Research School Network: Self-Regulation at a Distance – Modelling Metacognition in English Continuing our series on self-regulation, Andy Tharby models his own metacognitive thinking

When we are using writing scaffolds with students to produce a piece of work such as analytical writing, they only really come to life when teachers model their own metacognitive thinking when using them. In the classroom, this would be done by the teacher writing on the board, sharing their thinking and questioning students as they go. 

In this video, Andy Tharby shows how he is approaching this with distance teaching. Using Loom, Andy has a Google doc open with the writing scaffold he is using to support Y9 students when writing poetry analysis. Andy models how he uses this scaffold, by sharing his own metacognitive thinking and then writing a response ​‘live’ on to the document. This includes some great examples of Andy self-regulating. For example:

- Explicitly explaining his choice of vocabulary.

- Acknowledging when he makes a mistake and thinking about a better alternative.

- Explaining the strategies he is using e.g. zooming in on a word.

- At the end, summarising his overall thinking.

Here’s the video:

You can read more from Andy on ​‘Writing at a Distance’ here.

This is one of a series of video blogs on self-regulation:

Self-Regulation at a Distance – an Introduction – By Chris Runeckles

Self-Regulation at a Distance – Supporting Students – By Marc Rowland

Self-Regulation at a Distance – Helping Teachers to Help Students – by Shaun Allison

Self-Regulation at a Distance – Modelling Metacognition in PE – by James Crane

Self-Regulation at a Distance – Modelling Metacognition in Geography – By Ben Crockett

Self-Regulation at a Distance – Modelling Metacognition in Science – By Fahim Rahman