SOS: Helping Students Become Independent Learners

Transcript: Wrap Up

In this module, you learned about strategies for helping students improve their attention in the classroom and improve class work performance. Although there are multiple ways in which this can be accomplished, two major distinctions that were discussed include teacher-directed strategies and self-directed strategies.

With teacher-directed behavior strategies, the teacher plays the central role in identifying, monitoring, and reinforcing student behavior.

On the other hand, self-directed strategies are tools used by students to monitor and regulate their own behavior including time, assignments, behavior, and progress.

You also learned that self-regulation is a useful strategy to use for students who are unable to manage their behavior.

There are four types of self-regulation strategies: self-monitoring, self-instruction, goal-setting, and self-reinforcement.

Self-monitoring is divided into two types: self-monitoring for attention and monitoring for performance.

Monitoring for attention works well for students who might be easily distracted, get up from their seats, bother other students, or fiddle with objects.

Monitoring performance works well for students who need to keep track of the rate at which they correctly complete class work or the overall accuracy of their performance.

Another type of self-regulation strategy is self-instruction.

Self-instruction strategies teach students how to learn to talk themselves through a task or activity.

Yet another self-regulation strategy is goal-setting.

It is important that both the student and teacher are clear about what they are trying to achieve and how to get there.

The self-reinforcement strategy occurs when individuals select reinforcers and reward themselves for reaching or exceeding a criterion.

The four types of self-regulation strategies may be used in isolation or in combination. It all depends on the student with whom you are working and the type of change you desire.