentor Task 1.

1. Reflect your vision and expectation of the LET program.

So far I have come to view the LET program as living up to my expectations.

We’ve studied many different theoretical perspectives of educational psychology whilst also addressing ways in which technology can be used to enhance and improve the learning experience of students in relation to each perspective.

In my future studies I expect the LET program to keep up the standard of teaching displayed thus far when covering certain theoretical perspectives in greater depth. I also expect to have my knowledge of quantitative and qualitative methods further expanded upon from lesson so that my future research will be more valid.

2. Provide the suggestions how the program can be improved.

Perhaps it would be nice to have some optional coding courses implemented into the masters program so that students are able to create their own technological programs/software which they can then use for their thesis research – and/or to create software that will be beneficial in their future careers.

On a similar note, it would also be nice if some optional teacher training courses were available so that students can put the theories and methods they learn in class into practice.

Otherwise, I can’t think of any other suggestions to improve the LET course other than making course selection and timetabling easier to complete and read.

Solo Phase No.4: Assessing SRL

Planning Phase:

Describe your solo phase task:

Read the 2 articles we have been given, plan, make ICE notes and reflect.

What topics and concepts are related to your task?

• Rubrics and Self-assessment Scripts Effects on Self-regulation, Learning and Self-efficacy in Secondary Education.
•  How can Primary School Students Learn Self-regulated Learning Strategies Most Effectively? A Meta-analysis on Self-Regulation Training Programmes.

Set a goal for this work period:

3 days.

How confident are you that you will achieve your goal?

Semi-confident.

Main 3 Points From Each Article + 2 Ice Notes:

Article 1: Rubrics and Self-assessment Scripts Effects on Self-regulation, Learning and Self-efficacy in Secondary Education.

Key Points:

1. Self-assessment is a crucial process in self-regulation. Self-assessment can effected by the by the goals the student is pursuing, the teachers instructions and on the students perceived effectiveness of self-assessment. Therefore, it’s important to discover which interventions promoting self-assessment are best at developing self-regulation in students.
2. Self-regulation is a key ability needed to be successful in further education. Hence, it is important to intervene in students’ early academic years so that the students develop effective self regulation. Additionally, by intervening early in students’ academic learning, teachers can stop the development of performance and avoidance goals in students – which have a negative effect on their learning.
3. The use of both rubrics and scripts helps to promote self-assessment – and therefore self regulation. Hence, teachers should help students by providing them with both of these tools.

Ideas:

1. As a future teacher, I must remember to make sure that self-assessment criteria are clear to students from the beginning of the learning process. By doing this, my students can have clear expectations about what their goals should be – and should then be able to plan accordingly.
2. Even though rubrics help to promote self-regulation, they do so less than scripts. Therefore, it would be better for me to focus students’ attention on the process of the task/learning (as scripts do) than on performance (as rubrics do).

Connections:

After reading the article, my knowledge has been increased on how essential feedback can be in raising students self-regulation and, consequently, their ability to achieve academic success. I also learned more about the ways in which rubrics and scripts benefit student learning – and how to better implement these tools in my future learning (e.g- providing rubrics at the start of a course/task to help students establish appropriate goals).

Elaboration:

For my real life example, I’d like to explain how a rubric (provided by my teacher) was used to help me set my goals and regulate my learning for one of my courses.

Here is the rubric with which we access to at the start of the course:

By providing me with the above rubric, my teacher allowed me to see what the assessment criteria was for the task and the scale that would be used for grading.

Because I knew the assessment criteria (and what was required to reach a certain grade in that criteria), I was able to plan the time I would need to spend on research and writing more accurately than I would of been able to without the rubric. Hence, the rubric helped me manage my time wisely and also set very accurate goals for myself – as I knew what I needed to include in my final product to reach my desired grade (my goal).

Additionally, by using the rubric I was provided with, I was able to monitor my progress on my goal by self grading my work. This was done by comparing what I had written so far with the criteria in the rubric – then considering how my work compared to the criteria. Did it need editing or additional research? Did it need more of my own personal opinions or more scientific references? If so, the rubric helped me notice this – which allowed to make additions or modify my work in order to achieve my desired goal.

It is in such a way that rubrics can be used as a very helpful tool in helping students plan and achieve their goals.

Source: Panadero, E., Tapia, J.A. and Huertas, J.A. (2012). Rubrics and self-assessment scripts effects on self-regulation, learning and self-efficacy in secondary education. Learning and individual differences

Article 2:  How can Primary School Students Learn Self-Regulated Learning Strategies Most Effectively? A Meta-analysis on Self-Regulation Training Programmes.

Key Points:

1. Empirical studies have found that training programmes are more efficient if students are learning domain specific content. Therefore, learning strategy instruction should be related to context. Relating strategy instruction to context can be done easily by ingraining it within the regular course instruction itself.
2. Training programmes should create learning environments that are conductive to self-regulated learning – so that learners have the chance to apply and practice their newly acquired learning strategies.
3. Research has found that young children benefit the most from self-regulated learning training. One major reason for this is because, during their early academic years, students construct their learning and self-efficacy attitudes – and these attitudes are easier to direct towards positive learning styles and behaviour whilst they are still developing (in comparison to attempting to change the attitudes once they have already established negative learning styles and behaviour).

Ideas:

1. When trying to teach learning strategies to my future students, I must remember to try and make sure that my interventions are integrated into the learning context itself to enhance the intervention’s effectiveness. It is also important to take the various different aspects of learning into consideration – paying attention to both the metacognitive and motivational aspects of learning and making an effort to combine the two within my interventions.
2. Research has shown that the interventions conducted by researchers are more effective than the interventions conducted by regular teachers. One explanation for this is that – as researchers are the ones who developed the interventions – they better understand how best to implement the interventions. Therefore, in order to attempt to combat this problem, I should try and attempt to receive guided and detailed instruction from an expert when learning new intervention strategies. By doing so, I would hope to elevate my ability to effectively use interventions correctly.

Connections:

Although I learned a lot from this article, I feel the biggest contributions to my knowledge fell into two areas. Firstly, the importance of integrating learning strategies into context was reinforced for me. And, secondly, my knowledge on constructing effective training programmes grew: I now understand that the most effective training programmes should train cognitive (elaboration + problem solving strategies), metacognitive (planning strategies) and motivational strategies (e.g – feedback on work) – whilst providing information on strategy use and its benefit to learning.

Elaboration:

For my real life example I’d like to consider how a teacher could implement a metacognitive and motivational strategy to help a student self-regulate their learning. Within this example I will use the fictional student I used in my other elaboration – John.

It is halfway through the course year and John has been given his first graded assignment – to choose a book and write an analytical essay on it. John is fairly confused on how to begin the task and is also feeling fairly unmotivated to start work. Due to this, John asks his teacher for guidance.

Upon asking for help John is presented with a flow chart (acting as a script) and instructed to read it through thoroughly before he begins using it. He is told to come back and discuss with the teacher whenever he wants to – although the teacher informs him that he/she will come and check sporadically on his progress.

An example flow chart is given below – which I will make context related to increase it’s effectiveness (by including example questions that could be present in the flow chart):

(Source: http://www.agweb.com/article/steps_for_strategic_planning/)

In using the flow chart John is able to commence working on the task.

He visualizes his future state and writes down what he wants to achieve (setting his goals – e.g: “What book do you want to write about?”).

He then analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of his set goal – and considers what opportunities he can take to achieve his goal and what threats may hamper achieving the goal (SWOT analysis of his goal – e.g: “What are the strengths or writing about this book? Are there any weaknesses? What opportunities can you take to help yourself write about this book? Are there any threats that could hamper your progress?”).

He then reflects on why he is attempting to achieve this goal (purpose and value) and writes his reasons down (a motivational strategy – e.g: “Why do you want to write this essay? What is the point in completing this task?”).

Following this he considers critical issues that might have arisen from his SWOT analysis.

After doing so, he is able to reflect upon his goal and make changes if the critical issues are particularly bothersome.

