We begin our conversation about teaching learners to use self-monitoring with a story:
Sam is a sixteen-year-old student who struggles with homework tasks. Sam likes drawing complex sketches of buildings and wants to be an architect someday. However, her smartphone sometimes gets in the way after school, and she regularly procrastinates with projects and assignments late into the evening. As a result, her parents, Andy and Joan, must ask her repeatedly to get started on her homework, each time more and more insistent. Sam thinks her parents are constantly nagging at her, so she spends as much time in her room as she can.
On a typical Tuesday evening, it’s around 10 pm when Sam finally gets around to doing homework. She’s tired and rushes through the project so she can go to sleep. The next day Sam turns in her assignment. Her teacher can see that Sam didn’t do her best work, so while her friends get time to talk and text at the end of class, Sam has to keep working.
Frustrated and angry, Sam yells at her teacher. “You’re just another person out to get me!” She storms out of the classroom, bumping another student hard into the wall on her way out the door. As Sam hurries down the hallway, she knows her teacher is already calling Andy or Joan.
Now imagine a scenario where Sam’s parents and teachers have provided her the tools to:
- Monitor her smartphone usage so it doesn’t interfere with schoolwork
- Plan her projects and assignments so she minimizes mistakes and rushing
- Keep her bedtimes in check so she’s well-rested
- Check her frustration level and make a better choice than yelling
Sounds ideal, right?
While Sam’s story spotlights a high-school setting, the principles of self-monitoring apply equally to college students cramming for finals, professionals juggling deadlines, and adults building new habits at home. Executive function skills evolve throughout life, so whether you’re nine or ninety, monitoring your own behavior can boost independence and progress.
For a clear look at how these abilities typically develop from infancy through adulthood, explore our Executive Functioning Skills by Age Guide.
In our second scenario, Sam’s been taught the basics of using self-monitoring, something we should be helping all of our students with unique needs learn to use.
What is self-monitoring?
Self-monitoring refers to how we understand our behaviors and how we adjust and make changes in the future. Self-monitoring behaviors can include both work-checking behaviors (reviewing mistakes, fixing errors, etc.) and social behaviors (responding to social norms, situational awareness, apologizing).
Self-monitoring can also refer to a behavior-intervention technique used with diverse learners to help them record and monitor their behavior as part of changing some aspect of their own responding. In this article, we’re reviewing how you can teach your learner to use this type of self-monitoring technique.
What are the benefits for your learner?
Among all the other tools you can give your learner to progress toward their goals, why does self-monitoring continue to rank high among parents, teachers, and students themselves? Some of the many benefits of using self-monitoring include:
- Getting immediate feedback – Your learner doesn’t need an adult to let them know they’re on the right track. By giving them self-monitoring tools, they can provide themselves with immediate feedback and make changes faster than a teacher or parent might do.
- Engages learners in their learning and personal development – Ever feel like you’re working harder than your learner to keep things moving forward? Self-monitoring puts the responsibility back on the learner to achieve and maintain success. Successful programs show high rates of engagement and motivation.
- Facilitating communication – With self-monitoring, your learner is observing their behavior, and there’s often a product (graphs, data-collection forms, app reports) that you and your learner can examine together. Rather than pointing fingers or telling them what they did or didn’t do correctly, the data guides communication.
- Focused on individual performance – No need to compare your learner to others in self-monitoring. Instead, they’re simply looking at their own performance and how it improves over time.
7 Steps to Teach Self-Monitoring
Many parents and teachers are encouraged to find that teaching learners to monitor their behaviors can be fairly straightforward. By identifying the right opportunities to teach, clearly defining a behavior to observe, and providing consistent check-ins, your learner will be well on the way to creating their behavior change.
