The 7 Best Strategies for Self-Regulated Learning

Do you often find yourself lost, daydreaming, or procrastinating on essential learning projects? If so, chances are that you find learning new concepts by yourself to be challenging. But don't worry! Self-regulated learning processes can fix it.

They help you manage your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions more strategically. Eventually, allowing you to deal with the stressors—your assignment, workshops, any new concept or topic you need to learn about—more efficiently and effectively.

Let's find out about them in detail.

1. Regulate Your Learning Mindset

The first strategy to mindfulness learning is finding fascinating reasons to learn the topic you're assigned. For instance, if your company or boss wants you to take a workshop about a new technology or any concept that's new to you, don't start with it right away. Instead, try learning it to satisfy your curiosity. It means that before working on it, you find something about that topic that makes you curious to know more about it.

It's equally valid for students, too. Suppose your teacher selected your assignment's topic. Now, instead of using a mindless approach aiming to finish it as soon as possible, find out some exciting angle about it that may interest you. Once you've found it, base your further learning around it.

It'll not just make your assignment easier to finish, but you'll see that you actually like studying about it.

2. Explore Different Ways to Learn Better

Another way to make your learning process easier and better is by finding different ways to learn. Here are three different ways you can add to your list:

Visual Learning

It's basically when you use visual methods to learn different concepts—for instance, graphs, charts, maps, diagrams, and others. They don't necessarily need to be visual media—images and videos—but anything that can easily and quickly explain concepts using shapes and patterns.

For example, if you explain your marketing plan to your colleagues using a chart, they'll understand it better and faster.

Auditory Learning

It's another study style that can ease the learning process for you. Here, you can try learning your lessons or new concepts through podcasts, group discussions, lectures, or saying things out loud to understand better.

Kinesthetic Learning

This concept is based on performing what you need to learn rather than just studying it in theory. For example, if you need to learn a programming language, code some programs instead of just mugging up the codes verbally.

In the book, How to Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, the author says, “If you want to learn how to milk a cow, don't study it in a book. Instead, go out and milk a cow.” Practically performing the concepts can make the understanding process easier and clearer.

3. Learn Using Zimmerman's Cyclical Phases Model

This is the model that Zimmerman came up with after studying how people acquire knowledge and become experts. According to the cyclic phases model, you complete your learning in three steps: forethought, performance, and self-reflection.

In the forethought stage, you set goals for yourself, develop a plan to reach them, and lay out different strategies to keep yourself motivated and from being distracted.
In the second stage, you actually perform the task as planned, using all the techniques to prevent distraction and complete your job by the assigned time.
Finally, in the third stage, you reflect or analyze how you've performed.

Including these three steps in your learning process can positively affect your later performances.

4. Observe and Examine Yourself

Another best way to regulate the learning process yourself is to dig deeper and find out more about your working processes.

Surely there must have been a time in your life when you used to love learning about a subject, topic, or maybe doing something. But later on, you lost interest in those activities.

Now, ask yourself what the best thing about that particular subject or topic you used to like was? Why did you lose interest in that?

Similarly, ask yourself a series of questions like:

What's the one thing you're best at? Why?
When were you the most successful? What situations lead to that success?
When did you fail badly? Why exactly did that failure occur?

Keep asking yourself such difficult questions and answering them in detail. Look for the patterns leading to success or failure. And then, minimize the ones bringing you down and use the ones often that lead to success to boost your productivity.

This strategy is most effective when done in writing.

5. Learn Sell-Regulations With the Help of Others

It's hard for some people to define their own strengths and weaknesses. If you're one of them and lack self-awareness about your learning processes and patterns, it can get difficult for you to use self-regulated learning processes.

The better option is to find a friend or colleague who can be honest with you about you. And when you find one, ask them a series of questions about your learning progress. After knowing where you lack understanding and how to learn different concepts better will help you incorporate them into your learning strategies.

6. Set SMART Goals

A typewriter printing goals on a blank sheet

Setting SMART goals isn't something new. The concept has been around for a long time. When done and followed consistently, it's really effective.

A SMART goal is the one you set for yourself that's Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. For example, if you need to learn a new language, instead of setting a goal for yourself like, learn French. Do it this way:

Learn 150 new French words by next week.

Doesn't it suddenly seem doable? Similarly, set your new goals in this way going forward, and stick with them until you achieve them. It also makes it easier to analyze them later.

7. Measure Your Performance

If you really want to become a self-regulated learner, you must track your progress as you go. Everything is futile if you don't know how far you've come, or if you're even making any advancements.

So, take the time to track and analyze the success of your SMART goals. Find out: