Structured Reflection: The Key to Self-Regulation

12 October, 2019 —

Structured Reflection: The Key to Self-Regulation

How to ensure that students can evaluate, attribute causation and adapt.

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by Bradford Research School
on the 12th October 2019

According to Barry J Zimmerman, self-regulation is “the self-directive process by which learners transform their mental abilities into academic skills…[the] self-generated thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that are oriented to achieving goals.” In Becoming a Self-regulating Learner: An Overview (1989), he sets out the following as qualities of self-regulated learners:

Setting goals
Using appropriate strategies to attain these goals
Monitoring their performance
Restructuring their physical and social context
Managing time efficiently
Self-evaluating
Attributing causation to results
Adapting future methods

These stages fit neatly into the idea of plan, monitor and evaluate set out in the EEF’s Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning guidance report. It’s that evaluation part that we want to focus on in this post. How can teachers ensure that pupils self-evaluate, attribute causation to results and – crucially – adapt future methods?

Build in ‘structured reflection’ when introducing new approaches
Teachers regularly introduce new strategies into class. For example, perhaps an RE teacher wants to introduce the PEEL strategy to improve the quality of their written answers. A traditional lesson sequence would see the teacher explaining the method, providing a question designed to assess previously learnt information, model the technique then ask pupils to practice.This is reflected in the EEF’s sequence for teaching metacognitive strategies:

Activating prior knowledge;
Explicit strategy instruction;
Modelling of learned strategy;
Memorisation of strategy;
Guided practice;
Independent practice; and
Structured reflection

But it’s easy to forget the structured reflection, and simply move on. The reflection on the effectiveness of the strategy is important and should be valued as highly as any other stage of the sequence. For the PEEL strategy, the reflection should ask a number of questions: Did this improve the quality of my answer? Was this the right strategy for this type of question? What would I change next time? Are there other strategies that might be better? Can I use this strategy on other types of questions?

Exam wrappers
When students complete an exam or a task, they are keen to know their score and find out how well they have done. Teachers often ask them to complete a feedback activity or a DIRT task, designed to improve future performance. It is also helpful following a test to facilitate some reflection on preparation, exam technique etc. Exam wrappers are a tool in order to do this.

An exam wrapper is a short quiz that asks pupils to reflect on a number of factors that might have affected their grade. They could be asked about the numbers of hours studied, the nature of their study activities, their expectations of performance.
According to Carnegie Mellon University, exam wrappers support students to do the following:

identify their own individual areas of strength and weakness to guide further study;
reflect on the adequacy of their preparation time and the appropriateness of their study strategies;
and characterise the nature of their errors to find any recurring patterns that could be addressed.

Self-evaluating is often fairly easy, but adapting future results is how change will happen. Without a formal aspect of structured reflection, some pupils could attribute their results simply to ability, without a sense of the role their preparation played, or what they can do to address this. Zimmerman, describes this in the ‘Self-reflection’ phase:

Attributing a poor score to limitations in fixed ability can be very damaging motivationally because it implies that efforts to improve on a future test will not be effective. In contrast, attributing a poor math score to controllable processes, such as the use of the wrong solution strategy, will sustain motivation because it implies that a different strategy may lead to success.

And it isn’t just formal exams or assessments that could have this treatment. Below is a simple tweak to a homework knowledge quiz which allows for some reflection.

The ‘wrapper’ idea also means that there can be some sort of pre-reflection. So a short survey before sitting an exam can form part of the reflection following the exam.

Build in reflection to revision and study
It’s incredibly difficult to self-regulate and we can forget this difficulty for novices, even those who seem capable. If we look at something like study and revision, when students are spending many hours studying – sometimes on fruitlessly- we need to allow for moments where they can reflect and consider whether the revision is working.

One part of this is to guard against the illusion of fluency, the idea that certain revision habits can make us feel that we are being successful. For example, the sense of familiarity we have with reading our notes or flashcards may make us seem that we know things, but this is often not the case. Some other strategies such as retrieval practice have a built in ‘check’ to them in that the strategy not only helps them revise but tells them that they know the material – or not.

The Leitner system, one of our favourite study strategies using flashcards, includes feedback which enables students to adapt methods by restudying. Students start with one pile of flashcards which are reviewed every day. When they are correctly answered, they are moved to another pile which is reviewed on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Any correctly answered in this pile will be moved to the Saturday pile. Any incorrectly answered go back to the daily pile. This strategy could also be used in one study session. Just by using the strategy means that they are constantly able to reflect on their success.

The Cornell notetaking system is another method whereby notes can be created with a built in system for testing whether they are learnt later. The page is split into three. A large section for notes, a section at the bottom for a summary, and a margin for cues, questions and key words. Instead of simply rereading notes, the cues can be used to reflect whether the material is learnt.

So next time you introduce a strategy, or revision technique, ask yourself where the opportunities for structured reflection are.

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Zimmerman BJ (2002) Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner: An Overview. Theory into Practice 41(2) 64 – 70