Educate to Self-Regulate

In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, Dr Shyam Barr (Shy) and Nidean Dickson tackle a listener question: how do we develop self-regulated learning when students can’t regulate their emotions and behaviors?

Emotion isn’t a side issue to SRL, it’s a fundamental part of it. Shy and Nidean unpack why, and what it means for how we respond when students arrive overwhelmed, frustrated, or distracted, from the power of simply naming a feeling to the small routines that make space for emotion in a busy classroom.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
✔️ Why self-regulating emotions is part of self-regulating learning, not separate from it
✔️ How naming an emotion shifts a student from overwhelmed to monitoring and responding
✔️ Simple routines that create space for emotion in the classroom
✔️ How “circles of control” help students separate their self-worth from a single exam result

Plus, don’t miss the On the Reg segment, where Shy experiments with Steven Bartlett’s “behavior effect” and Nidean shares a simple habit tracker and the One Sec app.

If you’re an educator wondering how to support students’ emotions without sidelining learning, this one’s for you.

Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

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In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, Nidean Dickson flies solo (Shy, we miss you!) for a candid conversation with Mia Hodgens — a former student now studying biomedical science at UQ on her way to medical school.

Mia was part of the very first pilot group where self-regulated learning strategies were introduced in the classroom, and she's spent years turning those strategies into second nature. She walks through exactly how she learns in practice — annotating lecture notes instead of transcribing every word, using blank-page brain dumps as a retrieval tool, and building formula sheets that carry across subjects.

We also get into the harder parts: staying motivated when a subject doesn't connect to your goals, learning to advocate for yourself as a student from an early age, and what it felt like to finally have language for strategies she'd already been using instinctively.

In this episode, you'll learn:
✔️ How to turn passive note-taking into active retrieval and connection-making
✔️ Why naming a strategy for a student can be as motivating as teaching it
✔️ How high-potential learners still need mentorship — even when they "seem fine"

Plus, don't miss this episode's On the Reg segment, where Mia shares how she prioritized her study during a brutal run of back-to-back exams.

If you're an educator working with high-potential or particularly self-directed learners, this one's for you.

Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Watch the full episode on YouTube
Follow us on Instagram: @edtoselfreg

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

Love this Episode? Have questions?
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, Dr Shyam Barr and co-host Nidean Dickson tackle a question straight from the workshop floor: with such a range of prior knowledge across a classroom, wouldn't it be more effective to skip straight to explicit teaching rather than "waste time" activating what students already know?

Drawing on real classroom practice, Shy and Nidean unpack what activating prior knowledge actually means, lighting up existing schema to reduce cognitive load, and why "limited" schema is never the same as "no" schema. Nidean shares how she scaled Retrieval Grids from a teacher-made revision tool into a student-created classroom culture, and the pair explore why this kind of low-stakes activation builds motivation and participation rather than competing with explicit instruction.

In this episode, you'll learn:
✔️ Why activating prior knowledge and explicit teaching aren't an either/or choice, and how to sequence them.
✔️ Low-stakes ways to activate schema for every student, regardless of how much prior knowledge they bring in.
✔️ How to build and scale Retrieval Grids, from teacher-modelled examples to full student ownership.

The goal of activating prior knowledge isn't just recall, it's the shift from "I'm coming in cold" to "I have something to contribute." Get that shift right, and you lay the groundwork for greater self-efficacy, participation and deeper learning to follow.

Tune in now on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!
Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

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Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, Dr Shyam Barr sits down with Paula Hall, a teaching principal who spent 18 months building self-regulation and resilience into a small, multi-age rural school at Coowonga State School, cutting major behaviour incidents by 85%, and is now adapting that same approach as acting principal of the larger Depot Hill State School.

Drawing on Paula's hands-on experience, we unpack how she turned the Australian Curriculum's Personal and Social Capability continuum into a practical, colour-coded guidebook her whole staff could use, and why this kind of intentional capability-building lays the groundwork for stronger academic learning.

In this episode, you'll learn:
✔️ How to use the Personal and Social Capability continuum as a diagnostic and tracking tool for individual student needs.
✔️ Practical choice boards that explicitly build self-awareness, self-management and social awareness, and how Paula is scaling them from a 12-student rural school to a larger context.
✔️ How to build consistency across teachers, teacher aides, wellbeing staff and families so the approach sticks.

The real test of self-regulation development isn't a single lesson, it's whether a whole school community, across ages and roles, can practise it consistently. Master that, and you're building the foundations for behaviour, engagement, independence and wellbeing to follow.

Tune in now on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!
Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

Love this Episode? Have questions?
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, Nidean Dickson and Dr Shyam Barr explore how task value—understanding the why behind learning—drives both motivation and self-regulation.

Drawing on recent research and classroom experience, we unpack why "poor motivation equals poor self-regulation" and offer practical strategies educators can use immediately.

In this episode, you'll learn:
✔️ Three actionable task value strategies—"What's My Why," "For Future Me," and cost-benefit analysis—that build internal motivation.
✔️ Why competence beliefs matter: students avoid tasks due to low ability beliefs, not just lack of meaning. Address both to intervene effectively.
✔️ How to design learning so students see skills as lifelong and transferable—the key to genuine engagement.

The complexity of motivational beliefs—and how they interact—is what separates surface compliance from genuine self-regulated learning. Master this, and you're creating learners who own their growth.

Tune in now on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!
Watch the full episode on YouTube.

Download "Motivating Self-Regulation: Utility Value, Interest Development, and the Potential for Intervention" here.

