Putting it together - Distal, Proximal, Where To?

At outset this was an assignment about MY career path. I focused on my distal goal.I set my proximal goals, spending much time considering my monthly schedule. 

Week 1 I was off to the races, motivated to create blog, post first, research, research.

After three weeks, I couldn’t remember what we were here to achieve. Where were the assignment directions? Am I researching my career or something else much bigger?

The research of (Paris and Paris 89-101) specifically says, “students need to be able to engage in strategic, purposeful thought over what may seem to be very disconnected aspects of action, it places the responsibility on the students to find information, to coordinate actions and people, to reach goals, and to monitor understanding.”  The word disconnected is what has stuck with me in this article. How did me researching my career relate to SRL?

I felt quite disconnected, who do I ask?  I recognized a need to to reach out to my Professor for clarification this helped me to clarify the assignment expectations.  But, I still wasn’t motivated to continue. Why not?

As life became busy, we decided to go on a trip at end of March, I found myself  spending  time on TripAdvisor or shopping for trip clothes.  My SRL skills were not working.  But, that was okay. This inquiry was to teach me that failure is good, if it leads to a positive outcome.

During the third week of my inquiry while reading (Wolters, 2003) he discusses lack of motivation, “self-regulated learners are thought to hold a collection of adaptive beliefs and attitudes that drive their willingness to engage in and persist at academic tasks.”  This article resonated.What was eluding me from completing my tasks? Sitting on TripAdvisor is not achieving my goals. Would I fail my assignment because I held greater concern with internet pictures of a beach, certainly not?

My Awareness - My conscience is needed to achieve my goals.  For future assignments, I believe my awareness that I need to not be so specific in my monitoring plan, I need to set a plan and try to set times to re-evaluate the plan and adjust. If it is not working, take a holistic look, tweak and get back on track.

One of the great assets to this term was the feedback from peers and my Professor. This can be difficult in an online environment. (Cranton, 2010) has written that the  transformative learning  can be fostered in an online environment. We need meaningful interaction where people can express divergent points of view, feel supported by their peers and teacher.  Meeting online with two peers, chatting with my classmates and soliciting feedback additional from classmates was very helpful.  It can be tough to know if you are on track or have a community of learning, these small activities aided me to know that others were at a similar point.

Putting it all together.  How do you know when you are self-regulated?

(Paris and Paris 89-101) state that “self-regulated students display motivated actions, that is, goal-directed and controlled behaviors that they apply to specific situation.” I know that I achieved behaviours this term that worked toward achieving my goal. My goal was likely too specific, but in addition to finding out many new and important things about my career, I learned how to monitor and get myself on track.

My self-reflection throughout this inquiry is a major component to achieving SRL skills. Self-generating feeling and actions that I have adjusted to get myself on track and attain my goal is the main component to achieving SRL success.

Take a read of this last article found in my research I believe is useful and helpful to all academic administrators managing busy lives and school.

Thank you again for coming along with me on this journey.

Resources

Paris, Scott G. and Alison H. Paris. "Classroom Applications Of Research On Self-Regulated Learning". Educational Psychologist 36.2 (2001): 89-101. Web.

Wolters, Christopher A. "Regulation Of Motivation: Evaluating An Underemphasized Aspect Of Self-Regulated Learning". Educational Psychologist 38.4 (2003): 189-205. Web.

Cranton, Patricia. "Transformative Learning In An Online Environment". International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology 1.2 (2010): 1-9. Web.