EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 7, page 120

CHAPTER 7

Complex Cognitive Strategies

and Self-Regulated Learning

Chapter Outline

y Reflecting on Student Thinking
y Core theoretical concepts: Cognitive
strategies, metacognition, and self-regulation
Cognitive strategies
Metacognition
Self-regulated learning
y Why are cognitive strategies important?
Comparisons of experts with novices, and of
high achievers with low achievers
Training studies
Large-scale instructional experiments
Comparisons of instruction in effective and
ineffective schools
Implications for teachers
y Strategies for learning, problem solving, and
reasoning
General self-regulation strategies
Comprehension and memory strategies
Problem-solving strategies
Writing strategies
Reasoning strategies
y How are students’ self-regulated strategy use
evaluated?
Administering self-report assessments
Students’ talk and written work
y Strategy instruction: Making thinking
public
y Extensions
Developmental changes
Cultural and linguistic diversity
Learning disabilities

Applied goals

What these key concepts mean. You will learn new

concepts that will become a central focus of every lesson you

plan as a teacher.

Importance of strategy instruction. You will learn ways to

make strategy instruction an important part of your

curriculum.

Useful cognitive strategies. You will learn a range of

cognitive strategies that will be beneficial for your students to

learn. You may find them useful, too, in your own studying.

Methods to evaluate students’ strategy use. You will learn

about three ways to evaluate your students’ strategy use.

Diagnosing students’ strategy use during think alouds,

group work, and class discussions. You will learn how to

interpret students’ talk to diagnose their strategy use.

Encouraging strategy use. You will learn how to help

students make their thinking public, which is a good way to

promote strategy development in classrooms. (You will learn

more about strategy instruction in Chapter 16.)

Reflecting on Student Thinking

In this chapter, you will begin thinking about the kinds of strategies that effective students use when they are

learning. You have already learned about memory strategies in Chapter 2. In this chapter, you will learn

about a broader range of strategies for learning, problem solving, and reasoning. This Reflection is designed

to help you start thinking about the strategies that effective learners use, and how these strategies compare

to the strategies used by less effective learners.

This Reflection shows data based on a study by educational psychologists (Chan, Burtis, Scardamalia,

& Bereiter, 1992) who were interested in why some children learn more as they read text passages than

other children do. They were also interested in why older children learn more from what they read than

younger children do. To investigate these questions, the research team had students individually read two

short nonfiction passages. The students ranged in age from first through sixth grade. Each passage had 12

sentences. One passage was about germs, and the other was about dinosaurs. Interviewers asked the