Teaching Study Skills and Encouraging Self-Regulated Learning

 By Sophie Nash

"But Miss, I don’t really know how to revise" This question is one that many of us may have heard from our students. When we set revision as a task or a homework assignment, are we confident that the students know how to approach this? With the aim of developing study skills sessions for Year 11 students, I looked into a range of research and practical advice to ensure that revision and independent study are both purposeful and valuable. In her book ‘The Student’s Guide to Exam Success’, Tracey talks of Pareto’s law, which states that the average person draws 80% of their results from only 20% of their effort. Her book gives a range of revision strategies that aim to maximise the results of students from their efforts. This is something that I believe can be achieved by teaching study skills and by reflecting on the ways that we approach independent study and metacognition in our subject lessons.

Teaching study skills With the aim of ensuring that Year 11 students had a greater understanding of a range of revision techniques, note-taking methods, and ways in which to best structure their time I planned a series of TTB presentations that focused on the following themes:

1. Identifying and fixing exam mistakes
2. Setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound)
3. Spaced practice and structuring revision times
4. Creating an exam timetable
5. Structuring revision notes using the Cornell Note Taking Method As a classroom teacher, researching these methods has helped me with my own classroom practice, particularly when structuring review and improve lessons, when setting homework tasks and reflecting on the desired impact of these, and when planning and delivering revision lessons. It has also helped me when giving advice and support to students on how best to prepare for assessments.

Using metacognition and self-regulation approaches in our lessons When thinking about which learners revise in the most effective way there is strong evidence that it is often the most self-regulated learners. For many of us, these were also the learners that performed best during lockdown, as they are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and can thus motivate themselves to engage in, and improve, their learning. The EFF: Metacognition and self-regulation report suggests the use of ‘metacognitive strategies’ can lead to an additional +7 months progress when used well. The report gives 7 recommendations for teaching self-regulated learning and metacognition. Through engaging with research and planning the TTB sessions, I have been able to reflect on how best to facilitate study skills sessions moving forward and how we can encourage students to be self-regulated learners in our teaching. I believe that there is value to teaching study skills in the way that these sessions were facilitated, however in order to achieve the best results these should run alongside lessons where we are using metacognition and self-regulation approaches in our teaching.

Questions to think about...

• Would it be beneficial to have a greater emphasis on the teaching of study skills in younger year groups?
• How can we embed the teaching of study skills so that they are seen as central to learning rather than being an ‘add-on’?
• What specific strategies can we teach students in our lessons to promote metacognition or ‘learning to learn’?
• How can we give students opportunities to use these strategies with support, and then independently?
• How can we ensure we set an appropriate level of challenge to develop pupils’ self-regulation and metacognition in relation to specific learning tasks?

Bibliography 

Education Endowment Foundation. 

(2011) Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/meta-cognition-and-self-regulation/ Education Endowment Foundation. 

(2011) Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/metacognition-and-self-regulated-learning/ Good Notes. 

(2017) Available at: https://medium.goodnotes.com/study-with-ease-the-best-way-to-take-notes-2749a3e8297b Teacher Toolkit. 

(2015) Spaced Practice: Less Is More, Over Time. Available at: https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/2020/06/20/spaced-practice/ Tracey, E. 

(2006) The Student’s Guide to Exam Success. Open University Press, England