He then begins to form an action plan (study plan/work plan) to manage his time effectively and meet the deadline set for the work.

Afterwards, he is able to begin following his action plan and commences work on the task – knowing that he must monitor and revise during the course of his work (as the teach instructed him to first read the whole flowchart).

During this whole process the teacher is able to check up on John to see if any help is required in the setting of his goals and provide feedback on his work so far (assisting the use of the metacognitive strategies and motivational strategies being used).

Hence, by providing John with the flow chart and supporting him, the teacher guides John in self-regulating his learning. Hopefully this guidance allows him to successfully achieve his set goals and complete the task at hand.

Source: : Dignath, C., Buettner, G., Langfeldt, H-P. (2008). How can primary school students learn self-regulated learning strategies most effectively? A meta-analysis on self-regulation training programmes. Educational Research Review, 3, pp. 101-129

Reflection:

Recall your Solo phase planning. How well did you succeed? Why?

I failed at succeeding in achieving my goals as I became ill during the implementation of my plan.

Describe one challenge that you had during your task performance:

Being ill has been the biggest challenge I have faced in completing this task. Due to being sick – I often found it hard to focus clearly on the task at hand. Even sometimes encountering physical problems (headaches, nausea, etc) that hampered my ability to follow my study plan.

What did you do to help yourself when facing a challenge?

I broke down my work hours into much smaller amounts and spread them out over a much longer period of time. This helped me progress slowly through the work and also allowed me to make sure the quality of work I was producing was meeting my usual standards.

What could you do differently next time?

Eat more vegetables and wash my hands?…or get a better immune system. Maybe all of three? Hahaha.

A Reflection on my UBIKO Experience.

A week or so ago I had the privilege of attending the UBIKO (which stands for ubiquitous technology enhanced learning) school in Oulu with my classmates.

UBIKO – for those of you that don’t know – is a pedagogical development project that uses many approaches in order to adapt school life to the needs of 21st century learning. The UBIKO project seeks to: develop the curriculum, find effective methods to promote self-regulation in primary school pupils, develop teamwork among teachers and enrich multi-locational learning in school context.

Question 1: How do you perceive/see the UBIKO environment?

As someone who is very much a novice teacher, I believe my original perceptions of the UBIKO environment would of been very shallow if it wasn’t for the pamphlet and presentation we were given. It was only due to the guidance and teaching of an expert that I was able to see all the underlying changes to traditional school life and understand what their purpose was.

However, after following up the tour with self study at home, I feel confident that I can somewhat analyze the changes to the traditional school environment made by the UBIKO program.

The first thing I noticed was that there were many communal places in the school: there was a ship filled with cushions where the students were able to sit in groups comfortably, there were also two more traditional rooms that contained a circular table with chairs and, finally, in the classrooms the desks were able to be easily rearranged into whatever order the students wished them to be. Hence, due to the many communal places at hand, the students are given many opportunities to think and reason together in environments that they find the most stimulating (which promotes co-regulation).

Secondly, I realized that students were actually given a lot of choice when it came to learning. Not only were they able to choose the location and modify the environment, but they were also able to choose whether they wanted to work in pairs, groups or alone in a technology enhanced environment (which promotes socially shared regulation).

Finally, something that I found really interesting, was how the emphasis on the teachers’ role in supporting the pupils’ self-regulation processes – rather than merely traditionally teaching facts at the front of the class.

Personally, as someone who was taught in a traditional manner, it was easy to notice the changes that were present in the UBIKO school. Although my original understanding of how the changes could benefit the students was pretty shallow – after guidance and self study I feel that I am better able to evaluate learning environments.

For example, when evaluating learning environments, I must pay attention to the extent with which students are able to modify and shape their environment (which supports the promotion of SRL), their opportunities to work collaboratively together (shared regulation) and how easily/effectively students can receive feedback/help on their work (teachers fostering self-regulation). If I can see that the learning environment is meeting such criteria,  I would be able to suggest that students’ SRL was being facilitated. Due to this, the students’ future learning in higher education might improve as they would become better self-regulated learners than those taught with only traditional methods.

Question 2: How are the UBIKO ideas transferable to other context? Choose the context.

It is important to mention, as Bransford and Schwartz (1999) highlight, that previous knowledge learned is not always directly applicable to other contexts. We must do more that simply replicate knowledge (“knowing that”) or apply knowledge (“knowing how”) to new contexts – we must think, perceive and judge with everything that we have learned before when faced with a new problem (“knowing with”). Therefore, it would be erroneous of me to directly apply the UBIKO ideas to a different context. However, I can use what I have learned from the UBIKO program to help me approach other problems.

For example, I could use the ideas of the UBIKO project to tackle a problems in a work place context. I could consider how UBIKO provided many different places for students to work together collaboratively (promoting co and shared regulation) and then see if the same approach (providing multiple places for people to meet) would also work in helping to promote a good community amongst work colleagues.

Another example, could be allowing workers to construct/modify their working environment. By doing this we could see if it has any affect on the quality of work being produced, the speed with which the work is produced or the happiness of employees (much in the same way that allowing a flexible environment promotes SRL in students).

Final Statement.

All in all I found my trip to the UBIKO school to be very enlightening. Although I am still very far away from being able to call myself an expert in such things  – I feel that after my visit and following self study – I am better able to perceive what constructs a positive learning environment and how to manufacture a similar learning environment in the future (paying attention to students’ opportunities to moderate their environment and regulate their own/each others learning).

Reading:

Bransford, J. D. & Schwartz, D. L. (1999). Chapter 3: Rethinking Transfer: A Simple Proposal With Multiple Implications. Review of Research in Education, 24(1), 61–100. DOI:10.3102/0091732X024001061

Schempp, P. G & Johnson, S. W. (2006). Learning to see: Developing the perception of an expert teacher. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 77(6), 29–33.

Solo Phase No.3: Strategies and SRL

Planning Phase:

Describe your solo phase task:

Read the 3 articles we have been given, plan, make ICE notes and reflect.

What topics and concepts are related to your task?

• Self-Regulation and Learning Strategies.
• Focusing the Conceptual Lens on Metacognition, Self-regulation, and Self-regulated Learning.
• Promoting Effective Task Interpretation as an Important Work Habit: A Key to Successful Teaching and Learning.

Set a goal for this work period:

3 days.

How confident are you that you will achieve your goal?

Confident.

Main 3 Points From Each Article + 2 Ice Notes:

Article 1: Self-Regulation and Learning Strategies.

Key Points:

1. Learning strategies involve the use of cognition, metacognition, motivation, affect, and behaviour to increase the probability of succeeding in learning, creating meaningful and retrievable memories, and performing higher order cognitive tasks. Additionally, learning strategies help student to take responsibility for their own learning and become lifelong learners.
2. Strategic learners have the skill, will and self-regulation needed to be effective and efficient learners. These 3 components interactive with each other to create effective and efficient learning.
3. Students need to acquire three types of knowledge for any strategy to be useful for them: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge. Having these types of knowledge allows the student to effectively and efficiently choose learning strategies that are appropriate for the situation at hand.

Ideas:

1. The idea of will being an essential component necessary to become an effective and efficient learner is interesting to me – as it is again something that is related to self-efficacy and therefore my thesis. Having ‘will’ means that the learner is able to set, analyze and use short-term and long-term goals, use future time perspectives and goal hierarchies to generate motivation, create enabling beliefs (self efficacy) and generate a positive mindset in regards to learning. Whereas, conversely, having a lack of ‘will’ results in self sabotaging beliefs, low self-efficacy and high anxiety within students. Therefore, it would be wise to investigate and research all the affects that ‘will’ has on self-efficacy – so that I am better able to structure and analyze my thesis results.
2. It is important for students to have a large learning strategy repertoire – so that they can use the best learning strategies for the task at hand. Due to this, as a future college/university teacher, I must remember to persevere in using interventions (teaching learning strategies) to help students become more strategic and self-regulated learners. This can be done by setting up learning center workshops and creating a metacurriculum for my students.

