Strategic Teaching

Exploring Strategies 

and the Self-Regulation of Strategies 

 

 From Santrock's Cognitive Development

In the view of Michael Pressley (1983; McCormick & Pressley, 1997), the key to education is helping students learn a rich repertoire of strategies that result in solutions to problems. Good thinkers routinely use strategies and effective planning to solve problems. Good thinkers also know when and where to use strategies (they have metacognitive knowledge about strategies). Understanding when and where to use strategies often results from the learner’s monitoring of the learning situation.

Pressley argues that when students are given instruction about effective strategies that are new to them, they often can apply these strategies on their own. However, some strategies are not effective for young children. For example, young children cannot competently use mental imagery.

Pressley emphasizes that students benefit when the teacher models the appropriate strategy and overtly verbalizes the steps in the strategy. Then, students subsequently practice the strategy. Their practice of the strategy is guided and supported by the teacher’s feedback until the students can effectively execute the strategy autonomously.When instructing students about employing the strategy, it also is a good idea to explain to them how using the strategy will benefit them.

Having practice in the new strategy usually is not enough for students to continue to use the strategy and transfer it to new situations. For effective maintenance and transfer, encourage students to monitor the effectiveness of the new strategy relative to their use of old strategies by comparing their performance on tests and other assessments. Pressley says that it is not enough to say "Try it, you will like it;" you need to say "Try it and compare."

• Self-regulatory learning consists of the self-generation and self-monitoring of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to reach a goal. Researchers have found that most high-achieving students are self-regulatory learners. For example, compared with low-achieving students, high achieving students set more specific learning goals, use more strategies to learn, self-monitor their learning more, and more systematically evaluate their progress toward a goal.
  
  
• Critical thinking involves thinking reflectively, productively, and evaluating the evidence.
  
  
• Thinking creatively is the ability to think in novel and unusual ways and come up with unique solutions to problems -- which involve convergent and divergent thinking. A number of strategies, including brainstorming, can be used to stimulate creative thinking.
  
  
• Metacognition is cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing. In Pressley's view, the key to education is helping students learn a rich repertoire of strategies that results in solutions to problems. Metacognition is the key to developing critical-thinking skills. 

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Planning instruction includes:

o    Planning for Diversity
o    Planning in Collaboration
o    Planning to Maximize Learning
o    Planning for Adjustments

Planning instruction involves using contextual considerations that . . .

o    Bridge curriculum and student experiences
o    Accommodate individual student learning styles and performance modes
o    Link to student needs and performance