In my current Master’s of Education course amply titled “Self Regulation Inquiry,” there has been a number of pressing moments of realization that speaks to both my teaching and student learning.

1. What I thought I knew about Self-Regulation as a classroom teacher with 13 years of experience was quite limited. Although I valued the importance of Self-Regulation as a learning skill, the understanding of goal setting as an urgent factor of Self-Regulation was something I was missing. I was challenged to explore what goal setting looks like through the context of Distal Goals and Proximal Goals. In doing this, it became pressingly aware that although classroom learning goals based on curriculum expectations are established the personal goals of students were not truly activated.
2. For there to be effective Self-Regulation there must a plan for integration as a mechanism to reach goals. Based on my course learning, you truly can’t have Self-Regulation without the establishment of a goal; an end game if you will. As such, as a teacher responsible to assess Self-Regulation as a learning skill as indicated on the Ontario Report Card then its upon me to ensure that I have something meaningful to assess; not just a letter grade for the sake of a letter. As such, to intentionally integrate Self-Regulation as a teaching practice is to provide students with intentional opportunities to establish goals that are managed as a result of Self-Regulation skills.

So, why does this matter?

Whether you’re currently a classroom teacher or a school administer, the fostering of Self-Regulation is by extension the enabling of a global competency that is truly transferable beyond the educational milieu.

If our goal as educators is to nurture students to have the “entrepreneurial spirit” as shared in Achieving Excellence A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario, then students must have tool kit that allows them to not merely find doors of opportunity but importantly create their own. In a global world composed of great civil and economic diversity, students must evolve as thinkers who are acutely aware of how they think and do. Self-Regulation is being cognizant of one’s end destination and importantly the mapping (or re-mapping) of the journey.

This practice of establishing an end destination is a principle that can be easily embedded in classrooms or as professional learning. Whether it is a grade 11 Comm-Tech student establishing a learning goal that is specific to who they are or a teacher establishing an Annual Learning Plan, the goal is essential to foster Self-Regulation and thus effective Self-Regulation is urgent to meet the goal. Presenting these two examples is to reinforce that Self-Regulation is part of the everyday and is a learning skill that must be taught with purpose, time and patience.

In regards to my own Self-Regulation inquiry, my goal for my current course inquiry has been to intentionally integrate goal setting and Self-Regulation assessment in my Gr. 11 Comm-Tech class as a mode to enable my practice of cultural responsive teaching and learning. This recognizes that cultural transcends race and ethnicity but also speaks to the culture of student learning, student interests, how students learn and their sense of self. As such, culture is also a student’s respective relationship with learning and school itself. By establishing a climate of goal setting and Self-Regulation at the onset of my course (the start of semester 2), I can work to meet students needs through their practice of self-regulation.

So, what do student think?

My students seem to have bought into the practice. Mainly, this is because the goal they have set will play a key role in their learning. For example, a student who has shared that they want to grow in their critical and cultural understanding of media in order to provide such thinking to their own creations, will have learning tasks geared specifically to them. As such, in having twenty-eight students, I will be shaping twenty-eight personalized and extending learning opportunities that speak to said goals and support the journey of learning the students have established for themselves.

As highlighted in the video below, there are a number of successes but one big challenge. For most of my students the practice of goal setting and thus Self-Regulation has not been established in other courses of study. I don’t share this a a punitive comment as I’m on my own inquiry which is new and speaks to my own important next steps as a teacher. However, their sharing speaks to the need for more and shared understanding and activation of goal setting and Self-Regulation across all formal learning areas.

Thinking forward, this could very well be a PLC that speaks to the next school year; exploring Self-Regulation as a skill that is truly transformational.