Real Talk | 16 September 2019 | Term 3, Week 9
Over the last week, your teachers have been focusing on how well you ‘self regulate’. Lots of studies, but particularly recent research from Melbourne University in Victoria, tell us that self regulation = better grades + a happier life. So, who wouldn’t want to be a skilful self regulator?
What does being a skilful self regulator look like? It means that you are an active participant in your own learning – you set goals for yourself, complete tasks and review your work to understand what you have learnt and what you need to learn next. It means that you come to class and make sure that you are ‘ready to learn’. If you are not ready to learn, it means you have some strategies that you can use to get yourself into that space. This will be a big focus of our pastoral care program at Servite next year – learning how to set goals, be ‘ready to learn’ and reflect on your learning.
It is soooo hard to stay focused sometimes – all your teachers find it hard too. We have to sit through long meetings and during those, all of us are tempted to reach for our phones or computers but we have to maintain focus and practise self regulation skills. When we have tasks to complete – it could be correcting your work – we have to stop procrastinating (which means finding other things to do and putting it off – I have been known to even choose vacuuming over correcting work!). One way of staying on task and motivated is to reward yourself eg “when I finish this task, I am going to go for a walk/run/message a friend”.
There are 3 stages of self regulation – what you do before a task (we call this the planning stage), what you do whilst doing a task and what you do after you have completed a task (we call this the reflection stage).
Look at the following table and think about yourself. Which boxes can you tick? Are you more a beginner self regulator or a skilful self regulator?
Planning Stage
| Beginner Self Regulator | Skilful Self Regulator |
| Set no goals and have no real idea what you want to achieve | Set clear goals – short term and long term goals |
| Not interested in what you are learning, just doing because you have been told you have to | Motivated to achieve the best that you can |
| Wait for the teacher to direct you | Plan your approach to learning – don’t rely on teacher direction or the teacher to keep you on task |
| You are over or under confident about the difficulty of the task and the level of effort required | Accurately analyse the task for level of difficulty and ability required |
| Have difficulty with understanding how to learn | Know both what to learn and how to learn |
Next week I will send you some information on what a skilful self regulator looks like while working on a task in class and at home. Our aim is that all students become skilful self regulators. If you need help with strategies to help you be ‘ready to learn’ in class or with designing a study timetable for home, please chat to your teachers and Head of Community. We want to say ‘Servite students are skilful self regulators’.
Enjoy the week.
Servite Community Team
