How Do We Teach Students to Self-Regulate?

and more on-time project submissions with a better understanding of historical events in social studies, increased initiative and self-confidence in physical education, and improved course grades in world languages. Special education teachers have observed students with disabilities displaying better organization and time on task. When asked, students said they had more control over their learning and academic success. They talked about feeling less stressed. Students better understood how their actions directly impacted their performance in school, and their engagement, motivation, and learning improved.

This book provides secondary educators the tools necessary to facilitate students’ development of self-regulation by outlining an array of instructional practices, authentic application examples, and formative assessment techniques that can be applied in any classroom or educational experience. These instructional activities and strategies are designed specifically for adolescents. Prior research shows that social-emotional instruction at the middle and high school levels often fails because these interventions do not respect the adolescent’s desire for independence, status, and respect (Yeager et al., 2018). Instead of attempting to suppress these desires, our approach empowers youth to gain independence and achieve any aspiration. In doing so, even the most reluctant students increase their ownership and motivation, applying their enhanced agency to all aspects of their lives, including academics.

At this point, you may be thinking about a specific student and wondering, “He clearly needs these skills, but will he buy into the instruction? Will he put in the effort necessary to increase his self-regulation?” We have heard similar questions from hundreds of educators who later tell us that they were surprised at the high levels of student engagement, especially from students who struggle academically. These same teachers describe how high-achieving students were grateful for this instruction because it helped them manage their time and decrease their stress levels. Throughout the book, we have included quotes from educators and students illustrating how diverse learners connect with and apply self-regulation. We encourage you to skim through these quotes and highlight the ones that resonate with you.

Self-regulation, like all intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies, isn’t an innate trait; it’s a teachable set of skills. The chapters in this book provide numerous instructional activities for thoroughly teaching students the self-regulation process, helping them learn each of the essential components, and creating opportunities for authentic practice within common classroom activities. The instructional activities included in this book have been taught

across hundreds of middle and high schools, in specific courses, and schoolwide. To reach all students, many schools provide consistent self-regulation instruction during an advisory, mentoring, or homeroom course. Then each educator designs practice opportunities within their academic courses. This creates a schoolwide common understanding of self-regulation and provides students with numerous opportunities to practice and receive feedback on their development. Other schools have divvied up the instructional activities to be utilized across core content courses—the language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies teachers each facilitate different instructional activities, promoting students’ development of self-regulation alongside academic learning. Still other schools have used the instructional activities in their entirety as a course curriculum, often in a mandatory success skills course.

To reach schoolwide implementation, it is often beneficial to start with one or a small group of teachers. As you teach, devote a little time each week to providing self-regulation instructional activities, and whenever possible, connect the self-regulation concepts to your course material or assignments (numerous examples are provided in each chapter). Identify differences in student behaviors and learning as a result of self-regulation instruction and talk with others about students’ development. While you may be thinking there isn’t time, content-area instructors (including mathematics, science, language arts, social studies, business, technical education, health, and others) who have carved out instructional time to teach self-regulation are rewarded with students using class time more effectively, turning in homework on time and of high quality, managing their progress on projects, studying for exams, and supporting each other to succeed. As Theresa, a high school science teacher, told us:

I spent two days at the beginning of a science project guiding students to plan their own paths to success. Then throughout the project, I devoted class time to guiding students to monitor and adjust their plans, sharing ideas with each other. All but one student, who was out sick for a week, turned in the project on time and earned a C or better. The teacher across the hall only had 50 percent of students submit the project on time. When I asked students what made the difference, they told me that they knew what to do and didn’t feel stressed. Using a little class time to teach self-regulation has paid off!

Instead of regulating for students, Theresa coached her students to take ownership over their success through self-regulation. Educators have told us time and time again that they are able to cover more academic content because students are displaying these academic success behaviors.