Self-Regulated Learning in Technology-Enhanced (Karl Steffens)

Karl Steffens describes self regulated learners as people who ‘seek challenges and overcome obstacles sometimes with persistence and sometimes with inventive problem solving.’  Blogs and online feedback now seem to be another resource self regulated learners can use.

Despite the benefits of Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments (TELEs) described I would wholeheartedly agree with Steffens’ comments that ‘effort – as well as technology – to be the most important factor in explaining one’s learning outcomes.’ One really needs self motivation to be a self-regulated learner. Students can use self-regulated learning as a method to address specific areas of a subject or course with which they are struggling in and a determination to solve this problem is vital if a student will go to the effort of self-regulated learning at all. Self-regulated learning can be problem focused for the individual and they can address their problem at their own pace. As Steffens says; ‘the self-regulated learners decides what, when, where and how to learn.’ This is something I know from personal experience of trying to get through problems I faced with Leaving Cert Accounting and Physics. I found that while the teacher moved on and many with a natural flair for the subjects coped fine, I found that looking over the topics dealt with on my own, at a later time and at my own pace enabled me to keep up in the course and eventually get through the exams in the Leaving Cert.

Steffens refers to Boekaert view of the importance of setting your own ‘personal goals’ as a self-regulated learner. Along with the importance of effort and self motivation described above, I am reminded of a theory James Cronin referred to in the tutorial training workshop two weeks ago in which he referred to a topic called ‘Troublesome Knowledge’, which he described as not giving up when encountering a problem in study but persisting in trying to overcome it and emerging with a greater sense of satisfaction for having eventually solved that problem. I would really agree that self-regulated learning whether through books or TELEs requires what Steffens calls ‘persistence in academic tasks and achievements’ in tackling this Troublesome Knowledge.

Near the end of the article Steffens poses the question ‘do TELEs which are evaluated as having a potential for supporting self-regulated learning by experts and which are actually perceived by students as facilitating self-regulated learning indeed improve self-regulated learning skills?’ I would believe that TELEs would have the ability to improve self-regulated learning skills. For one when using the internet or blogs students are doing it with their own personal initiative. When people are writing blogs they are actively engaging with content there and then, rather than using some memorized essay in an exam. Students can offer more impulsive and honest views through blogs and that can only be a good thing in developing self-regulated learning skills. Through TELEs self-regulated learning can leave the situation of learning in isolation as can often be the case, as people can express their own views and take other people’s into consideration. Blogs serve as a good example of this.