“Provide man with a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he eats all his life.” Are you aware of a saying that goes like this?
That old proverb provides a whole lot if we think with a thoughtful mindset. It touches educational circles and provides people inspiration and influence that backs them to learn and become independent.
Let’s read along and learn more about learning and to be precise, self-regulated learning and ways to make it more effective.
What is Basically Self-Regulated Learning?
One of the basic theories about teaching people how to learn is by the method of self-regulated learning. To be sheerly accurate, it is basically about the concept that people should take personal responsibility for their own learning by setting goals and working independently in order to achieve these goals. It is the complete opposite of learning with the assistance of teachers where you completely depend on what they teach you or the material they provided.
The best thing about self-regulated learning is that it is self-directed and constructive. Instead of following the examples of worksheets, self-regulated learning influences students to do the hard work on their own and achieve the learning goals.
Three Aspects of Self-Regulated Learning
One of the basic approaches to self-regulated learning is to divide it according to its three aspects: regulation of processing modes, regulation of learning procedure, and last but not the least, regulation of self. Dividing self-regulated learning in this way allows teachers to make it more convenient for students to achieve their learning goals. It also is effective as we get to take one thing at a time and this results in making us better self-regulated learners.
1. Regulation of Processing Modes
The first and basic step towards self-regulated learning is to let the learners discover how and why they decide to learn in the first place.
In normal learning, students tend to learn just because their teachers said so, but when we discover the reason behind why we are learning in the first place, we develop a base foundation for well known self-regulated learning.
A well known educational researcher sets a proper distinction between the three dissimilar reasons to learn something and his research sheds better light on our work and makes it a lot more easy to understand. The three reasons why humans learn are:
- 1. To recreate or memorise information
- 2. To get good academic grades
- 3. To understand a concept or meaning of something for personal goodwill
The aim of self-regulated learning is to influence students to leave the first two reasons and adopt the third reason. The right kind of learning is to learn for some personal gain or improvement.
2. Regulation of Learning Process
The next level of self-regulated learning is when students take responsibility for their learning process. This is also known as metacognition. According to research, when teachers take the responsibility of bearing all the burden of figuring out what works for students and what doesn’t – it reduces their metacognition skills.
Back when one of my friends was teaching at a school, they had a common saying that if they left the school at day end feeling more tired than students, they would not have done their job right. What this means is that students are required to do more heavy lifting stuff such as thinking and discovering the ways that work best for them (metacognition).
Students need to accept the fact they are responsible for finding the ways that work for them and need to be more curious and enthusiastic about it. This will help them alot in generating personalised learning plans.
Promoting metacognition may also include learning about how the organ named brain works, what metacognition actually is, and what are the different learning styles. Always remember that being curious about your personal strengths and preferences will help in improving metacognition skills.
3. Regulation of Self
At last, there is regulation of self which includes setting learning goals. If students have decided to become actually self regulated learners, they need to start setting long and short term learning goals and then monitor their progress toward those goals.
Some Tips to Make Your Self Regulated Learning More Effective
Now that you have learned a lot about self regulated learning and its components, below you will find 9 ways you can make self regulated learning more beneficial and effective.
1. Change Your Point of View About Learning
The most important thing to make self regulated learning effective is to change the way you see learning in the first place. Instead of completing your homework or assignment because you want high grades or because the teacher asked, do it to learn new things and improve yourself on a personal level. If you still find some difficulty, you can hire UK Assignment Writers.
2. Explore Other Methods or Styles of Learning
There are multiple learning methods: visual, kinesthetic, spatial, and auditory. Learn all about these styles and discover what works better for you.
3. Learn How Learning Actually Works
Another way to make self regulated learning more effective is by learning how actually learning works. Learn about how psychology and cognitive science works and how memories are stored, how details are retained, and what role emotions play in learning.
4. Be Introspective
Now it is time to become introspective. Examine and determine when you have been least or most successful in your self regulated learning process.
5. Find Someone Honest
It is highly important to find someone who stays honest about your strengths and weaknesses of learning. Discover someone who is honest about how you are progressing in your learning journey.
An Ending Note:
Self learning is basically just for the sake of learning and self growth. Hence, you need to change your complete attitude towards learning. Find the element that holds your interest or curiosity when you sit to learn something. Make learning your responsibility, and you will find yourself on the track to become a successful self regulated learning.