Connections:

After reading this article my knowledge on the use, implementation and acquisition of learning strategies was expanded upon. My knowledge extended from merely knowing about learning strategies – to understanding the categories under which certain learning strategies fall (e.g. – rehearsal strategies, elaboration learning strategies and organization strategies) and how students are able to acquire learning strategies from teachers.

Elaboration:

For my real life example, I’d like to focus on how a elaboration learning strategy could be taught to a learner and then used by them to assist in their learning. Whereas, in my other elaboration notes, my constructions were merely abstract scenarios – I will instead now use my own current learning situation in this SRL course as an example.

Upon starting this SRL course we were told we would be required to write and produce ‘ICE’ notes. We were then informed on what ICE notes actually were and what they consisted of (Ideas, Connections and Elaboration). A worksheet for creating ICE notes was posted online to assist us in the construction of our notes. In doing this, our teachers instilled in us an elaboration learning strategy.

As the ICE notes require us to state the IDEAS that are most meaningful for us from each topic, CONNECT them to our previous knowledge and then ELABORATE on what we have learned (by asking us to create real life examples) – we are adding to and modifying the information we are absorbing, thus making it more memorable and meaningful to us. Therefore, in constructing ICE notes, we use an elaboration strategy to assist us in our learning.

Source: Weinstein, C. E., Acce, T. W., & Jung, J. (2011). Self-regulation and  learning strategies. New Directions for Teaching and Learning,  126, 45–53.

Article 2: Promoting Effective Task Interpretation as an Important Work Habit: A Key to Successful Teaching and Learning.

Key Points:

1. To be successful academically, students need to use a consistent approach (a work habit) when tackling academic tasks. They need to carefully interpret the demands of the tasks – otherwise they may proceed down learning pathways that are non-optimal and even harmful to their learning.
2. Within the learning environment (lectures, group discussions, individual tutorials, set reading, assignments, tests, etc) teachers have the potential to influence students’ construction of knowledge and competency over many domains.  Therefore, learning environments can be seen to shape the approaches students use for learning and their learning outcomes.
3. Understanding task purpose, structure and components are all essential for students successful navigation of academic work. For example, “a learner with a strategic learner with a clear vision of purpose can engage in work more efficiently and strategically if he/she also understands how the task is structured and typical task components.”

Ideas:

1. As students’ interpretations of tasks affects their planning, strategies and how they evaluate their performance during monitoring and self-evaluation – it is important, as a teacher, to make sure that students’ task interpretation is not faulty. Otherwise, learning will be derailed even if the student is working hard (as they will fail to focus on the intended learning goals).
2. In order to combat the above problem, teachers must make sure that all aspects of a course convey the same meaning to students in regards to what will be achieved through completing assignments and examinations. Therefore, when designing the learning environment, teachers should pay attention to the connections between the activities and tasks they use, their instructional practices and the evaluation criteria of the course. In doing this, teachers can lower the possibility of students misinterpreting the tasks.

Connections:

The contents of this article presented me with a large amount of new information. Although I always understood on a basic level the importance of correctly interpreting a task – I never knew of the many complexities that can contribute towards failing to interpret a task correctly. Additionally, my knowledge on how important the role a teacher plays in successful task interpretation and the ways in which they can assist students’ in interpreting tasks was also expanded upon.

Elaboration:

For my real life example, I’d like to consider a few ways in which a teacher can help to promote successful task interpretation for students.

A very simple and basic way of supporting task interpretation could be by highlighting the goals underlying each activity. This could be done by making a hand out with the goals written down or by clarifying the expectations of an assignment. However, in doing this it is not necessarily guaranteed that students’ will reflectively and actively (self-regulation) interpret the information.

Therefore, in order to encourage efficacious self-regulation and task interpretation – teachers can construct activities promoting such things. For example, teachers could ask students to summarize task criteria and plans before allowing them to commence work on the task. In doing this, teachers are able to discover if the students’ interpretation of the task is correct and then act accordingly if it is not.

If such support is continuous, then over time the teachers students will become more likely to adopt task interpretation as a work habit.

Source:

Butler, D. L. and Cartier, S. C. (2004). Promoting Effective Task Interpretation as an Important Work Habit: A Key to Successful Teaching and Learning. Teachers College Record,  106 (9), pp. 1729-1758.

Article 3: Focusing the Conceptual Lens on Metacognition, Self-regulation, and Self-regulated Learning.

Key Points:

1. Metacognition, self-regulation and self-regulated learning have a conceptual core binding the three of them together: that individuals make efforts to monitor their thought and actions and to attempt to gain control over them. However, the educational research community should still try to be concise when using the terms – as there are conceptual differences beyond the conceptual core.
2. Educational researchers should make a point in striving to adequately define metacognition, SR and SRL terms and use them in a concise manner. So that confusion will be lessened when it comes to creating, reading and understanding research.
3. Although SRL has qualities related to both metacognition and SR – what distinguishes it is its exclusive focus on academic learning. It did not find its way to the classroom – it was born there.

Source:

Dinsmore, D. L., Alexander, P. A., & Louglin, S. M. (2008). Focusing the conceptual lens on metacognition, self-regulation, and self-regulated learning. Educational Psychology Review.

Reflection:

Recall your Solo phase planning. How well did you succeed? Why?

I succeeded well as I managed to stick to my study plan and complete the work in the allotted time.

Describe one challenge that you had during your task performance:

Again, one challenge that I had whilst completing this task was motivation to stick to the study plan I had set myself. Although, this time it was fairly easy to motivate myself as – after talking to my teachers – I found out that only 2 ICE notes were needed from the topic.

What did you do to help yourself when facing a challenge?

I reminded myself that by sticking to my study plan I would be able to complete the work on time and alleviate any stress I might feel from the work load. I also kept in mind that I wouldn’t have to do as much work to complete the task – so I would be done sooner and be able to relax more.

What could you do differently next time?

I could try and space the studying time out over a longer period of time, so I can take a more leisurely pace in completing the work. Although I don’t really feel it is necessary as I am fairly happy with my current working schedule. I just need to remember to keep my motivation up so I can stick to my study plans.

Solo Phase No. 2: Motivation and SRL

Planning Phase:

Describe your solo phase task:

Read the 3 articles we have been given, plan, make ICE notes and reflect.

What topics and concepts are related to your task?

• Motivational Sources and Outcomes of Self-Regulated Learning and Performance.
• Regulation of Motivation: Evaluating an Underemphasized Aspect of Self-Regulated Learning.
• Emotion Control in Collaborative Learning Situations: Do student regulate emotions evoked by social challenges?

Set a goal for this work period:

4 days.

How confident are you that you will achieve your goal?

Confident.

Main 3 Points From Each Article + Ice Notes:

Article 1: Motivational Sources and Outcomes of Self-Regulated Learning and Performance.

Key Points:

1. Positive motivational feelings and beliefs are important in helping students to self-regulate their learning. High motivation has been found to increase students’ attention, choice of task, effort and persistence whilst working. Thus, we can suggest that motivation plays a very important role in initiating, guiding, and sustaining a students efforts to self-regulate their learning.
2. One motivational source is interest. Interest plays an important part in self-regulated learning (SRL). It has been proposed that 4 phases of interest take place that lead to SRL. In phase 1, a situational interest is triggered spontaneously – such as being invited to an art class by a friend. In phase 2, the original situational interests are maintained by the environment – such as other friendly art students. During phase 3, students develop individual interest, which leads them to reengage with the task after external supports have gone – such as signing up for more art classes. Finally, in phase 4, a well developed interest makes one actively seek out opportunities to engage in and identify personally with the task – such as when an artist strives to pursue a high level of creative skill. It is in this 4th phase that interest becomes highly supportive in the student’s effort to self-regulate their learning.
3. Another motivational source is self-efficacy which also plays a key role in SRL. Self-efficacy refers to a student’s assumed personal capabilities to succeed in relation to a task. Due to this, students with high self-efficacy are expected to work harder and persist longer than students with low self-efficacy. Self-efficacy can be seen to have a major role in motivating forethought phase goal setting; as it affects motivational beliefs about how effective a student’s goal setting and strategic planning is – and therefore whether such metacognitive forms of task analysis should be used in the future. Additionally, self-efficacy also plays a role in students’ performance phase efforts – as it affects efforts to regulate study time, resist adverse peer pressures and self monitor.

