SRL and teaching

Bring Your Own Device Method & Motivation 

Introduction

As learning is changing from traditional teacher and classroom centered paradigm to learning in various formal and informal situations, new questions rise up. How to support and enhance students´ informal and formal learning? What are the most applicable ways to use technology considering the differences among students?

One of the solutions for these kind of issues is Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) -method which has been hot topic among researchers for the past few years. Hopkins, Sylvester & Tate (2013, 9) introduce results which strongly recommend BYOD method to be used in various occasions e.g. in schools and in informal settings. Results introduce various positive factors regarding the topic and “students perceived their devices to be useful based on beliefs that their device would: make learning easier; help them achieve better grades; and offer advantages that outweighed any disadvantages” (Hopkins, Sylvester & Tate, 2013, 9).

However, using familiar devices in learning settings is not always guaranteed road to successful and sustainable learning. Technology may have limitations that sets restrictions to learning or it might turn students passive and this way terminate learning (Margaryan et al., 2011). It is also questionable if students have the cognitive and metacognitive skills to effectively implement technology to the educational settings. Therefore teacher should always pay attention to learning environment and monitor students´ learning process.

The key thing related to BYOD method is how it affects student´s motivation. Motivation is presumably high if given the right to choose but possible inconveniences might cause motivation to drop several levels. Although using familiar devices rule out certain difficulties in learning process, it is teacher's responsibility to ensure that motivation among students stay high to enhance learning. Emerging different technological devices into learning can have a huge positive influence over self-regulated learning processes (Laru, 2012, 95) and motivational aspects, but at the same time it can lead to shallow learning and passivate students. Considering this, teacher should always reflect on student's learning and classroom actions and make sure that focus stays on learning itself.

By: Ville Vihla 

LET Student.

Integrating SRL in Teaching

Definitely there are at least two different ways to approach Self-Regulated Learning in teaching within a Classroom environment; either to teach SRL theoretical knowledge to students directly hoping that student with figure out a way apply this knowledge or to integrate it within your lesson planning and delivery of instruction as a teacher. The first approach places SRL at the heart of the teaching as the ‘subject’ or ‘content’ of the lesson where the second approach integrates SRL as a set of strategies giving students a conscious knowledge and skills that supports the learning situation and outcomes. You can also mix both approaches but the outcomes of the teaching session will be hard to predict and assess.

The main problem with the first approach ‘Teaching SRL as the subject or content of the lesson’ is that only academic researches within the field of education and psychology might be able to understand the subject and students of any other subject will have difficulty learning about education as a non-relevant to their field. As a result integrating SRL within the classroom teaching would be the most effective strategy in supporting students learning and avoiding first of all overwhelming them with metacognition and psychology, second with the fancy terminology used in this field of study which we as researchers sometimes struggle to understand.

Before our teaching session we discussed and agreed with our teachers to teach any subject such as mathematics, history or language in a way that supports students SRL in our teaching practice, hence we selected language teaching as a subject through which we could demonstrate ‘how to support SRL in classroom teaching’ focussing on the metacognitive & motivational aspects of it. To be also more specific, I myself confirmed with the teachers that SRL is a broad subject and multifaceted area of research so we decided to tackle and focus on only one aspect of it at a time within planning & teaching - the ‘meta-cognition’ and its influence on students’ ‘Motivation’.   

‘Bottom-Up’ Strategy

Bottom-Up Self-Regulation strategies as Boaekaets & Corno explained; “When SR is triggered by cues from the environment it is bottom up. Instead of beginning work with goals that are firmly established, it is feedback from the task and classroom reward structures that help to establish work orientations and generate changes in work styles.” (Boekaerts and Corno 2005). Using this strategy we planned for our teaching session thus we did not start with goals and objectives at the beginning for the session. We hope this answer the question of our teachers ‘We did not get from the beginning of the session the main idea or topics you are presenting?’

