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On June 22, 2021, we will launch updated strategies for the Math PK-2 model, as well as additional updates to the Navigator that highlight equity, SEL, and culturally responsive teaching. To learn more, visit our Site Updates (available in the "About" menu at the top of any page).
Hover to see how factors connect to Self-regulation. Then click connected factors to explore strategies related to multiple factors.
Self-regulation skills help students concentrate on learning. Self-regulation is the ability to alter and regulate our emotional and behavioral responses flexibly in order to meet a given goal. Self-regulation is a limited capacity resource meaning that it can become depleted over the course of the task or day, or can become drained when students are spending much of their energy working to focus in the classroom.
Main Idea
Self-regulation includes recognizing behavioral responses and aligning them with standards, such as social expectations. Students who can successfully self-regulate their behaviors accomplish this by flexibly monitoring and inhibiting emotions, attention, motivation, actions, or impulses in pursuit of a goal. It is important to note that the perception of appropriate behavior in schools may be influences by dominant social norms in a culture and may not match students' own cultural norms, attitudes, and beliefs.
Self-regulation can be broken down into three main components:
Students with learning disabilities and ADHD often have more difficulty with Self-regulation in certain classroom contexts, which may be due to the additional demands of reading, writing, or focusing Attention in the classroom, and may benefit from specific Self-regulation support. Students with weaker Self-regulation skills are at greater risk for low academic achievement and emotional and conduct problems. Students who have been historically excluded and those with disabilities, particularly those with ADHD, are also at greater risk of disciplinary actions such as suspension for what is perceived as disruptive behavior. As a result, educators and students may benefit from culturally-responsive and inclusive training addressing Self-regulation.
Physically acting out a text enhances reading comprehension.
Students practice making and finding meaning in their reading through a book club model.
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory.
Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe; a sense of belonging; and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.
Checking in with learners, or taking the time to talk with individual learners about their experiences or goals, is important for fostering a positive classroom environment.
Checklists and rubrics help students develop their abilities to self-assess and revise their writing.
When peers are able to work together to plan, draft, edit, and revise their compositions, their writing quality improves.
Communication boards are displays of graphics (e.g., pictures, symbols, illustrations) and/or words where learners can gesture or point to the displays to extend their expressive language potential.
Students activate more cognitive processes by exploring and representing their understandings in visual form.
Dim or natural lighting provides a calming environment.
When teachers provide explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and model when to use them, students learn how to flexibly apply them to make meaning of texts.
Explicitly teaching strategies for different genres, like narrative or persuasive writing, helps students write for different purposes and audiences.
Seeing and using new words repeatedly and in many contexts is critical for Vocabulary acquisition.
Research shows that, along with traditional reading comprehension strategies, students use unique strategies to read the non-linear, hyperlinked structure of online texts.
Explicitly teaching strategies for planning, writing, and revising texts improves students' writing quality.
Teaching students how to label, identify, and manage emotions helps them learn Inhibition & Self-Regulation skills.
When students explain their thinking process aloud, they recognize the strategies they use and solidify their understanding.
Providing constructive feedback supports students' writing development by letting them know how to improve their writing.
Teachers can help students understand that learning involves effort, mistakes, and reflection by teaching them about their malleable brain and modeling their own learning process.
As students walk through stations working in small groups, the social and physical nature of the learning supports deeper understanding.
Setting overall goals, as well as smaller goals as steps to reaching them, encourages consistent, achievable progress and helps students feel confident in their skills and abilities.
Providing feedback that focuses on the process of developing skills conveys the importance of effort and motivates students to persist when learning.
Having spaces where students can go supports self-regulation and individual deliberate practice.
As students work with and process information by discussing, organizing, and sharing it together, they deepen their understanding.
Journaling allows students to reflect on their thinking and feelings, process their learning, and connect new information to what they know.
Full sentence manipulatives allow students to practice producing more complex Syntax and writing.
Providing physical representations of parts of a sentence activates learners' mental processes.
Through short but regular mindfulness activities, students develop their awareness and ability to focus.
Short breaks that include mindfulness quiet the brain to allow for improved thinking and emotional regulation.
Multiple tables and chairs on wheels allow for setting up the classroom to support the desired learning outcomes of each classroom activity.
By talking through their thinking at each step of a process, teachers can model what learning looks like.
Brain breaks that include movement allow learners to refresh their thinking and focus on learning new information.
Instruction in multiple formats allows students to activate different cognitive skills to understand and remember the steps they are to take in their literacy work.
Multiple display spaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Using multiple methods of assessment can help educators gain a comprehensive understanding of learner progress across a wide range of skills and content.
Multiple writing surfaces promote collaboration by allowing groups to share information easily as they work.
Connecting information to music and dance can support Short-term and Long-term Memory by engaging auditory processes, Emotions, and physical activity.
Research shows physical activity improves focus and creativity.
Playful activities can support the development of learners' Metacognition and also inspire their narratives and writing.
When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.
Maintaining consistent classroom routines and schedules ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.
Project-based learning (PBL) actively engages learners in authentic tasks designed to create products that answer a given question or solve a problem.
Cards with strategies for managing emotions help students remember how to act when faced with strong feelings.
When students read models of the type of writing they are doing, they can identify effective elements to incorporate in their writing.
Decreasing extra audio input provides a focused learning environment.
Reading aloud books about skills children are learning provides another model for their development.
When students explain to others, they deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning.