Ideas:

1. Although I was already aware that motivation was important – I had little understanding of how closely intertwined it was with all of the metacognitive processes continually taking place in SRL. Hence, in the future, I should be mindful in making sure that my students motivation is continuously high – otherwise, regardless of the phase of learning, it can affect their academic success if it is too low.
2. In regards to developing/building motivation – it is important to realize how to facilitate interest in the subject matter. Not only must I initiate situational interest – but I must sustain it environmentally so that individual interest has a chance to develop. Which, in turn, will be beneficial for learning as it is highly supportive in students’ efforts to self-regulate.

Connections:

As always, there was a lot of new information contained within the article. However, I believe the greatest contribution to my knowledge has been on self-efficacy. Before, I was only aware of the basic notion of self-efficacy (what it meant and how high self-efficacy is generally correlated with higher academic achievement). Now I better understand how self-efficacy is a source of motivation and how it is able to affect the forethought and performance phase processes of learning.

Elaboration:

For my real life example I’d like to consider how interest in a school subject could be manifested by the teacher for a less interested student. By creating interest, the teacher would raise their motivation and increase the likelihood that the student will achieve academic success in the subject.

A student called John shows little interest in his music course – the teacher must first start by initiating a situational interest for him. This could be done by inviting him to watch the school musicians perform. After introducing him to the musicians, the teacher could allow John to choose an instrument to learn under guidance from one of the musicians. Providing that the other musician is nice and John has a good time – John’s situational interest would remain. This would allow John to develop an individual interest where he seeks to reengage in the learning activity by attending the school band meetings. Upon doing this, John could continue to develop a deeper personal interest which would lead to his studying harder in music class – as he wishes to achieve expertise in the field of music.

In this manner, John would be provided with the motivation to study harder and thus have the chance to improve his academic grade.

Source: Zimmerman, B. J. (2011). Motivational sources and outcomes of self-regulated learning and performance. In B. J. Zimmerman, & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 49–64). New York: Routledge.

Article 2: Regulation of Motivation: Evaluating an Underemphasized Aspect of Self-regulated Learning.

Key Points:

1. Although the process of motivation regulation is interrelated with processes that account for motivation itself – it is possible to distinguish between the two. Regulation of motivation concerns only the manner through which students attempt to deliberately influence their motivation with thoughts and actions. Whereas, cognitive models of motivation do not generally propose that students are even aware of the underlying processes that affect their motivation or that students purposefully attempt to alter such processes.
2. There are numerous strategies for regulating motivation such as: self-consequating, goal-orientated self-talk, interest enhancement, environmental structuring, self-handicapping, attribution control, efficacy mangement, proximal goal setting, defensive pessimism, efficacy self-talk and emotion regulation – to name but a few.
3. Teachers are able to increase students’ understanding and use of motivational regulation strategies (MRS) through well designed instructional interventions. However, more research needs to be done in this area to discover what types of strategies can be fostered through intervention. Also, further work is needed to refine the methods through which MRS can be taught to students – to increase the effectiveness with which MRS are taught.

Ideas:

1. A student’s motivation is actually very malleable. Change can be influenced via the use of many different MRS which teachers are able to actively intervene in and teach.
2. Students’ understanding of the many different MRS is important so they are able to regulate their behaviour properly and achieve effective SRL.

Connections:

Again, there was an overwhelming amount of new information presented to me in this article. However, the most beneficial information was in regards to the use of efficacy self-talk as an MRS. As I intend to do my thesis on how to best raise self-efficacy in an online environment – the idea that students may be able to raise their self-efficacy values through thoughts or subvocal statements is highly interesting. This new information has prompted me to investigate how effective efficacy self talk is and whether I should factor such a method of motivational regulation into my thesis hypothesis.

Elaborate:

For my real life example I’d like to focus on the use of self-handicapping as a MRS and the positive and negative affects it has on SRL – as I feel it is a very interesting strategy (one that I myself sometimes partake in). John will help me explain my thoughts again here.

A scenario in which self-handicapping could occur could be as follows: John has an essay due in two weeks. However, John is afraid about not doing so well on the essay and due to this he delays his commencement of the task until 3 days before the hand in. During the last 3 days, John realizes the deadline is close and puts in a lot of time and effort to complete the task to the best of his abilities and meet the deadline. John feels relieved after handing in the work and reminds himself that, whatever grade he receives, could be better if he would if simply put more time into the working process.

In the above scenario, John is able to maintain his self esteem and self-efficacy beliefs as he can attribute any possible failure to another factor (time spent on task) other than his own academic ability. Such reasoning can be beneficial as it would serve to stop John’s complete withdrawal from the task and allow him to complete the work without worry. Additionally, by using such a strategy, John is also able to stop focusing on the performance aspects of the task (as he has an excuse for any possible failure) and instead can relax and focus solely on completing the task to the best of his ability. However, self-handicapping is still a maladaptive activity because it impedes John’s optimal ability to complete the task (e.g. – John would of doubtlessly done better if he would of spent more time researching the topics and structuring the essay).

Source: Wolters, C. A. (2003). Regulation of Motivation: Evaluating an Underemphasized Aspect of Self-Regulated Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38 (4), pp. 189-205.

Article 3: Emotion Control in Collaborative Learning Situations: Do students regulate emotions evoked by social challenges?

Key Points:

1. Regulation processes go beyond individual regulation in group work as group members regulate their motivation, emotions and cognition together due to a shared responsibility for completing the task.
2. Students are able to employ three qualitatively different regulation processes in order to reach their goals in group work. These are: self-regulation (individual regulates him/herself), co-regulation (individuals assist each other in regulation) and shared-regulation (some/all of the group members regulate themselves together). These forms of regulation are not mutually exclusive and are not representative of set stages of regulation – they are all able to coexist simultaneously.
3. The roles of emotions and motivation are central in collaborative learning. Positive emotions can produce high motivation in group work – which contributes to advanced interactions and communication in the co-construction of knowledge. Conversely, negative emotions can produce low motivation which hampers the co-construction of knowledge within group work. Thus, the regulation of emotion is important in achieving successful collaboration.

Ideas:

1. In order to create successful collaborative environments as a teach I must be aware of students’ characteristics, goals and demands when structuring group work. As, if their characteristics, goals and demands conflict, socio-emotional challenges will be create which will harm the collaborative working process.
2. As a teacher, it would be beneficial to scaffold both cognitive and socio-emotional processes for students. So that they have the chance to improve their ability to successfully collaborate during group work – which will result in higher academic achievement.

Connections:

Reading this article was very interesting as it broadened my understanding on the complexities of collaborative learning. I learned that not only goal setting, task participation and reflection are important in contributing to successful collaborative work. But also that effective regulation of emotions within the group is necessary for each individual to be able to commit fully to the task at hand. In particular, I deepened my understanding on the methods through which group members are able to regulate each other emotions through the use of co- and shared-regulation – and how working together with the same members for extended periods of time can result in easier collaboration.

Elaborate:

For my real life example I’d like to look at how co-regulation of emotion could function beneficially within a group and raise the academic quality of the group work. Once again, I’ll be using my imaginary student John and his group member Alice.

For his English Literature class John is placed into a group where the task is to read and construct a presentation that analyzes a course book. On being placed in the group, John listens to the others as they start to debate the themes and motifs within the book. John starts to feel nervous as he considers that his own interpretations of the book are not as good as the others. Due to this he remains silent. Alice notices that John is quiet and discretely talks to him as the others continue to debate the book. John confides in Alice that he feels nervous about sharing his ideas on the book. Alice assures him that she had the same feeling and fears as well – but that there is no wrong way to interpret the book and that all ideas can spark knew thoughts in the group. Upon hearing this John’s anxiety about contributing in the discussion is lessened and he is able to finally start participating in the collaborative process.

