The Dilemma of Teaching Self-Regulated Learning Skills to Talented and Gifted Students

Paper

SRL describes the self-directive learning processes through which learners proactively transform mental competencies into academic performance through self-generated goals and strategies (Zimmerman, Schunk, &DiBenedetto, 2015). As aptly defined by Pintrich, SRL is “an active, constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features in the environment” (Pintrich 2000, p. 453). Self-regulated students generally characterized as efficiently managing their own learning through goal setting, monitoring, strategy use, and self-evaluating their achievement (Boekaerts, Pintrich, & Zeidner, 2000). A major dilemma facing teachers in gifted education is whether or not their gifted and high ability students actually need to be instructed in SRL skills, and if so, should instruction be tailored to their specific needs and talents or should instruction be no different from instructional strategies designed for their non-identified counterparts? In this paper we present a brief overview of SRL and its components and discuss the dilemma of “to teach or not to teach” SRL skills to gifted and talented students. As we will show, the possible ways to address these questions are complex and nuanced, and the SRL or gifted literature is not very helpful in directing teachers how to handle this dilemma.