Self Regulated Without Fiber

Again, another article refined my thinking about the reasons we chose for home schooling. Having your reasons identified, and then reminding your self of them, is important in any educational setting, where it's easy to miss the forest for the trees.

In this article, the concept of self regulation is explained by SEMRA SUNGUR, CEREN TEKKAYA, whose work in researching this area is supposed to be top notch. They wrote in their article:

"Barry Zimmerman (2002), renowned scholar in the field of self-regulated learning, defined self-regulation as the process that students use to activate and sustain their , behaviors, and emotions to reach their goals. According to Zimmerman, self regulated students set goals effectively, plan and use strategies to achieve their goals, manage resources, and monitor their progress. From that perspective, the value of self-regulation in schools is readily obvious. Students who can initiate learning tasks, set goals, decide on appropriate strategies to achieve their goals, then monitor and evaluate their progress are likely to achieve at higher levels than are students who rely on teachers to perform these functions. Zimmerman argued that self-regulated learners continuously adjust their goals and choices of strategies in response to changing intra-personal, interpersonal, and contextual conditions." (Effects of Problem Based Learning and Traditional Instruction on Self-Regulated Learning, SEMRA SUNGUR, CEREN TEKKAYA Middle East Technical University)

Do you mind if I share stuff like this? I hope not. This article is really pretty important. He is comparing how a method of instruction called Problem Based Learning, a variation of which can be done at home, compares to traditional methods of instruction, when it comes to encouraging our children to be well disciplined and continuous life long learners.

I hope all of us have as a goal, the desire to help develop our children in such a way, that they set their own goals, make their own plans, execute their own plans, revise their own plans and persist in achieving what they have planned. Again, if this is one of your goals, then the method of instruction you choose to use at home, matters. Does your method build this kind of propensity in them? Or does the method you choose make your kids just as dependent on you as they would be dependent on a PS teacher?

Is this a valid question? That we consider more methods of instruction than just one, especially in light of how different each of our children are?