Students in HASS classrooms are seeing success while exploring self-regulated learning strategies.
In Term 1, our HASS classrooms have become vibrant spaces of growth and discovery as both students and teachers experiment with self-regulation for learning strategies, empowering everyone to become more independent learners.
Our staff and students have been working collaboratively to identify which self-regulation strategies work best for enhancing focus, improving recall, and tackling challenges. Whether working with strategies like the ‘Circles of Control’, which helps students identify what is within their power, or trying out recall techniques, like the ‘Power Paragraph’, where students write as much as they can remember about a topic, everyone has been actively involved in developing positive learning habits.
A recent highlight comes from our Year 7 HASS classes, where the ‘9-Grid Recall’ strategy was introduced. In this activity, students are presented with nine carefully designed questions that cover the most important parts of a previously taught topic. Students work independently to recall the answers to these questions, before working collaboratively to help each other fill in the gaps. By attempting to recall these answers from memory, students reinforce their learning and move knowledge from short-term to long-term memory.
Other approaches like the ‘Tally Strategy’ are also making a difference. Students have been using this strategy to keep themselves on task during lessons, creating a tally of every time their focus drifts. By acknowledging this, students can bring their focus back to the learning, boosting participation in class. In Year 10 History, this strategy has shown some excellent results, where students have been able to extend themselves from one sentence responses to more in-depth paragraph responses. This is due to them acknowledging when they had focus drifted, allowing them to bring their focus back to the learning.
This term has been all about testing, adjusting and finding the right fit for each learner. By equipping our students with self-regulation for learning strategies, we are giving them the opportunity to learn the skills needed to be a successful life-long learner.