Metacognition & ‘Bottom-Up’

We decided to choose Metacognition as an aspect of SRL to be integrated in our teaching session about languages using bottom up strategy where classroom environment triggers certain challenges in terms of metacognition and motivation as a direct result of it. The challenges were discussed at the end of the session very briefly as unfortunately due to lack of time because of the fact that our Chinese teacher got carried away in her teaching part leaving little time for the rest of the group to demonstrate the the integration part and implementation process in the lesson plan.

The following questions were supposed to support students metacognition & motivation as aspects of SRL through exploring students emotional regulation strategies and planning & organizing strategies by the end of the session so to speak ‘Bottom-Up’ Strategy;

• How do you feel about it?
• Is it really the most difficult language in the world?
• Which part was easy which was difficult to learn?
• What do you want to learn next time? & how?

Here is the integration of metacognitive and motivational aspects of SRL within the lesson planning at the stage rational/aim section within a standard Cambridge University Lesson planning template;

Stage Name & Number	Interaction Pattern	Time	Procedure	Stage Aim / Rationale
Stage 1: GI in Topic ’Motivation’	T-T T-s-s-s	1 min	Set-up Task 1. Tharwat introduces himself in Arabic saying ‘Ahlan, ana ismi Tharwat Wasfy, wenta? or Wenti?’ ·         Sophie ansers ‘ana ismi Sophie’ ·         Ercan ansers ‘ana ismi Ercan’ ·         Ville ansers ‘ana ismi Ville’ T. Explains Today we will learn how to introduce ourselves in the most difficult language in the world.. No not Chinese.. It’s Arabic … sounds exciting, right? J Hands up if you are excited? J	Generating interest in the topic in a fun and quick way. (motivation aspect)
Stage 2: Clarify Pronunciation & Meaning	T-s-s-s	2 min	Task 2 Clarification of sounds & mnemonic techniques ·         4 words to remember; (ana – ismi – wenta – wenti)   ·         Example; Ana ismi Tharat (my name is Tharwat) wenta? (and you)	Clarifying sounds and meaning. (Cognition)
Stage 3: Individual & Pair Practice ‘Students Introducing themselves…’	T-s-s-s s-s	2  min	Task 3: T. asks students to repeat ‘ahlan, ana ismi’ adding their name to it ex; ‘ahlan, ana ismi Ercan ’ Task 4: T. asks to introduce yourself upon pointing (game, unexpected selection of student…) Task5: T. asks students to look at their peer and exchange turns in introducing themselves to each other.	To make students practice & learn.   (Cognition)
Stage 4: Students Reflection ‘Metacognition & Self-Efficacy’	T-s-s-s	3 min	Task6: T. ask students, ·         How do you feel about it? ·         Is it really the most difficult language n the world? ·         Which part was easy which was difficult to learn? ·         What do you want to learn next time? & how?	To have students talk freely about the topic discussed in the lesson. (Metacognition, Self-Efficacy & emotional regulation)
Stage 5: SRL Clarification	T-T	2 min	Task 7: T. explains motivation, metacognition & emotional regulation.	To explain to peers the SRL integration into the lesson.

This is a standard Cambridge University Lesson planning template from CELTA training course.  

By Tharwat Wasfy

LET Student.  

References

Hopkins, N., Sylvester, A. & Tate, M. (2013). Motivations For BYOD: An Investigation Of The Contents Of A 21st Century School Bag.  ECIS Completed Research: Paper 183.

Laru, J. (2012). Scaffolding learning activities with collaborative scripts and mobile devices. Oulu: University of Oulu.

Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A. & Vojt, G. (2011). Are digital natives a myth or reality? University students’ use of digital technologies. Computers & Education, 56(2), 429– 440.

Written by Ville Vihla & Tharwat Wasfy on behalf of a group of 4 students; 'Ercan, Sophie, Tharwat & Ville' at the LET group 2006.