Follow these 7 steps to teach your learner to use self-monitoring:
1. First, identify a good time for teaching
One of the skills we work on a lot with parents and teachers in the first weeks of working together is identifying a good time for teaching. Suppose your learner is tired, upset, having a tough day, or has already demonstrated resistance to other daily tasks. In that case, it’s probably not the best time to work on teaching executive-functioning skills. Wait for when your learner is most likely to respond to the teaching you’re about to deliver—otherwise, you’re starting from behind.
2. Select a behavior to self-monitor
The first step in self-monitoring is to identify which behavior to examine. While it’s best to have your learner select a behavior they’re motivated to work on, it’s okay to offer suggestions. Emphasize it may be better to start with an easier behavior to change (e.g., increase days of making the bed in the morning) before diving into more challenging goals (e.g., decrease screen time in half). Your learner may already have some goals set, or they may need additional support to set realistic ones. Regardless, focus on creating a clear definition of the behavior that you and your learner both agree on.
3. Collect baseline data
If you plan to incorporate a behavior-change component, it can be helpful to have some information about your learner’s baseline responding. It’s not imperative for successful self-monitoring, but it can help motivate your learner to see where they’ve progressed from at the beginning. There is no need to collect an extensive amount of baseline data; just get a sense of current behavior patterns.
4. Explain how to record the behavior
Next, model for your learner how you plan to record the behavior. This might mean collecting permanent products of their work or using a data sheet. Give your learner the rationale for self-monitoring and the benefit of monitoring this particular behavior. Below you’ll find more information about helpful tools to support success with self-monitoring and recording behavior data.
5. Role-play and rehearse
Before you expect your learner to manage a self-monitoring program independently, it’s best to practice to make sure they’re comfortable and confident with the plan. Conduct role-plays with different scenarios of when they should and shouldn’t record the behavior. Rehearse and observe your learner practicing the data recording. Provide positive feedback when they demonstrate success, and continue to role-play any areas where they might need additional self-monitoring practice.
6. Begin the plan and monitor ongoing progress
As your learner begins their self-monitoring plan, continue to monitor ongoing progress. It’s a great opportunity at this stage to have frequent and open dialog about how the self-monitoring is going. Are they starting to see positive changes? Are there challenges or difficulties getting in the way of success? Set a regular, consistent time for check-ins during this stage and make tweaks if needed.
7. Evaluate behavior change
As part of the SMART-goal planning process, it’s recommended to establish several milestones or markers along the way that your learner is making progress toward their goal. If they’ve been monitoring behavior for some time, evaluate progress on these mile-markers regularly. Then, celebrate wins and continue to encourage adjustments along the way.
Self-Monitoring Helpful Hints
If you’re considering teaching your learner to use self-monitoring, here are several hints that can increase success:
First, focus on one or two behaviors at a time
Occasionally, learners who latch on to self-monitoring systems can dive in with both feet, creating complex data-collection systems across multiple behaviors. While it may be possible to balance that much behavior change, we find it’s easiest to focus on one or two behaviors at a time.
Try automated data-collection systems
Our learners are more tech-savvy than ever before. Check out some of the many apps and online systems that can record performance. Or use a smart device to automatically track data on behaviors like sleep, activity levels, and screen-time usage.
Don’t rule out paper-and-pencil data sheets
For some learners, the tech may get in the way of behavior change. Instead, you may want to consider an old-fashioned paper-and-pencil self-monitoring system that allows your learner to chart their performance. For samples, download our free behavior-data-collection PDF.
Plan for behavior maintenance
If your learner shows success with self-monitoring and ultimately achieves their goal, the next step is to help them demonstrate maintenance of the behavior over time. What good is it for someone to work hard at getting to bed on time for a month, only to slide back into unhelpful habits the following month? Discuss and make a plan to sustain progress and avoid the slide.
Further Reading
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning 101: All About Self-Monitoring
- APA Dictionary of Psychology – Online
- The IRIS Center. (2008). SOS: Helping students become independent learners
- Life Skills Advocate – Helping Your Teen Set SMART Goals Course