This page provides a space for teachers to share SRL tools and tips they have used to support SRL in their classrooms. Please utilize these resources to support SRL in your classroom. If you have examples of tools and resources you have created to support SRL, we would love to hear from you! Please use the SRL Resource Template to submit your example.
Grade 5 & 6 Teacher, ‘De Mozaïek‘ (The Mosaic) Primary School in Ghent, Belgium
English captions available
The Task Roles for Group Work tool is used for fifth and sixth graders to support their self-regulated learning in group work. It identifies different roles each learner will take on: Materials Manager, Reporter, Planner, Organizer, and Mediator. This tool includes role descriptions (including responsibilities, guiding questions, and concrete examples), as well as colour-coded role labels for students to wear.
When introducing this tool in class, Didier starts with specific, small-scale activities to allow students to practice roles before using them in larger projects. For accountability purposes and to emphasize the uniqueness of each role, students can wear the colour-coded role labels. The teacher can listen and formatively assess how students are carrying out their roles while they are participating in group planning and discussion.
By using this tool, students can build their skills to critically engage with knowledge through complex, open-ended tasks. It supports their self-regulated learning through processes of planning and monitoring themselves. It allows students to see which roles resonate with them and which ones they find challenging, helping them regulate their learning by recognizing their strengths and areas for growth. In future projects, when they don’t have assigned roles, they can draw on this tool to better leverage their strengths within the group. By explicitly targeting these skills, students can take greater ownership of co-learning and develop confidence working with others in and beyond the classroom.
Didier Veeckman teaches fifth and sixth grade at ‘De Mozaïek‘ (The Mosaic) Primary School in Ghent, Belgium. This multicultural school is located in the heart of the city and has been collaborating with the Department of Educational Studies (Ghent University) for nearly twenty years on the TutorBabbel (TutorTalk) project. In this project, student tutors from the Educational Sciences program support Didier’s pupils in small groups over the course of a semester, helping them develop their self-regulated learning skills. At De Mozaïek, self-regulated learning holds a central place: it is approached as consistently as possible across the different grade levels, ensuring alignment and continuity. Building on this foundation, Didier dedicates himself throughout the school year to strengthening the implementation and long-term integration of self-regulated learning in his classroom practice, for example, through the use of role cards.
Grade 4-6 Teacher
Teaching and Research Assistant, University of Zürich, Switzerland
English captions available
The Learning Strategies and Reflection Tools can be used with any subject and are designed to get students to set weekly goals for themselves using explicit self-regulation strategies. This tool was created for 4-6th graders, but could be modified for other grades. The reflection journals are tailored by grade level: there is a fourth, fifth, and a sixth-grade version, each designed with grade-appropriate expectations (i.e. increasing written output and detail of learning strategy as grades increase). They include short reflections, highlights from the week, optional notes to the teacher, and both collective and individual goal setting.
At the beginning of the week, students collectively decide a class goal as well as an individual goal. The teacher scaffolds explicit learning strategies as the weeks go on, responding to their classroom’s needs. For example, when a class of fourth graders had significant emotional regulation needs, an emotional regulation strategy was introduced. Students track their goals in their goal journals. In each entry, they record both goals, select the strategy they will use, and reflect at the end of the week on whether they achieved it or are still working on it. To keep the process concise and sustainable, the journal utilizes quick response formats.
For teachers implementing this tool, it is important to begin gradually. Start with one strategy and build from there. A to-do list strategy is a good place to start, or whichever strategy the teacher feels comfortable with teaching. Students will then be introduced to a variety of strategies over time, such as motivational, cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional regulation—included in this tool. Because these strategies can be used for any subject throughout the day, embed reminders throughout lessons to encourage using them. When students set goals at the start of the week, they can also be reminded of the techniques they have already learned.
This tool supports students as they progress through the stages of self-regulated learning cycles. If they are feeling challenged in their learning, this gives them opportunities to solve problems independently or with peers, rather than depending on teachers to solve their problems or continuing to try something that isn’t working for them. This gives students the tools to persevere and determine what works best for their individual learning profile. It motivates students to try out different approaches, track their development, and develop resilience in their learning.
Tabea Eberli is a middle school teacher (Grades 4–6) and a Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of Zürich. She has been teaching for over eleven years and is deeply committed to supporting students in becoming self-regulated learners.
Tabea’s classroom is a space where students are encouraged to take ownership of their learning, reflect on their progress, and learn from their mistakes. Her teaching focuses on embedding metacognitive and motivational strategies into everyday practice, making learning goals and students’ achievements visible, and celebrating the process of becoming a self-regulated learner.
After completing her master’s degree, Tabea worked as both a classroom teacher and a special aids teacher. Across these roles, she has focused on supporting every child’s journey toward autonomy, resilience, and joy in learning, creating an environment where self-regulated learning thrives and students feel valued and empowered.