Because Alice intervened and co-regulated John’s emotions – John was able to participate in the group work, bringing all his knowledge, ideas and opinions with him. Due to this, the final group product (the presentation) was more varied and of better quality overall. Which means that Alice’s co-regulation of emotions resulted in the work becoming higher in academic quality.

Source: Järvenoja, H., & Järvelä, S. (2009). Emotion control in collaborative learning situations – do students regulate emotions evoked from social challenges? British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 463-481.

Reflection:

Recall your Solo phase planning. How well did you succeed? Why?

I succeeded well as I managed to stick to my study plan and complete the work in the allotted time and to what I believe/hope to be a decent standard.

Describe one challenge that you had during your task performance:

This time my main challenge was in selecting what key points, ideas, connections and elaborations to talk about. There is so much new information that I often feel like I should write 3000 word essays on the content of each article. However, this would take a lot of time to do and would prove impossible with my university schedule. Regardless, I often feel like I should talk more on some topics or that I should instead discuss other topics. Due to this, it can be quite time consuming and frustrating when deciding what to write – as I worry about whether I am meeting the task requirements of this course or not.

What did you do to help yourself when facing a challenge?

I reminded myself that I was meeting the task requirements to the best of my knowledge and ability. Additionally, by reminding myself of this, I tried to lower my anxiety over meeting the task requirements – which let me focus on completing the task at hand.

What could you do differently next time?

I could talk to my tutors to see if I am meeting the task requirements so far. If so, then I can relax and continue to work on the following tasks in a more happy and motivated manner.

Solo Phase No. 1: What is SRL?

Planning Phase:

Describe your solo phase task:

Read the 3 articles we have been given and follow the worksheet we have been provided with for our solo phase.

What topics and concepts are related to your task?

• A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic Learning.
• Self-Regulation in the Classroom: A Perspective on Assessment and Intervention.
• Self-regulated, co-regulated, and socially-shared regulation of learning.

Set a goal for this work period:

2 days.

How confident are you that you will achieve your goal?

Semi-confident.

Main 3 Points From Each Article + Ice Notes:

Article 1: Self-Regulated, Co-Regulated, and Socially Shared Regulation of Learning.

Key Points:

1. The field (regulation of learning) that examines social influences on self-regulation, co-regulation and socially shared regulation needs to be consistent when using the terms: self-regulated learning (SRL), co-regulated learning (CoRL) and socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) – as the lack of stable terminology in all the 3 areas (SRL, CoRL, and SSRL) leads to mass confusion as they often use and interchange terms.
2. Researchers need to clearly identify the exact processes and constructs under investigation; so that it is easy to be able to identify if the research is in SRL, CoRL or SSRL.
3. That future research in the field should examine exactly when groups and individuals encounter challenge episodes in their learning – so that it becomes easier to understand why the motivational and cognitive strategies being deployed are used.

Ideas:

1. Attempting to construct consistent terminology is incredibly important. Even now, when I was reading through the 3 articles, I found myself becoming a little lost with the terms being used as so many of them were interchangeable.
2. That there are actually many ways in which one’s self-regulation can be affected; and that it is important to be able to determine how it is being affected (SRL, CoRL, SSRL) when being researched. This is especially important for me as my thesis is going to be on a main factor influencing SR – self-efficacy.

Connections:

I only knew before about the affect an individual learner was able to have on regulating their own learning. I had no prior knowledge that CoRL and SSRL existed and could be substantial in moderating one’s own regulation. The key concept I gained from this article was my first knowledge on the existence of CoRL and SSRL – and how group members and social situations are able to affect/moderate one’s self-regulation.

Elaboration:

A possible real life occurrence of social factors affecting one’s regulation could come from working in a group (CoRL). Although I had never considered it before, when working in a group, successful interaction with group members can be seen to almost force one into mediating their regulation within the group setting; this ‘forced regulation’ comes as group members interact with and give feedback on each others ideas/work. By giving feedback each members regulatory expertise then becomes shared amongst the group. After the group is disbanded – or the task is completed – individuals have the ability to adopt or adapt regulation strategies that worked for them (which were shown to them by their group members). Hence, by assimilating beneficial regulation strategies from their group members –  the individuals personal regulation can be altered due to social factors.

Source:

Hadwin, A.F., Järvelä, S., & Miller, M. (2011). Self-regulated, co-regulated, and socially-shared regulation of learning. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.),Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 65-84). New York, NY: Routledge.

Article 2: Self-Regulation in the Classroom: A Perspective on Assessment and Intervention.

Key Points:

1. A combination of assessment tools (triangulation) should be used when evaluating/examining SRL – because if the results appear similar across the board, then researchers can be reasonably sure that the data is valid. This, in turn, makes sure that any further research in SR (self-regulation) studies has a solid base to build upon. Also, SR assessment should extend beyond the standardized indicators of looking at academic achievement – and instead start to consider how students generate and use SR strategies when chasing their goals in response to their environment.
2. There are many different ways for teachers to affect improvements on students SR. But teachers should be aware of each students individual ability to SR when attempting to increase the effectiveness of their SRL (as students can respond differently to different methods of teaching how to SR). Also, in order to improve student SRL effectively teachers should attend classes that inform them on how best to model and teach SR.
3. Even though research suggests that classroom education is able to positively affect student SR – constraints (such as conflicting goals or inappropriate teaching methods) still remain in classroom environments; which can compromise being able to improve SR for large numbers of students’ simultaneously.

Ideas:

1. During my future career in teaching – I should be mindful that each student is unique in the way that they learn. By keeping this in mind when attempting improve their self-regulation, I’ll remember to try and implement more varied SR strategies when failures occur.
2. I myself need to make sure I am up to date with the latest knowledge on self-regulation strategies/research – so that my teaching methods are efficient. Also, if possible, I should try to attend future courses for teachers that inform us on how to effectively teach SR to students.

Connections:

There was a great deal of information contained within this article. But I feel the greatest advances to my knowledge are related to being better able to understand the degree to which student goals are able to influence SR. For example, my understanding on mastery goals (Top-Down Self-Regulation) and well-being goals (Bottom-Up Self-Regulation) has been greatly expanded upon. I now know that bottom-up regulation can be maladaptive and have negative consequences on the amount of effort being expended on the work being produced; and that, by using volitional strategies, students are able to stay focused on mastery goals and even ‘switch tracks’ from well-being orientated goals to mastery ones.

Elaboration:

For my real life example, I’d like to focus on how students might use volitional strategies to keep themselves on the mastery goal path.

A student might start out with a goal to achieve an A on their math test – as they are interested in mathematics and want to eventually become an architect. However, as the exam date approaches the student starts to feel over-whelmed. They fear that perhaps the time they allotted themselves for studying, isn’t enough for them to cover all the material that will be in the test; and that, consequently, they might achieve a much lower grade than expected. In this way, the original mastery goal starts to move towards being a goal of well-being (as the students focus starts to shift towards restoring positive feelings, rather than learning mathematics due to personal interest). It is at this point in time that the student could employ an adaptive volitional strategy that would steer him back towards the original mastery goal pathway. For example, the student might choose to seek out social support from his peers or parents that will allow him to dispel his negative emotions and return to his original mastery goals.

The above example is extremely interesting to me, as I feel that I often end up expecting too much from myself in regards to my academic achievements. Perhaps, if I would start by setting mastery goals for myself, instead of waiting to feel the pressure of a deadline (an environmental cue that alters my behaviour – pushing me onto a well-being pathway) – I might start to feel less stress when I’m working; and, if I’m lucky, my academic knowledge and skill might easily increase without me having to force them to!

Source: Boekaerts, M. and Corno, L. (2005).Self-Regulation in the Classroom: A Perspective on Assessment and Intervention. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54 (2), pp. 199-231.

