Self-Regulation, Reciprocal Teaching, and Learning Communities

At the beginning of Alderman's chapter on self regulations, she defines self-regulation as "the degree to which students are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning process." As the chapter continues, it becomes clearly that it can be widdled-down to student's taking responsibility for their own learning through regulating their behavior and their choices in order to best serve the learning process. When looking back at the reciprocal teaching video, I couldn't help but be impressed at the level of self-regulation that was being demonstrated by the students. Obviously there is modeling and gradual release of responsibility, but these students (who appear to be upper-elementary aged) seem to be quite aware that they are responsible for their own learning, and are taking that task quite seriously. While watching, I began to think on some of my students who don't have strong self-regulatory skills in their toolbox, and what this type of teaching would look like with them. Would giving ownership over that learning and validation of that control be enough to keep them on task? I think that reciprocal teaching, like a great many strategies, is designed mostly for students with pre-established self-regulatory abilities. Which is why it is so important during the younger elementary grades to work on self-regulation tools. I think about some of my kindergarteners or first graders with whom we spent a frustrating amount of time working on developing strategies to help with self-regulation, and I can only hope in a few years they are capable of being in a peer led learning setting or leading a group of their peers. Then I think about some of my students in the summer who clearly go to school in places where they are given no tools for self-regulation, just threats of punishment or failure and then follow-through on those threats. Those students cannot function in the student-driven environment I would love to establish. So the more I think about the marshmallow study and the supposed inherent self-regulatory nature of some students vs others, I find myself leaning more and more towards the necessity of instructing toward self-regulation. There may not be proof that teaching tools and tricks for self-regulation have long term academic benefits, but it seems to me from my own anecdotal research that having those skills taught is necessary in order for students to function in a learning community. And as we learn more and more about the importance of community building in the classroom and the benefits of community for learning, the necessity of teaching self-regulation strategies at a younger age becomes more and more apparent. If only we could give the memo to parents...