Assistant Professor, School of Education, University of the Fraser Valley
English captions available
This video shows a brief self-reflective activity that builds from SRL promoting practices to support inclusive and decolonizing opportunities. The activity is short and can be used in any content area to summarize learning, and expand thinking about identity, community, and power. This kind of simple activity helps us meet curricular content goals, build community, amplify unique identities, and support students in becoming lifelong learners.
I’m a settler scholar of Chinese and Mennonite descent originally from Treaty 6 territory in Saskatchewan, the traditional territory of the Cree, Saulteaux, Stoney, Nakota, and Dakota Peoples and Homeland of the Métis. In my teaching, learning, and research, I strive to open decolonizing possibilities in inclusive and special education and learn more about the superdiverse identities that make each person unique.
I’m particularly passionate about building from the strength of diversity to support student learning. I believe that diverse perspectives can encourage innovation and imagination to open decolonizing possibilities in education and society. As an instructor, I use teaching approaches, such as self-regulated learning (Butler, Schnellert, & Perry, 2017), ethical spaces of engagement (Ermine, 2007), and decolonizing pedagogies (Donald, 2009) that build from respect, reflection, relationship, and creativity. In this way, I hope to model the kinds of inclusive classroom practices that teacher candidates can ultimately use in their own diverse classrooms.
Grade 4/5 Teacher, Delta School District, BC, Canada
English captions available
The “Check-In Questionnaire for Student Self-Assessment” is a set of questions that students can use on a daily basis to self-reflect on their learning during both short-term and long-term tasks or projects. The resource can also be used on a wide variety of tasks, ranging from science projects to learning how to write a story. Students use the resource by answering a set of questions before, during, and after their learning. Students’ answers can then be placed chronologically in a learning journal for further review over time. This resource supports SRL by encouraging students to be metacognitive and strategic with their learning. Janice observed that, when students completed the Check-In Questionnaire for Student Self-Assessment daily, they learned how to better manage their time and effort, create reasonable goals, and begin to understand themselves better as learners.
Janice Wilson is a Grade 4/5 teacher in the Delta School District in British Columbia, Canada. She became interested in teaching while serving as an Artist-in-Residence for the New Westminster School District. During this time, she was working with Kindergarten-Grade 7 students. Janice obtained her Bachelor of Education degree in 2004 and immediately began her career in Delta School District. After several years of teaching, she became interested in social-emotional learning and self-regulated learning as methodologies to teach at-risk students more effectively. Janice has worked with Dr. Nancy Perry for several years. Janice has noticed that emphasizing SRL in the classroom has helped students “understand their learning much better” and “bring the joy back into learning.”
Elementary Teacher, Surrey School District, BC, Canada
English captions available
English captions available
The “Self-Check” and “Looking at Learning” tools are made to be applicable to all grades, subjects and contexts that anchor themselves in goals.
The “Self Check” tool is best implemented following intentional classroom instruction focusing on specific goals, which students have generated criteria for themselves. For example, in the “Opinion Write” exemplar, the tool was used by students after unpacking the qualities of a strong opinion paragraph. There is also an opportunity for more teacher direction with this tool, where teachers select the goals and criteria for students to reflect and learn from.
The “Looking at Learning” tool is meant to provide a snapshot of student learning connected to a specific goal in a subject area at a select point in time. Students reflect on where they are at within the learning process, how they know, and where they would like to focus on next. The proficiency scale used in the tool with the maple leaves match the model of assessment in Bergström’s own classroom. An additional tool was created using language from British Columbia’s current proficiency scale.
Both of these tools support SRL in the classroom by providing a tangible means of tracking student learning throughout a cycle of strategic action. The “Self Check” can be a resource in helping students within all stages: Deciding, Planning, Doing, and Reflecting. The “Looking at Learning” tool can be pivotal in the Reflection stage where students monitor their progress and answer the questions to reflect on their goals and success criteria. These tools have been instrumental in developing students’ sense of goal ownership and growth.
Monika Bergström is a teacher in the Surrey School District in British Columbia, Canada. Monika began her career in 2012 after completing her practicum with an international education focus. Since then, she has worked abroad training volunteer teachers in Kenya at a non-profit, as a mentor of early career teachers, and while teaching in grades 2-7, completed a Post- Baccalaureate Diploma in Environmental Education and a Masters Degree in Ecological Education. Her passion for Social Emotional Learning and Self-Regulated Learning really transformed her work during her Masters’ focus in decolonizing classroom and assessment practices. The work of SEL and SRL inspires student autonomy, empowerment, and connection. Her creation of the maple seed model, a metaphorical approach to the learning cycle, blends understanding of learning process with a holistic pedagogy.