Article 3: A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic Learning.

Key Points:

1. Social cognitive theorists believe that SRL isn’t determined only by personal processes. They believe that behaviour and the environment also play a role in SR; and that all 3 processes are reciprocal with one another – as illustrated in this diagram: 
2. Social cognitive theorists state that self-efficacy is a key variable that heavily affects SRL. High self-efficacy in students has been shown to correlate with better quality learning strategies and higher displays of self-monitoring when compared to students who have low self-efficacy. This is important as teachers have to realize that social influences (such as verbal persuasion) play a role in raising and lowering self-efficacy. If self-efficacy is raised then, in turn, the students ability to self-regulate is also raised – which then results in the student becoming a better learner. Conversely, the inverse is also true: if self-efficacy become lower then students may withdraw from tasks as they expect their efforts to only result in failure.
3. Self-regulation strategies are also able to provide the learner with knowledge on their self-efficacy. This knowledge, in turn, allows students to select the most beneficial working strategies for themselves. Choosing effective SRL strategies has been seen to result in higher student academic achievement.

Ideas:

1. As I intend to investigate how to raise self-efficacy in an online environment in my thesis, it has been incredibly interesting to read about how not only student-teacher interactions – but student-student interactions – are able to affect self-efficacy. In particular, I feel that I need to now pay attention to how students in my future research may impact each others self-efficacy. If coping models are able to affect one’s self-efficacy, then it is probably wise for me to note how peer modeling might affect my research data – if possible.
2. That, as demonstrated in the triadic model of self-regulated functioning: self, behaviour and environment all interact and are reciprocal of one another. If this is indeed the case then, as researchers in this area, we need to be aware of how students’ self-regulated learning can be impacted by the context of a situation and from previous personal experiences.

Connections:

Once again, as with the other articles, there was a lot of information to be absorbed within the paper; and I’ve found that the basic foundations of my knowledge have been built upon immensely with much new raw data. The article focused on the 3 major influences that sway self-regulated learning: self-influence, performance related influence (behaviour) and environmental influence. I learned a great deal about how each aspect of the triadic model interacts with one another and how self-regulating strategies are able to be influenced by the aspects of the triadic model (e.g – turning down the television to create a quiet study area is a sign of environmental influence on SR).

Overall, I gained a great deal of knowledge on how essential self-regulating one’s learning can be in achieving academic success (research reports in the article indicated that the most successful students used SRL strategies). Additionally, I also learned a great deal about the many different methods in which one is able to SR their learning (e.g. – goal setting, self-observation, manipulating the structure of the learning context) and how self-efficacy can impact SRL strategies in multiple ways.

Elaboration:

I’d like to focus on how self-efficacy can be raised and in what way raising self-efficacy can impact oneself to regulate their learning (as it is a topic that I am greatly interested in).

Raising self-efficacy can be done fairly simply; for example, when a student completes task work a teacher can verbally praise them for performing the task well (indicating that to the student that they were efficient). This, in turn, prompts the student to raise perceptions on their self-efficacy – as they receive positive feedback upon completing the task. Finally, by raising self-efficacy teachers can help to improve students’ willingness to learn; as the higher a students self-efficacy is – the more believing they are in their ability to solve problems. This, consequently, affects the amount of time students are willing to spend on tasks and learning – as they believe they will achieve a positive outcome as a result of their effort (due to high self-efficacy).

Source:  Zimmermann, B. J. (1989). A Social Cognitive View of Self-Regulated Academic Learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 81, No. 3, pp. 329-339.

Reflection:

Recall your Solo phase planning. How well did you succeed? Why?

Although it took me 3 days instead of 2 – I believe I still succeeded in my solo phase planning, as I managed to read all the articles, make notes and complete the task before the deadline was due.

Describe one challenge that you had during your task performance:

There were a lot of challenges when it came to completing this task. But I believe the main challenge, for me, was in absorbing and organizing the vast amount of material I found in the articles through the confusing terminology. I assumed that all articles would be written in the same vernacular as the first one I looked at; but upon starting the second article I found it to take much more time to read and understand. Which, in turn, led to me failing to meet the goal I had set myself of completing the task in 2 days.

What did you do to help yourself when facing a challenge?

Upon realizing I wouldn’t be able to complete my first goal – I reorganized my plan. I gave myself 1 day to read the two shorter articles, 1 day for the largest article and then 1 extra day which I dedicated to organizing my notes and completing the written aspect of the assigned task.

What could you do differently next time?

In the future I believe that I should briefly speed read through all the articles so I am able to better calculate how much time it will take me to organize all the new knowledge – which, in turn, will let me plan more effectively.

Also, I think I could start reading earlier – so I don’t end up over working myself as I have done these past 3 days.

Expertise Profile 1.

The following is a reflection on what I perceive to be my expertise in regards to self-regulating my learning. It is being written as a part of my expertise profile that will be assessed and graded for my course: Learning of Expertise.

1. Analyze and define in your own words what kind of expertise you have.

In looking at myself and thinking about the areas in which I seem to posses expertise – I have chosen to focus on expertise I may have that relates to my ability to learn. Contemplating on my expertise in learning, I feel that I have the ability to effectively self-regulate my learning when it comes to producing work. I believe this as the frequency with which I seem to consistently be able to hit my desired learning outcomes is fairly high.

Looking deeper into what results in being able to achieve my learning outcomes, I realise that I am fairly metacognitive when attempting to achieve my desired goal. I think about what I know, my original opinions on a subject matter and the ways in which I can approach the task – I then actively note what areas of knowledge I lack and what possible flaws in my own reasoning I have in relation to the task.

I then take a strategic approach when it comes to actually starting the task. After planning what I will do and starting the task – I persevere in actively monitoring and reflecting on my work as it is produced (measuring it against the standards I have set myself and/or marking criteria provided by my teachers). As I constantly try to reflect on my work I make amendments to what I feel I need to change in regards to my plan in order to achieve my final goal.

Finally, looking critically at my own behaviour, I’m able to comprehend my proficiency in motivating myself to complete tasks. I’m able to realise I have the ability to control my behaviour, as when I start to procrastinate or deviate from my study/work plan – I can (the majority of the time) effectively redirect my attention back to completing the task.

So, in short, due to my reasoning above I believe I have expertise in self-regulating my learning.

2. How have you learned that expertise?

I believe I have learned this expertise over the course of my academic lifetime. However, I speculate that I made the most significant steps in regulating my own learning when it came to completing my bachelors degree. I consider to have made the biggest steps during my bachelors as it was the first place in which I was required to complete truly difficult tasks with little to no assistance from teachers (mostly due to being bed ridden for a large period of time).

Due to the lack of assistance, it was up to me to find and examine the criteria we were being graded on for the projects; then afterwards examining my own knowledge of the tasks and considering what else I needed to know in order to meet the highest criteria mentioned. As time progressed and I completed more tasks (and received feedback/grades) – I became more effective at evaluating my learning/produced work as I compared my own evaluations of my work to those supplied by the teachers; this eventually led to me being able to effectively and efficiently produce work to a standard that met my desired goals. The ability to control my behaviour was also developed at university – as there was no one to pressure me into completing the assigned tasks, which meant it became my full responsibility to stick to my study plans and ensure that the work was completed on time. Interestingly, I had no idea of the concept of self-regulation until I graduated from my previous university – so, I suppose the expertise of self-regulation came naturally and therefore must have been self taught in my particular case.

3. How can you still improve it?

I believe I can still improve my ability to self-regulate my learning by finding a way in which to increase my motivation. Although I seem to posses enough control over my behaviour when it comes to completing tasks on time – I believe the current level of control isn’t quite enough, as I always feel like could have done better on a given task if I would of dedicated more time to it. Figuring out a way to improve my motivation to spend more time on tasks is fairly hard as there are a lot of other things I enjoy doing with my time (than just completing my academic tasks). Perhaps I would be able to increase motivation to spend more time on my produced works if I received a higher grade than I normally might (as a result of the extra time spent on the work).

