2003-2004 MIL Fellows: Dr. Maureen Zimmerman's Project

2003-2004 MIL Fellows: Dr. Maureen Zimmerman's Project
the maricopa institute for learning

The primary purpose of Dr. Zimmerman's project is to identify and teach students the academic self-regulatory behaviors necessary to foster success in a domain-specific, web-based course. While academic self-regulation and its constituent forms of self-reflection are seldom taught, a body of literature exists to support the notion that strategies for academic success can be taught to students. These strategies can be learned through a core set of instructional and personal practice experiences by diverse students, ranging in age from elementary school to college and differing widely in ability.

Dr. Zimmerman's project design includes an initial questionnaire completed by students in her online classes. This tool will measure different scales to determine initial degrees of self-regulation. A qualitative analysis of student E-mail will also be used throughout the semester to shed light on difficulties students are having in the course and to create individualized strategy plans. Students drawn from a random sample will be asked to participate in a topical interview, a qualitative interview that focuses on a process and is concerned with what happened, when, and why. These interviews will be conducted toward the end of the semester to ascertain self-regulatory skills that were developed during the course and to map out descriptions of the process.

Dr. Zimmerman will, among other things, identify the steps or logical sequences for learning these behaviors, discover ways to engage students with their learning, and model academic self-regulation.

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