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

Love this Episode? Have questions?
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, Nidean Dickson and I (Dr Shyam Barr) celebrate the podcast's milestone 45th episode and dive into Carl Hendrick's UNESCO paper on Responsive Teaching.

We share self-regulation stories from busy terms—my reflections from the Thought Leader Series Queensland workshops with Dr Amy Berry, and Nidean's classroom refinements to self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies—and link responsive tactics to real teacher practice amid explicit instruction debates.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✔️ How to do Responsive Teaching: Adapt to student evidence with 10 tactics (e.g., prior knowledge checks, retrieval, modeling, feedback).

✔️ Teacher SRL in action: Plan-monitor-evaluate for agency; data over assumptions ("good intentions aren't enough").

✔️ How to win in the classroom: Nidean's religion lesson—true/false routines, peer feedback ("listen for what you don't have"), "process over product" busts myths.

✔️ Key teaching shifts: Slow down to speed up; "Why this?" for purpose; high support + expectations = lifelong learners.

True responsive teaching—decisions over assumptions—creates self-regulated learners who own their growth. Tune in now on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!

Watch the full episode on YouTube

Dive into Carl Hendrick's Responsive Teaching: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000397538

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

Love this Episode? Have questions?
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, I'm joined by my friend and co-host Nidean Dickson to explore an important question for today’s classrooms:

How do we move from thinking routines and good questions to genuine self-regulated learning and authentic engagement?

Many classrooms appear engaged on the surface. Students follow routines, raise their hands, and complete tasks. But this visible participation can sometimes become ritual compliance — behaviour that looks productive but lacks cognitive depth.

In this episode, you'll learn:

✔️ The difference between compliance and authentic engagement
✔️ Why engagement depends on metacognition, interest, and self-control
✔️ How thinking routines can become transferable learning strategies — and avoid “strategy stripping” by teaching students how and why to use them
✔️ The NEMO-T Framework — Name, Explain, Model, Opportunity, Time for reflection, and Transfer

True engagement comes when students can understand and regulate their own learning.


Listen on Spotify and Apple podcasts
Watch the full episode on YouTube


Resources & Mentions

• Zaretta Hammond and Dr Ron Ritchhart Interview 
• Dr Amy Berry — The Engagement Model
• Wong et al. (2021) — Predictors of engagement in mathematics

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

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Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

Hello everyone! Welcome to 2026.
In this episode of Educate to Self-Regulate, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my annual reflection process—how I review 2025, set intentional goals for 2026, and even choose one guiding word for the year.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
✔️ How to reflect on the past year to gain clarity and insight
✔️ How to set intentional goals that guide your teaching and leadership
✔️ How to choose one guiding word to frame your year and daily actions

From carving out clarity amid chaos to turning reflection into daily action, this episode is packed with practical strategies for educators and leaders who want to start the year mentally recharged and intentional.

Tune in now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and discover how to make 2026 your most intentional year yet. Your next-level teaching starts here!
Watch the full conversation on YouTube

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

Love this Episode? Have questions?
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this final episode of Educate to Self-Regulate for the year, and my first solo episode, I’m diving into one of the most important phases of self-regulated learning: Metacognitive self-reflection.

As we wrap up 2025, I’m unpacking:
• Why planning–monitoring–evaluating really matters
• How metacognitive prompts can deepen your own learning
• Practical tools like PMI, SWOT, and Start–Stop–Continue to guide more meaningful reflection
• What this year taught me through the podcast, from AI as a metacognitive partner to Queenwood’s smart study approach, strategy-building in primary classrooms, learning journals, and long-form conversations with researchers
• What’s coming in 2026

I’m also sharing two strategies I’m leaning on as we enter the break:
✔️ Show up to rest the same way you show up to training
✔️ Recalibrating meditation as a non-negotiable part of my routine

Wherever you are, I hope this episode helps you pause, reflect, and set yourself up for a strong 2026.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Watch the full episode on Youtube

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

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Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg 

In this special long-form episode of Educate to Self-Regulate: Deep Dive, I sit down with world-renowned inquiry educator Kath Murdoch for a rich and thoughtful conversation about how inquiry approaches can support students' self-regulated learning.

Together, we unpack what it means to take an inquiry stance—not just investigating topics, but guiding students to inquire into themselves as learners. We also explore the distinctions (and overlaps) between direct, explicit, and inquiry instruction, and why effective teaching depends on a responsive, flexible repertoire, not any single method.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

✔️ How inquiry-based practices naturally strengthen metacognition and self-regulated learning
✔️ Why the “inquiry stance” is foundational for building genuine student agency
✔️ How to strategically blend explicit teaching with inquiry to meet diverse learner needs

Kath brings more than 40 years of experience across classrooms, universities, and consultancy—along with her signature clarity, warmth, and wisdom. If you’re an educator curious about the intersection of inquiry and self-regulated learning, this episode will genuinely nourish your thinking.

Listen now and discover how inquiry and SRL work together to build the “how to learn” capabilities young people need—especially in an age shaped by AI.
Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Watch the full episode on YouTube

Connect with Kath on LinkedIn: Kath Murdoch
website: kathmurdoch.com.au 

Remember to subscribe to Educate to Self-Regulate to receive updates on future episodes. Join the @edtoselfreg community as we share our personal and professional experiences, insights, and actionable tips for boosting self-regulated learning for yourself and your students.

Love this Episode? Have questions?
Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or Twitter: @edtoselfreg