Providing space and time for students to reflect is critical for moving what they have learned into Long-term Memory.
Response devices boost engagement by encouraging all students to answer every question.
With figurative language and creative sentence structure, poetry supports the development of a deeper understanding of the different ways language makes meaning.
Books on social and emotional learning (SEL) topics, such as developing empathy and productive persistence, help teach these skills.
When students engage in a dialogue with themselves, they are able to orient, organize, and focus their thinking.
When students monitor their comprehension, performance, and use of strategies when reading and writing, they build their Metacognition.
Incorporating multiple senses with strategies like chewing gum, using a vibrating pen, and sitting on a ball chair supports focus and Attention.
Shadowing a student involves an educator, administrator, or designated adult observing a learner across different parts of their day to deepen their understanding of that learner's experience beyond their classroom.
Providing ways for students to adjust sound level supports individual auditory needs.
Using earplugs or headphones can increase focus and comfort.
Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful.
Providing ways for students to meet their individual temperature needs supports Attention and Inhibition & Self-Regulation.
Students develop literacy skills by listening to and speaking with others in informal ways.
Timers help students learn how to self-pace and transition.
Tossing a ball, beanbag, or other small object activates physical focus in support of mental focus.
Spaces that are structured, organized, and clean provide increased room for collaboration and active learning.
Videos developed with discussion guides can teach students about social and emotional learning (SEL) skills.
Word sorts are multisensory activities that help learners identify patterns and group words based on different categories.
Writing conferences allow students to share, reflect on, and receive feedback about their writing, which promotes Motivation for revising.
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This is our homepage. You can access many of the features of the Navigator here, and learn more about how learner variability intersects with topics in education and learning. To start, select a content area – we call them Learner Models – to visit a factor map.
Factor maps show research-based concepts, "factors," that likely impact learning. They are organized into four categories: Learner Background, Social and Emotional Learning, Cognition, and Content Area. The map is interactive. Move your cursor over a factor to see connected factors. Select any factor to visit its summary page. We'll look at factor summary pages next.
This is a factor summary page. It provides a brief definition and review of the factor, a factor connections diagram, additional resources, and strategies that support this factor. On the strategy card, the multi-colored boxes show all the factors that it supports. Select a strategy to visit its summary page.
Strategy summary pages have an overview, information about using the strategy in different learning environments, resources of interest, the factors this strategy supports, and related strategies you can explore. To view all the strategies in a content area, use the strategies tab at the top of the page. We'll look at all the Strategies for this learner model next.
The strategy page shows ALL of the strategies for that learner model. You can select factors of interest for you or your learners, and it will narrow the strategies to only those that match all of the factors selected. This makes it easy to find key strategies to better design for learner variability. Again, select the strategy name to visit its summary page. Use the plus signs on each strategy card to add a strategy to a workspace. We'll explore those next.
The “Tools & Workspaces” tab on the navigation bar or the “My Workspaces” button on the account menu takes you to a page that shows your workspaces. There are two tabs on the My Workspaces page: a Workspaces tab and a Reports tab. The Workspaces tab lists workspaces you can personalize and update. You can create new sections, move cards between sections, add annotations, share with collaborators, and write reflections. The second tab, "Reports", are a kind of workspace created through the Instructional Design Tool or the Product Assessment Tool and have fewer personalization options.
There are three, step-by-step tools you can access on the Navigator to help make workspace or a workspace report. The Learner Centered Design Tool has four steps and helps you create a workspace. First, enter basic information and select a content area of interest. Second, select a few factors that you want to focus on. Third, review connected factors you may not have considered. Note – you don't have to select any extra factors on this step if you don’t want to. The fourth and final step, review and select strategies that you want to use, and save them to a workspace.
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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner.
It disrupts the notion of a one-size-fits all education. Understanding learner variability helps educators embrace both students’ struggles and strengths as we connect practice to uplifting the whole learner.
Throughout the site, we talk about "factors" and "strategies." Factors are concepts research suggests have an impact on how people learn. Strategies are the approaches to teaching and learning that can be used to support people in how they learn best.
Use the Learner Centered Design Tool to build a workspace. Go to Learner Centered Design Tool.
Or, create a new blank workspace for your product or project.
Use one of the guided tools to build a workspace.
Or, create a new blank workspace for your product or project.
Make a copy of this workspace.
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On this page, using your heatmap, you will be asked to select factors to further explore, and then select new strategies you might incorporate into upcoming instruction. Once done, click “Show Summary" to view your Design Summary Report.
On this page, using your heatmap, you will be asked to select factors to further explore, and then select new strategies you might incorporate into upcoming instruction. Once done, click “Show Report” to view your Design Summary Report.
By selecting "Show Report" you will be taken to the Assessment Summary Page. Once created, you will not be able to edit your report. If you select cancel below, you can continue to edit your factor and strategy selections.
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Learner variability is the recognition that each learner is a unique constellation of strengths and challenges that are interconnected across the whole child. Understanding these connections and how they vary according to context is essential for meeting the needs of each learner. It embraces both students’ struggles and strengths. It considers the whole child.
Throughout the site, we talk about "factors" and "strategies." Factors are concepts research suggests have an impact on how people learn. Strategies are the approaches to teaching and learning that can be used to support people in how they learn best.
The Learner Variability Navigator is a free, online tool that translates the science of learner variability into factor maps and strategies that highlight connections across the whole learner. This puts the science of learning at teachers' fingertips, empowering them to understand their own practice and support each learner.
