Research School Network: Making Thinking Visible: Building Self-Regulated Learners How the Plan, Check, Change approach can transform student independence and reflection.
—
Blog
Making Thinking Visible: Building Self-Regulated Learners
How the Plan, Check, Change approach can transform student independence and reflection.
Share on:
by Staffordshire Research School
on the
Charlotte Chase
Teacher of Social Science, Etone College
Charlotte has been teaching for 13 years and currently teaches Psychology, Criminology and Sociology at Etone College. Her previously held roles include Director of Social Science and Head of Sixth Form. Charlotte is particularly passionate about trialling new strategies to innovate teaching and learning.
One of the greatest tools in our teaching tool kit has to be the students themselves. Developing their capacity for self-regulation and metacognitive thinking will undoubtedly fuel independence and resilience. But most importantly for our students, becoming self-monitoring can lead to sustained academic progress. The EEF’s (Education Endowment Foundation) Metacognition and Self-Regulation section of the Teaching and Learning Toolkit suggests that through regular and embedded use, metacognitive strategies can add up to an additional eight months of progress over the course of a year.
What is even more striking is the impact that these strategies can have on SEND pupils, when the approaches are taught explicitly and clear models are provided. For students in this category, metacognition can be intangible, a higher order skill which they may not be able to comprehend unless it is explicitly articulated. This prompted me to consider how I could make metacognitive processes more explicit for my students, embedding routines that would help them engage with and articulate their thinking more effectively.
What Does Metacognition Look Like?
Metacognition was a term coined by Flavell in 1976 who defined it simply as ‘thinking about thinking.’ If we unpick this and apply it to learners, it means to have an ‘awareness of one’s own learning, understanding and strategies used.’ Essentially, a metacognitive learner is an individual who can think about what they know, devise a strategy or plan and monitor their effectiveness. Metacognition is the first step towards self-regulation: the ability to reflect on one’s strengths and weaknesses, evaluate the learning and set goals. According to Zimmerman (2002), this leads to sustained motivation in learners and a desire to refine how they learn.
Developing Self-Regulated Thinking
One of the greatest challenges for us as practitioners is to ‘condition’ learners into self-regulated thought. It is not something that can be ‘switched on’ but gained through practice. One way to facilitate this development is through the use of scaffolds. As Vygotsky (1978) suggests, learners can be successful if aids are temporarily provided to guide their way through the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD). As suggested in the EEF’s Metacognition and Self Regulated Learning guidance report (Recommendation 2), ‘explicit teaching and instruction of metacognition can positively impact learning’. Therefore, explicit scaffolds can be beneficial to all learners, but can especially make metacognitive processes more ‘visibly’ accessible for SEND pupils.
One simple way to ‘train’ our learners is by embedding the three step ‘Plan, Check, Change’ approach. In response to a task, students should first reflect on what they know and devise a ‘plan’ or strategy to navigate their way through the problem. Once devised, they execute their strategy but pause at intervals to ‘check’ or monitor their effectiveness. Finally, having completed the task, students self-assess their progress, reflecting on how they could improve their strategy next time or what they could ‘change.’
The Plan, Check, Change Thinking Mat
Facilitating Independent Self-Regulated Thinking
Whilst the ‘Plan, Check, Change’ model promotes self-regulation by dividing the process into three steps, students often find it challenging to perform this effectively without explicit scaffolds and models. As such, I devised a ‘thinking mat’ which can be used to guide students during independent tasks. The mat presents sentence starters for each step to enable them to articulate their thinking. This can be particularly impactful when devising a route through a difficult exam question or problem.
Consistent with the EEF’s report (Recommendation 3), which suggests that teachers should ‘verbalise metacognitive thought’, one way to train learners to develop independence with metacognition is to model the use of the thinking mat in the first instance. This allows the teacher to work through a problem and ‘think out loud,’ applying the ‘Plan, Check, Change’ structure as they go. Articulating their thought processes allows for metacognitive strategies to become visible. The learners can then begin to apply the mat for use in their own work, writing down their thought processes at first. With consistent use, gradually the scaffolds can be reduced. This could include just presenting them with the prompts ‘Plan, Check Change’ and removing the suggested thought processes. Over time, with consistent exposure, the mat can be removed entirely, resulting in competent, self-regulated learners!
Key Takeaway
Nurturing metacognition takes time to embed, but with explicit structures and models that enable learners to ‘think aloud,’ metacognitive strategies can be implemented effectively in the classroom.
