EXPERIMENTING TO BOOTSTRAP SELF-REGULATED LEARNING

Modern theories of cognitive and constructive learning portray student s as agents who set and pursue goals. More effective students select a mong cognitive tactics they use to approach goals and learn from false starts and setbacks. These students self-regulate not merely performa nce but also how they learn. How do students develop forms for self-re gulating learning? The author suggests they experiment thereby bootstr apping newer forms of self-regulated learning from prior forms. Experi menting is an arduous way to build knowledge and it is subject to at l east 3 obstacles that may be especially troublesome for young students : obtaining sufficient practice with appropriate feedback, remembering how learning was enacted, and reasoning about factors that affect lea rning. The author examines these issues and suggests needs for future research that investigates how students develop forms of complex goal- directed cognition that guide learning.