Facilitate self-regulation
Domain 3: Facilitate self-regulation
This domain asks whether you can design tasks where students plan, monitor, and reflect on their own learning. Exam scenarios often describe a project and ask what to add so students take greater ownership. Self-regulation is not the same as giving choices; students need goals, checkpoints, evidence, and opportunities to adjust.
Core rules
- Students should set or negotiate learning goals and milestones.
- Monitoring requires students to check progress against criteria, not just wait for teacher approval.
- Reflection should lead to revised strategies, not just a feelings journal.
- Teacher scaffolds such as rubrics, conferences, and learning logs support but do not replace student control.
- Longer projects create more opportunity for sustained self-regulation.
Worked example
A teacher assigns a research project with a daily checklist: read page 1, answer questions 1–3, show the teacher. The teacher sets every step and monitors compliance. Students complete tasks but do not plan or adjust. To raise self-regulation, students would set weekly milestones, use a learning log to record what is working, and bring evidence to a checkpoint where they revise their plan. The teacher might provide a rubric and ask students to self-assess against it before submitting. Reasoning: the original task is teacher-regulated; the revised task requires student planning, monitoring, and reflection.
Traps
- Equating choice with self-regulation.
- Over-scaffolding until the teacher owns the plan.
- Requiring reflection only at the end, with no chance to adjust.
- Monitoring behavior such as quiet or on-task, instead of learning strategies.
- Giving students freedom without criteria or checkpoints.