This week we discussed ways we can help  students progress. This is an interesting topic because there are so many possible methods to monitor children and have them monitor themselves. However, the most important thing for a child to learn involves children taking responsibility of their own education. Self-Advocacy involves children telling adults what their needs are. This derives from an internal need and motivation that is called self-determination. When children have this self-determination then they can take control of their own learning through means like self-instruction, talking oneself through a concept, self-questioning, asking oneself questions in order to guide learning and comprehension, and self-monitoring, tracking their own progress through various techniques.

     While working with children I have realized that many times techniques to learning are nice embellishments and that the core of learning comes from the child's inner-motivation. It is true that children can become motivated and enlightened by a new technique that illustrates the concept beautifully and meaningfully but generally the drive comes from first understanding why they are learning it and then they will reach out to these techniques in order to more better master the concept or skill. 

     When children have that motivation, it's important to channel it through reading, writing, math and other subject based techniques that allow for more organized and precise learning. It's important that the technique doesn't get in the way of the learning. I found that our in-class self-monitoring activity was more of a distraction and a worry for me than a useful tool. However, others probably disagreed. It depends on the person. Of these techniques strong sequencing is the most essential because it creates a hierarchy for children to create mental structures. This kind of learning is what transfers random disjointed facts into knowledge and wisdom. Children need to know why information is related to each other if they want to use it for good. All truth can be controlled and manipulated for good when the rules and reasoning behind that truth is understood (as President Russell M Nelson says).