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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.
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 influenced 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 or enacting major themes from texts enhances reading comprehension, particularly as texts become more complex.
When annotating, students engage deeply with a text and make their thinking visible while reading.
Students practice making and finding meaning in texts through book discussions moderated by teachers to varying degrees.
Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory and ensure students are directing their Attention to the relevant information.
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 understand expectations as they navigate more complex tasks and assignments.
When peers are able to work together to plan, draft, edit, and revise during the Composition process, 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.
When students express information visually, they are activating more cognitive processes while problem solving and increasing their experience with alternate texts.
Exposure to natural light is beneficial to the students' health and can increase their alertness and Attention.
As part of a varied curriculum, explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies from teachers can help older students use strategies meaningfully and flexibly.
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.
Interpreting and composing discipline-specific texts requires tailoring literacy strategies, like annotating or asking questions, to the disciplinary goals and practices.
During reading, giving students the opportunity to explain their thinking process aloud allows them to recognize the strategies they use, solidify their comprehension, and move knowledge into their Long-term Memory.
Providing constructive feedback supports students' writing development by letting them know how to improve their writing.
+When students are aware that learning involves effort, mistakes, reflection, and refinement of strategies, they are more resilient when they struggle.
As students move through multimodal stations pertaining to a particular unit, the social and physical nature of the activity supports deeper understanding.
Setting overall goals with actionable steps for achievement can help students feel more 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 private or semi-private spaces where students can go to support 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, supporting their identity development and Sense of Belonging.
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.
Creating student-driven, flexible learning spaces involves setting up the classroom to support the desired learning outcomes for each 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 and Background Knowledge that are necessary to remember procedural and content information.
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.
When students provide constructive feedback on each other's work, they learn to give relevant suggestions, receive specific ways to improve their writing, and engage in Metacognition.
When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.
Maintaining consistent routines, structures, and supports 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.
Providing guiding prompts and questions for students to use when reading or participating in discussions deepens their understanding of texts and gives them space to question and grapple with issues of power, justice, and equity.
When teachers provide students with model texts for their writing, they learn to identify effective elements to incorporate into their own writing.
Decreasing extra audio input provides a focused learning environment.
Using texts to discuss complex emotions and perspectives with students can help them see how they influence behavior and draw their own personal connections.
When students explain to others, they deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning.
Student reflection on learning, particularly when done collaboratively, is critical for moving knowledge of content and strategies 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 and actively participate in the reading process.
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.
Giving students voice and choice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful and relevant to them, an important aspect of promoting Sense of Belonging.
Providing ways for students to meet their individual temperature needs supports Attention and Self-regulation.
Think-pair-share encourages meaningful student discussion by allowing for extra processing time and multiple shares.
Spaces that are structured, organized, and clean provide increased room for collaboration and active learning.
Word sorts are multisensory activities that help learners identify patterns and group words based on different categories while promoting Vocabulary development.
Writing conferences allow students to fully immerse, share, reflect, and receive feedback during the writing process, promoting Motivation for continuing the sometimes lengthy revision process that occurs in the upper grades.
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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.
