The Bycicle metafoor and the concept of SRL was very interesting during Module 3.
We compare ‘learning to self-regulate’ with riding and steering a bike. Imagine a pupil steering a bike. He can and has to decide about a lot of things: where to go to, how fast to drive, which road to choose. If it is a longer ride, he should also consider when to insert a short stop, e.g. to check the road map, to control if he is still on the right track, or to check out something that comes across, etc. At the same time, he also assumes responsibility: when driving in an unknown environment, he must gather information about the area first, map out a route to take… and can’t blame someone else if he drives in the wrong direction.
The most important components of SRL
- determines what he wants to learn (where to go)
- finds out what he needs for it (gathering information)
- developing a plan to tackle a learning task (map out a route)
- determining the working tempo (how fast)
- deciding how to learn (road to choose)
- regularly controlling progress (control)
- making adjustments until the desired results are attained