Activity 6.4 (Self-Regulation and Metacognition)

Some of this week’s readings were about problem solving and it seemed all too fitting that I choose the article on Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner by Barry Zimmerman, because this topic is a major problem in my classes (and I’m not alone). My classes are similar to what Dan Meyer mentioned in the beginning of his TED talk, “I sell a product to a market that doesn’t want it, but is forced by law to buy it”. One would think that since I teach at a college level that students’ intrinsic motivation would by high. WRONG! I am in desperate need of some insight; therefore this article was leading a very thirsty horse to a suitable source of water. 

For the sake of condensation, here are just a few of the things that I connected with.

·         1. Reactivity. Where students are asked to self-report their various aspects of learning related to assignments and tests which can potentially result in metacognitive awareness about their learning and study strategies. 

·         2. Self-regulation is not a mental ability or an academic performance skill.

·         3. Self-regulation is important because a major function of education is the development of life-long learning skills.

·         4. Self-motivation stems from students' beliefs about learning.

As James so eloquently put it, “A teacher’s task is to build up students’ characters which consist in an organized set of habits of reactions, to act characteristically when certain ideas possess us and to refrain characteristically when possessed by other ideas” (p. 90). 

SELF-REGULATE, DON’T PROCRASTINATE!