Interacting with those who need it most? Teachers' attention and support to students with different self-regulated learning profiles in the classroom

Abstract

<p>Teachers can help students to develop self-regulated learning (SRL) skills by co-regulating the learning process, as SRL is associated with higher achievement and motivation for learning. Individual differences in student SRL suggest that teachers need to adapt instruction accordingly, aiming for growth of every student. Applying the conceptual framework of teacher professional vision for student SRL, this multiple case-study investigated whether and how teachers implement such adaptation in the classroom at a fine-grained level. Participants were three high school teachers and their students in the 9th and 10th grade. Teacher visual attention distribution to students, teachers' explanations of their own attention and instructional intention, as well as variations in interactions with students were investigated with analyses of process-based classroom data (lesson recording, teacher mobile eye tracking and think-aloud). The findings suggest that the three teachers did adapt instructional support to students. On the one hand, all teachers initiated interactions with lower-SRL students to ensure progress on tasks. On the other hand, there were between-teacher differences in terms of visual attention distribution, support intentions, and interactions with students. These were conceptualised as Regulating, Responding, and Proactive support patterns. The individual teacher patterns highlight that although teachers consider student characteristics when co-regulating learning in the classroom, they emphasise varying priorities.</p>