When I was finishing my PhD, I tried to find resources on effective learning strategies for grad students. I wasn't able to find many that were created by people with teaching and/or learning experience so often the strategies they described weren't suitable for the complex work in grad school.
I realized that self-regulated learning (SRL) was so incredibly suitable for grad students but also couldn't find many resources out there for grad students about how to apply SRL in grad school.
Fortunately, I was learning how to self-regulated my learning while researching it, and the result is that I'm always trying to find better ways to share information from educational psychology theory, research, and practice with grad students.
I created the FLOW framework as a way to organize a lot of different information for grad students without it being too overwhelming, verbose, or complicated. However, I also didn't want to oversimplify too much as that would also not be effective.
You can read more about each category below and if you want to read more on any topic, check out the tags for each blog post to learn more (tags can be found at the bottom of each post and at the bottom of the main blog page on this website).
The FLOW framework has four different categories to organize many of the things that are crucial to grad student success.
I thought it might bet helpful to outline what is in each category for you so as you read blog posts, you can identify which categories you may need to spend a little more time in, identify some areas of challenges, and figure out where you are rocking it!
Foundation: Self-efficacy, prior knowledge, & mental health
This category represents the base of your learning, from your previous experiences in education and academia to your beliefs about those experiences, as well as your mental health.
Your foundation is a result of your past and something you can be actively building and reshaping to incorporate new knowledge and experiences.
You are the expert of your life and using your foundation to take stock of where you’ve been and where you are right now ensures you can incorporate the concepts that are important to you.
Ladder: Task understanding, goals, planning & time management
Certain aspects of being a graduate student are chronological and the ladder represents the steps needed to get your degree and finish.
Having a plan requires that you understand what it is you are trying to do (e.g., your courses, your proposal, your defence) and how you are going to do it by setting goals that are both short- and long-term.
Your ladder can be a place where you plan out your intentions and keep your focus on your end goals. Your ladder can also include your academic goals as well as other goals, like social and cultural goals that are important to you.
Obstacles: Behaviour, cognition, motivation, & well-being
We can usually all name the current obstacles and challenges in our lives, even though some may be harder to figure out than others. From financial to spiritual to academic, obstacles give us opportunities for growth.
In graduate school, we face multiple challenges often simultaneously. There are four main areas of challenge that graduate students face with their learning: behaviour, cognition, motivation, and well-being. Being aware of what your obstacles are is the first step to overcoming them.
Wheelhouse: Metacognition, monitoring and evaluating, & adapting
On a ship, the wheelhouse is the shelter around the wheel for the ship and the place or centre of control. The wheelhouse represents the place where you are able to think and reflect on your progress as a graduate student and make decisions and change course if needed. Or in other words, the wheelhouse is where you engage in metacognitive monitoring and evaluating.
Sometimes this can be a very comfortable place, especially when things are going well or when you reflect on areas of your life that are progressing how you want them to. This can be a more uncomfortable place when you are not making the progress you want and you don’t know why.
Comments