Of course, this is hard as I first have to dedicate resources to the desired goal, even though I do not know if I will achieve the results I aim for. Hence, I fear wasting resources (my time) on something that will not necessarily give me as much of a positive outcome as I wish. I believe my self-efficacy is fairly high (as I seem to feel that I could achieve higher results), but I know I could maintain the same standard of work and be content with the results I am currently achieving – whilst still being able to indulge myself in my hobbies. So, it is a tricky problem to solve, as I don’t truly feel like I need to achieve higher grades at this point in time.

4. How do you manage/act as an expert in problem-solving situations?

Generally, when presented with a problem, I try to think about the problem and my current knowledge on it objectively.

I start by considering what I know in regards to the problem and then check to see if there are any gaps in my knowledge (by conducting research or perhaps asking my peers). After building up a wide base knowledge on the problem, I formulate a plan to solve the problem – then I begin enacting the plan. As the plan progresses I make sure to reflect on how well the plan is being implemented (and attempt to receive feedback from others if I can); if the plan seems to not be working I attempt to gather more knowledge. With the new knowledge I can formulate a new plan or modify the existing one. Finally, upon solving the problem, I check to see if the outcome is the desired one. If the outcome fails to meet my expectations I note what areas need to be improved upon so I can attempt to improve results in the future.

5. How do you work in groups? How do you act as an expert in group situations?

In a group situation, I will wait to see how productive the group is before deciding what role I need to play. If the group seems lost with where to start – I’ll attempt to create a discussion in which the groups base knowledge can be seen and people can bounce ideas off each other in regards to formulating a plan. Afterwards, I’ll attempt to make sure that the group stays focused on the task at hand and that everyone is being involved in the collaborative process. Otherwise, if the group itself seems to be motivated and well organized, I’ll simply make sure to reference the criteria we’re expected to meet whilst helping to formulate a plan to tackle the task; I’ll also impart what knowledge/ideas I have to the group during the course of the task.

In the case that I find myself being an expert in the group, I will try to facilitate discussion between the group members in order to find out how much the group knows about the given task. Then I will inform the group on what I know about the task in relation to what they’ve already discussed. By attempting to add my knowledge to their existing framework, I try to make it easier for them to assimilate any new knowledge. This lessens the chance that the group will be confused as I try to adapt my own knowledge to fit and expand on their current understanding of the problem. I will then proceed to act as I would if I possessed no expertise for the task at hand.

Global Perspectives on the Educational use of ICT

Today we were put into groups where we each presented articles we had read in our spare time. The articles all discussed the global perspectives on the educational use of ICT. After presenting the articles within our groups, each group collaboratively made a SWOT analysis poster (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) – which we then presented to the whole class.

My groups poster:

We started by defining a few strengths that ICT brings to education:

• open source software makes the cost of using EdTech very cheap – as open source software is quite literally free. Meaning that institutions only need to pay for the technological equipment in order to take advantage of the software.
• with the use of the internet it’s easier to perform collaborative learning globally – as students anywhere in the world are able to communicate with each other instantaneously through such applications as Google Drive.
• feedback in on work/ideas is facilitated with EdTech – again thanks to the internet easing communication between students and teachers via the use of e-mail or dedicated school/university websites or web mail.
• software can be created to suit the needs of the learner – for example, a dyslexic university student could be given a program facilitating their essay writing. Such things would allow students with learning problems to progress without the need for assistance from others – which they may tend not to accept as they find asking for help embarrassing.

Afterwards we considered what opportunities ICT offers education:

• education is more accessible world wide through the net – as online courses make education available to students who may live in remote locations.
• if open source software increases then educational technology will spread faster as the software is free – meaning that, once again, beneficial educational tools reach more people which then promotes and allows effective education to be taught.
• as educational technology spreads the internet will allow students to test their ideas against other cultures – which will help to promote growth and understanding around the world.

After tackling the positive aspects of ICT in education we took time to look at the negatives that come with it. Starting with the weaknesses:

• teachers may know how to use technology but do not understand how to use technology – but they don’t understand how to use it pedagogically. This can be seen as a weakness as teachers may use technology inappropriately, which in turn may hinder or even hurt the learning of the students.
• not only teachers but students themselves might use technology inappropriately. As, for example, students might use the technology assigned to them to play games or check facebook – instead of using it to complete the task at hand. Which, again, would hamper or hurt their learning.
• there might also be problems when it comes to providing the same level of educational technology between urban and rural areas due to lack of technology/infrastructure in the more rural locations.

Finally we took a look at the threats technology poses when integrating it into education:

• the current economical climate around the world means that – in the future – educational ICT might not be properly supported if another recession occurs. For example, technology previously purchased could break and schools would not be able to afford the maintenance costs in order to repair it.
• the benefits of ICT might be misunderstood when it comes to learning. Meaning that we might end up discovering that we have misused it in some way.
• we could also end up impairing our ability to learn effectively without technology in the future – if we become too over reliant on its use.

Personally, I believe that the potential benefits technology brings to education are far too great to be ignored. Speaking as someone who was bed ridden for a lengthy period of time at one point in my life – the correct use of educational ICT allowed me to finish my studies and graduate from my previous institution on time due to the online facilities that my university had. Without them, it may have taken me up to an extra year or two to reach where I am today.

Although I can admit that weaknesses are indeed present when it comes to the educational use of ICT – I feel that most of them are fairly easy to remedy. For instance: teachers themselves can be taught the best way to use ICT pedagogically, students can be monitored when using technology to make sure they do not misuse it and if a funding plan is properly produced by the government – technology could be distributed adequately between both rural and urban areas. However, I still harbour some concerns that the overuse of technology could result in some unavoidable negative effects; I fear that people may become too reliant on technology and there is also the very real threat that, by introducing technology to schools, students may come to physically harm themselves from over using technology if they use it both at home and in school (indeed, eye strain is something that I myself suffered from during the time I was bed ridden).

Regardless, as long as EdTech is used appropriately and in moderation – I think it is very beneficial to the future of education.

Updated Mindmap:

What I learned this week: Self Regulated Learning, Collaborative Learning and the Learning of Expertise.

Coming into class this week was a bit tough as I succumbed to the flu. However, I managed to gather up what little energy I have and force myself into university to find out more about the different types of learning. Firstly, in this post, I will briefly recap on what I gathered were the key points in the different learning perspectives. After summarizing what I’ve learned I will proceed to give my own opinion on each perspective – analyzing the perceived strengths and weakness of each approach.

Self Regulated Learning.

Self-regulated learning is – as the name would suggest – a process in which the learner takes control of their learning and behaviour through metacognition. This metacognition involves being able to plan, monitor and evaluate your personal progress; as well as being able to motivate yourself to learn via the use of goals. These “goals” can be either master orientated goals (which involve wanting to learn for the sake of learning/increasing you skills) or/and performance orientated goals (which relate to simply wanting to succeed due to social pressures on the learner). Also, it should be noted that teachers can have an influence on improving a students self-regulation in various ways (e.g. helping to increase their motivation for a task, help student set their goals or demonstrating ways in which learners are able to more effectively manage their time).

It is my belief that helping students become effective self-regulated learners is perhaps the most important facet of learning out of the 3 perspectives being discussed in this post.  I hold this notion for two perceived reasons:

1. Only students themselves have full control over the effort/time they put in to learning. Hence, by helping students set and realize their goals, teachers can try to raise student motivation and self-efficacy; and in raising these values teachers are able to create students who are more dedicated to spending time and effort on learning.
2. Students who are able to accurately reflect critically upon their own work are better able to improve/correct their learning/produced work during out of school hours; this, I would argue, results in a deeper understanding of the knowledge being learned (as students organize facts/information in to ways which are easily understandable for them) and promotes further learning as the student may search for additional information to strengthen their perceived weaknesses.

So, by helping the learner become self-regulated, teachers effectively give the leaner tools with which they can raise their own self-efficacy and increase their ability/willingness to learn and produce higher quality work.

