Paul Collett and Kristen Sullivan Self-regulated strategies

 Hi Bob,
Thanks for the questions. Here's a stab at some answers from me, Kris may have more to add:
The SPG
SPG stands for "Study Progress Guide" - it's a portfolio-type booklet we have created for our students to encourage them to set learning goals related to the classroom content, reflect on their progress towards these goals, and then act towards achieving these goals. It's something we ask the teachers to give feedback & evaluation on - working with and completing this is worth 20% of the student's grade.
Students are expected to complete various sections of the SPG every couple of weeks as they finish each unit of the corresponding course work, setting goals to improve areas they feel they are weak in (or they want to work on for other reasons), doing some kind of activity to help them see how they can improve, self-assessing their progress, and hopefully realising what they need to continue to do (or what's not working for them). There's also a broader semester-wide goal setting activity involved where students have to think about what they want to get out of the course overall in terms of language improvement, and monitor their progress towards this goal, modifying it where need be. We hope the students can understand how this broader goal ties in with what they are doing in class each week and the above-mentioned unit-focused "subgoals" we ask them to set.
Materials -
The SPG is the main thing we give the students, it's based around can-do statements explicitly focussed on the course textbook to help students judge their progress, and then sections for the goal-setting/reflection activities outlined above. We get this printed up before the school year begins and give out copies to al the students in the relevant courses at the beginning of the school year.
We also give them examples of the kinds of activities or strategies we think might be helpful for them. Finally, there's an evaluation rubric we give both the teachers and students to help the teachers with their assment and to let the students see how they are being assessed. This year we held an explanation/discussion meeting with the teachers prior to classes to go over some of the points involved with the study progress guides. 
Implications -
Where to start! Let's see...I guess if you were starting a programme like this, tthe obvious point is to try and get the teachers who will be participating in it as involved as possible from the beginning, if not in the development, at least in understanding your aims and intentions behind it. Try and be clear what it's NOT supposed to be as well as what the main purpose of it is.
Ensure the students understand its purpose, which if possible, probably means explaining the reason for the program to them in their native language at a level they'll be able to comprehend. Making sure the students "get it" has been our biggest hurdle, I think. Many of them just see it as a regular homework task they need to complete, they don't think about why they are doing it or the long-term aims involved (other than that it can mean they fail the course if they don't finish it) and they just do a fairly cursory job at the last minute. Maybe focussing on it as part of their learning rather than as something they do outside of class may be helpful.
Another key point is to ensure the students are getting clear feedback on their progress at regular & timely intervals.
To grade or not to grade...this is a really big issue. If you can set something like this up and not assign numerical evaluations to it, it may be best. We found originally though that not having some kind of grade associated with our study progress guide meant it got forgotten/ignored by students and perhaps to a degree, some teachers too. How best to do this really depends on the situation you are in, of course. What I can say is to try and play down any focus on whatever value it is assessed for evaluation purposes.
I'll finish up there for now, but let me know if you have any more questions.
Paul

  Paul & Kristen,
 
i wasnt able able to come to your presentation but from the slides I see that the teachers' understanding of the out-of-class programme, their beliefs and their feedback to the students inevitably impacts on the programme.
I have a few questions.
 
what does SPG stand for?
 
what materials were the teachers and students provided with - can you give an example?
 
you outlined the implications for the programme - what are the implications for others who maybe thinking about implementing a similar programme? I.e. If you were to start again, how would you set up a similar programme which would attempt to address some of the issues you found here before they occurred?
 
regards
 
bob