Strategic Content Learning Approach

Naïve self-regulators need support and assistance to engage flexibly in the sequence of cognitive processes that comprise self-regulated learning (Schunk and Zimmerman, 1998). Drawing from a socio-cultural perspective social dialogue between the more learned peer and/or adult conducted within the context of meaningful tasks in students’ ‘Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)’ (Vygotsky 1978) promotes selfregulation.

This general description of scaffold instructions though agreeable leaves the exact nature of adult guidance unspecified. Stone (1993) further articulates the nature of interactive instructions and suggests that support must be provided during scaffold instruction in a form of ‘prolepsis’ i.e. instructors make comments or statements that students strive to interpret, given their current incomplete understandings (optimally in their ZPD). It is this quest to make sense of the adult communications that promotes the active construction of knowledge and that spurs students’ development of self-regulation. Butler (1995, 1998a, b) proposed an instructional approach, ‘Strategic Content Learning (SCL)’ to implement the theoretical assumptions of Stone (1993).

In Strategic Content Learning Approach, both instructors and students are equally charged with interpreting each other’s comments, as a way of establishing a shared communicative context within which interactive discussions will be meaningful to students (Butler 1998a, b; Gandhi 2009). This article summarises the instructional dynamics and research findings of a study advocating the efficacy of SCL approach in promoting self-regulated learning in average mathematics performers . The study helped these students to remediate their performance by reflecting on their inaccurate understanding of the mathematical tasks, unproductive metacognitive knowledge, negative motivational beliefs, interfering external causal attributes such as frustration and anxiety, and faulty self-regulated skills.

In Strategic Content Learning approach, students are supported to engage in the cycle of self-regulated activities associated with successful learning. These activities include analysing task demands, selecting, adapting, or even inventing personalised or task specific strategies, implementing and monitoring strategy effectiveness, selfevaluating performance, and revising goals or strategies adaptively .

SCL is based on an analysis of self-regulated or strategic performance. Key instructional goals are defined, including students' construction of metacognitive knowledge, motivational beliefs, and self-regulated approaches to learning. In making students self-regulated a central instructional guideline is for teachers to support students' reflective engagement in cycles of SRL (i.e., task analysis, strategy implementation, self-monitoring). For example, to support the sampled group of students in solving problems in mathematics, the teacher started by helping them analyse the common task selected (problems in mathematics). They were asked to interpret available information (e.g. information given in the problem). They were guided to identify and implement strategies for meeting task requirements (e.g. organising the given information, finding relationship between the given information and what has been asked for in the problem). Finally, the students were supported to self-evaluate outcomes in light of task criteria (e.g. Are they happy with the solution strategy, can there be any other method of doing the same problem) and to refine their task-specific strategies so as to redress problems or challenges encountered (e.g. is their chosen method an elegant one, to compare and judge the most appropriate solution strategy for solving the problem).

A primary emphasis was not on teaching predefined strategies for completing academic tasks but to think about what the students would have done on their own if the teacher weren’t there. The teacher guides students in their cognitive processing so that they become successful, intervening only when required. No direct explanations of the concepts are given. From a theoretical perspective, it could be argued that, if instruction focuses primarily on the direct explanation of predefined strategies, students may be inadvertently excluded from the problem-solving process central to self-regulation (Butler, 1993, 1995). If it were the teacher who has analysed a task, anticipated problems, and defined useful strategies, then students would have little opportunity to solve problems themselves and arrive at strategies. To avoid this problem, the teacher co-constructed strategies with students, bridging from task analysis. The teacher and the students worked collaboratively to find "solutions" (i.e., strategies) to the given problem. So, for example, when defining strategies for solving a problem, the students were to consider strategy alternatives in light of task demands (e.g., what strategies will they adopt to solve the problem, will they make a table, draw a diagram or do guess and check, etc.). Then, while working through the task collaboratively, the students were supported to try out strategy alternatives (e.g., to apply different problem solving strategies to solve the same problem), judge strategy effectiveness (e.g., whether they found the ideal and an appropriate strategy, how do they know), and modify strategies adaptively. Over time, through these iterative processes, the students (ideally) learnt how to construct personally effective strategies for meeting varying problems in mathematics.

 should (a) Collaborate with students to complete meaningful work (to generate a context for communication), (b) Diagnose students' strengths and challenges by listening carefully to students' sense making as they grapple with meaningful work, (c) Engage students in collaborative problem solving while working towards achieving task goals, (d) Provide calibrated support in given students’ areas of need to cue more effective cognitive processing, (e) Use language in interactive discussions that students might employ to make sense of experience, and (f) Ask students to articulate ideas (e.g., about task criteria, productive strategies) in their own words to promote distillation of new knowledge.

For instance, to support average mathematics performers with their math problem solving, each group and the teacher worked collaboratively on the mathematical problems to set a context for communication (collaborating to complete meaningful work). The teacher began by observing students solve one or two problems, asking them to think aloud and discuss with their peers as they worked (diagnosing students' strengths and challenges). Attention focused on how they interpreted their task (the given problem), interpreted or understood mathematical concepts, represented problems, identified solution strategies and implemented procedures, and monitored their work collaboratively. Then, as described earlier, the teacher assisted the students to work recursively through cycles of task analysis, strategy use, and self-monitoring (collaborative problem solving while working towards finding a suitable strategy). When the group did well, the teacher supported them to recognise their success and reflect on the strategies they just used that worked

(articulating ideas). The students documented these strategies in their personal math journals that they could review, test, and refine over time. When they encountered difficulties, the teacher assisted them to solve more effectively (calibrated support).

For example, sometimes the teacher directed their attention to a sample problem and supported them to interpret that information. The students were helped to verbalise new insights and to try out new ideas (articulating ideas). Note that depending on the whole group’s areas of difficulty discussion focused on problem-specific strategies (e.g., how to solve an algebraic equation), strategies usefulness for solving math problems in general (e.g., always checking your work in-between the steps, seeing patterns), and/or strategies focusing on learning math more independently (e.g., working through simpler examples if stuck, breaking the problem in parts, plan sub problems while working, computing on smaller numbers instead of large numbers).

Through these qualitatively detailed and cumulative analysis it was ascertained that the participants not only developed and mastered task-specific strategies, but also learned how to self regulate more effectively. The research had served to introduce the Strategic Content Learning as a successful instructional approach for promoting Self-Regulated Learning in average performers of mathematics of class eight in small group situation. Notable results were consistent gains in task performance and metacognitive awareness about mathematical tasks and strategies. Also important were the findings that all the students were actively involved in developing strategies for themselves, and that the majority of students reported adapting productive approaches for use across the problems.

In short, the SCL approach seems to be a workable instructional approach wherein students and teachers work collaboratively in a shared communicative context and in the process of striving to understand each others comments become better performers and reflectors.