Collaborative Learning.

Again, the name represents the approach of the perspective: collaborative learning generally involves 2 or more people working together in order to increase their understanding on a subject. Unlike self-regulated learning, collaborative learning creates an active learning environment and allows the learner to take advantage of the group dynamic by allowing the members to make use of each others skills and knowledge whilst also allowing for a lot of feedback on work/ideas being produced by other group members.  Collaborative learning can take place in the form of such activities as: joint problem solving, collaborative writing and group projects (e.g. jigsaw work, which I partook in this week – we each read individual articles before forming groups and presenting what we learned to each other, followed by collectively constructing a mindmap and a list of key points). Generally, though, collaborative learning results in the students creating some sort of product demonstrating what they have learned.

Whilst I believe that collaborative learning has its advantages over self regulated learning (such as the ones described above), I believe it also has some very real disadvantages that aren’t too often brought to light; and which, in my personal experience as a learner, tend to occur all too often.

For example, in a group setting it is not necessarily true that every group member will contribute to the work being produced – in fact – in extreme cases it may even come to pass that only one group member contributes meaningfully to the produced work.
This lack of contribution could be for such reasons as the group members not having done the reading (if the collaborative task was a jigsaw) or something more troublesome, like a lack of motivation to contribute to the group work. If one out of five group members fail to contribute for whatever reason – the impact on the other members is not necessarily detrimental (unless the single non-contributing group member is distracting the other members from completing the task). Although, in collaborative activities like jigsaw learning, if one group member hasn’t read the material – he automatically interferes with ever other group members learning.
Of course, these problems can be avoided with adequate monitoring from the teachers – but it is not necessarily true that the teacher will always be aware of what is happening in the classroom (e.g. the class might be particularly large making it harder to monitor all the students). However, regardless of the problems that could arise, collaborative learning still provides many positive results when it comes to contributing to students learning if conducted properly.

Learning of Expertise.

Finally, the learning of expertise investigates experts and how experts effectively solve problems and think. By looking at experts researchers are able to see the results of successful learning which ,in turn, can then help researchers to figure out ways to teach that results in the same successful learning in students (simply, the goal is to teach so effectively that other experts can more easily be created).

The main points that I gathered from my research are:

• Experts are able to notice meaningful patterns of information and have a lot of content knowledge on their subjects.
• Experts are able to easily and quickly draw on their vast knowledge for the most correct/relevant information in order to solve the problem at hand.
• Although experts may understand their particular subject areas incredibly well – there is no guarantee that they will be able to effectively pass on their knowledge to others; as others may not have enough knowledge to put the experts teachings into context.

I believe that studies into the learning of expertise are useful for a couple of reasons mainly. Firstly, in examining how experts access their content knowledge to tackle problems we are better able to figure out how to raise future experts (due to the insight provided by examining what exactly makes experts experts in their field). Secondly, we are reminded that – what may be easy for experts to know or understand – may be far more complicated for novices. This allows us to teach/inform experts on the best way to pass on their knowledge to future generations.

Ultimately, I believe that In each approach to learning discussed above there are many useful merits to be found. In the brief examinations on each perspective I have only touched on some of the underlying theories and practices within each approach; further into my studies I expect my knowledge on these learning concepts to increase…perhaps then I will revisit the concepts in more detail. Until that time though, I consider that the strongest teaching method will incorporate attributes from all of the above perspectives.

My updated mindmap:

Material read:

Learning of expertise:

Bransford, Brown and Cocking. (2000):  How experts differ from novices. In Bransford, Brown and Cocking. ‘How We Learn’ (pp. 29 – 50).

Collaborative learning:

Dillenbourg, P. (1999): What do you mean by collaborative learning? In P. Dillenbourg (Ed) Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. (pp.1-19). Oxford: Elsevier.

Self regulated learning:

Pintrich, R. P. (2000). The Role of Goal Orientation in Self-Regulated Learning. In M. Boekaerts, P.R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of Self-Regulation (Chap 14). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

My Growing Understanding on EdTech and the Pedagogical use of ICT.

In our last Introduction to Learning and Educational Technology lesson we were organized into groups where we each took turns to present our selected chapters (1, 3, 6 or 9) from the book “How People Learn” by Bransford, Brown and Cocking (2000) to the rest of the group.

Unfortunately, after getting quite lost in the University, I arrived a bit late and ended up joining some group already in progress. Luckily I had chosen Chapter 1 – so I didn’t miss much as I joined halfway through Chapter 3 being explained. However, by the time we were finishing Chapter 6 I realized that the group I joined had no one who had read Chapter 9! Coincidentally, the chapter which most covers the use of EdTech…unlucky! So, after reading the chapter myself, I will proceed to reflect upon what I’ve learned about EdTech.

From what I gathered during my reading, technology has many uses in facilitating learning which I will try to organize into key points:

1. Technology can be used to bring real world problems into the classroom. For example, by using computer simulations and electronic communications, students can be connected to practitioners in all types of different academic or work related fields whilst being provided with virtual simulations in which they have to solve actual problems. So, unlike typical school classrooms, where you spend the majority of the lesson learning facts from a lecture or text before doing problems at the end – technology can be used to create an active learning environment in which students are given the chance to tackle realistic problems. In doing this students can come to better understand workplaces (via contact with practitioners) and are also given the chance to revisit the learning environments in order to test new ideas and/or receive feedback; which, again, produces an active learning environment.

2. Technologies’ ability to function as a scaffold and tool to help students solve problems. These “technological scaffolds” can be anything from spreadsheets or calculators to modeling programs which create and test complex models of phenomena. In having these extra tools students become less reliant on teacher assistance and are able to enhance their academic performance in a subject. However, the mere presence of these tools in a classroom does not mean that student performance will improve; for they need to be integrated into the curriculum and used properly.

3. Technology makes it far easier for teachers to send students feedback on their work and to help students revise their thinking. I feel the first point is self-explanatory to a certain extent: teachers are far more able to communicate with their students due to the internet. Whereas before feedback might solely be confided to the classroom or from receiving teacher comments on essays or homework – now, for example, most schools and universities have their own e-mailing systems which provide a constant source of contact between teachers and their students. In addition to helping teachers keep in contact with their students the internet can also help students to reflect/revise on their work/thinking. E.g., there can be webpages dedicated solely to the discussion of work done in class or on the course for the students. This allows for a close knit community to be formed where students can bounce their ideas off each other or share their work in order to receive feedback on it from other students (which promotes reflexive thinking amongst students and also allows them to revise their work without assistance from he teacher).

4. Technology helps to connect classrooms to the community. Much as discussed in the paragraph above – where technology can help to set up online groups/websites where students can discuss their work – technology can also be used to set up similar groups/websites for parents so they can also be included in their child’s education to a greater extent (allowing them to be informed on school events, assignments and other important information). This is important as student achievement in school also depends on what happens outside of school (if their learning in school is being supported at home).

5. Again, in the same way that technology helps students and parents communicate and reflect, it can also provide the same medium for teachers to interact. By use of technology teachers can set up online workshops, share documents and conduct collaborative investigations; hence, teachers themselves are able to improve the manner in which they teach as they reflect on their own work and receive feedback from their peers.

From these points we can see that technology is an important tool in helping to facilitate learning. It should also be noted that the points I’ve discussed above are very brief and that there are many more ways in which technology can be used to enhance learning.

However, at this current point in time, technologies’ main function in education seems to be in creating information networks and not necessarily in its ability to be used as an effective pedagogical tool. Certainly from my education thus far I’ve encountered few times in which technology was implemented in the classroom as a pedagogical tool (other than being used as a whiteboard or projector). Mostly technology has been used in my own educational progress as a platform in which I was able to find information, receive feed back, discuss ideas whilst reflecting on my own work with other students. So, my growing understanding is that I believe technology still has a long way to go before its usefulness is fully utilized as a pedagogical tool; although I maintain that technology still plays a very large and useful role in helping to facilitate learning at this current point in time.

A quick mindmap on the topic: