Consistent Routines

Consistent routines and procedures are taught and reviewed. 

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Promote Expectations & Beliefs that Optimize Motivation

One important aspect of self-regulation is the personal knowledge each learner has about what he or she finds motivating, be it intrinsic or extrinsic. To accomplish this, learners need to be able to set personal goals that can be realistically reached, as well as fostering positive beliefs that their goals can be met. However, learners also need to be able to deal with frustration and avoid anxiety when they are in the process of meeting their goals. Multiple options need to be given to learners to help them stay motivated.

• Provide prompts, reminders, guides, rubrics, checklists that focus on:
• Self-regulatory goals like reducing the frequency of aggressive outbursts in response to frustration
• Increasing the length of on-task orientation in the face of distractions
• Elevating the frequency of self-reflection and self-reinforcements
• Provide coaches, mentors, or agents that model the process of setting personally appropriate goals that take into account both strengths and weaknesses
• Support activities that encourage self-reflection and identification of personal goals

Develop Self-Assessment & Reflection

• In order to develop better capacity for self-regulation, learners need to learn to monitor their emotions and reactivity carefully and accurately. Individuals differ considerably in their capability and propensity for metacognition, and some learners will need a great deal of explicit instruction and modeling in order to learn how to do this successfully. For many learners, merely recognizing that they are making progress toward greater independence is highly motivating. Alternatively, one of the key factors in learners losing motivation is their inability to recognize their own progress. It is important, moreover that learners have multiple models and scaffolds of different self-assessment techniques so that they can identify, and choose, ones that are optimal.
• Offer devices, aids, or charts to assist individuals in learning to collect, chart and display data from their own behavior for the purpose of monitoring changes in those behaviors
• Use activities that include a means by which learners get feedback and have access to alternative scaffolds (e.g., charts, templates, feedback displays) that support understanding progress in a manner that is understandable and timely