Chapter 14 page 303
Alex: Because .... Hmmm. Maybe that is important to include. Because it makes sense to say what
the problem is, and then what the principal is doing about it. ....In this Reflection, we see two teachers endeavoring to teach students the strategy of summarizing
texts. Both teachers devote class discussion time to try to help students learn to summarize effectively. Both
give assignments focused on summarization and work with students to try to help them summarize better.
But Ruth is much more effective than Emily because she employs many principles of effective strategy
instruction.
Ɣ Ruth asks students to explain how they came up with their summaries. Emily, in contrast, seldom asks
such questions.
Ɣ Ruth tries to avoid telling students directly what to include in and exclude from their summaries.
Instead, she gives hints to help them decide what to include and exclude (e.g., “Why did you decide not
to include that in your summary?”). In contrast, when Emily’s students initial attempts at summarizing
are not right, Emily tells them directly what they should include or exclude (e.g., “I would add that it’s
because gas prices have risen and so it costs more.”)
In asking the questions she asks, Ruth aims to have students think about how to generate a summary—that
is, how to decide what to include in and exclude from their summaries. Emily’s questions ask students to
tell her what their final summaries are, but they do not direct students to think about how they have
generated their summaries.
In Chapter 7, we discussed the importance of self-regulated learning and the strategies that students
need to learn to become self-regulated learners. In this chapter, we will learn about designing learning
environments that are effective in helping students learn these strategies. Along the way, we will learn more
about why Ruth’s instruction is more effective than Emily’s. We will also learn about other effective
instructional techniques.
GOALS WHEN PROMOTING SELF-REGULATED LEARNING
Throughout this textbook, we have repeatedly noted the importance of helping students become self-
regulated learners (Schunk, 2005a, 2005b; Souvignier & Mokhlesgerami, 2006; Winne, 2005). Self-
regulated learners are capable of using strategies to perform well on their own, without a teacher or
instructional materials to aid them. In chapter 7, we discussed five general types of strategies that self-
regulated learners know: general-purpose strategies, comprehension strategies, writing strategies, problem-
solving strategies, and reasoning strategies. Self-regulated learners learn more, write more effectively, solve
problems better, and reason more accurately (Azevedo & Cromley, 2004; Chinn, in press-a; C. Glaser &
Brunstein, 2007).
To become self-regulated learners, students must gain the following types of knowledge and
dispositions (Kuhn, Katz, & Dean, 2004):
- They learn how to use a broad range of strategies. Self-regulated learners know how to use
strategies that are needed to succeed at academic and real-world tasks. Self-regulated readers know how to
use valuable strategies such as summarizing what they are reading, elaborating on what they are reading,
using text structure, and monitoring their understanding. Self-regulated writers can generate and organize
their ideas while planning what they are writing; they can revise their ideas effectively. These are the
strategies that are needed to be successful, so self-regulated learners need to learn them. - They develop metacognitive understanding of the strategies they use. Effective self-regulated
learners know more than just how to use effective strategies. They know what these strategies are used for,
and when they are useful. They can say to themselves, “Summarization is a useful strategy for most of my
classes, but Professor Smith asks about a lot of details on his exams, and summarization is not useful for
learning details. So I had better use a different strategy such as detailed outlining and elaboration.” As