#046 Shyam Barr: Leading with Self Regulated Learning
Dr Shyam Barr is an education consultant and Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Canberra.
In this episode Shyam shares with us how self regulated learning can contribute to us all becoming not only better learners, but also better leaders. And how learning is a key, yet often overlooked keystone for better businesses and organisations. He also shares with us how he has integrated self regulated learning into his own life.
We also explore ideas around:
Motivation, cognition and meta-cognition
Self efficacy
Imposter Syndrome and comparison
Mindset
Personal development
Trust
Professional learning communities
You can find Shyam at shyambarr.com.au or on social media @ShyamBarr.
You can also check out his podcast Educate to Self Regulate on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or via his website.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Kate: I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I record this podcast. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging. I'd also like to acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. This was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
[00:00:30] Kate: Hey folks. I'm your host, Kate McCready, integrative business leadership and human potential coach meets mindful strategist for humans, uplifting people and planet. Welcome to the Leading Beings podcast, a show about elevating and expanding your awareness, potential and leadership for meaningful impact.
[00:00:46] Kate: Conscious success at a work-life or business in flow. Join me and some incredible guests for inspiration, ideas, tips, strategies, and stories to help you grow and evolve yourself and your mission. So you can make your unique, positive difference in life at work from the inside out. Whether you're leading a team, a business, a community, an organization, a cause, or simply yourself.
[00:01:08] Kate: Tune in as we explore what it means to be and become a leading being.
[00:01:14]
[00:01:15] Kate: Welcome Shyam to the Leading Beings podcast. How are you?
[00:01:19] Shyam: I'm Oh, good. Thanks Kate. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me here. It's great to be here.
[00:01:23] Kate: Thanks so much for being here, before we get stuck in, I'd love you to just introduce yourself to us and the audience. And tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, what's your work all about?
[00:01:35] Shyam: Fantastic. Well, right now, I am balancing between working as an assistant professor of learning sciences at the university of Canberra and also running a business that is dedicated to helping people become better learners and probably more specifically self regulated learners. so that's what I'm currently doing.
[00:01:56] Shyam: I've been on a bit of a journey to get to this point. I started as a secondary school science teacher, worked as a teacher and a educational leader in schools for many years. And then, took some time off to do some further studies, including a PhD. And that has led me to the path that I find myself on now, which is, yeah, in a beautiful space of working with organizations and schools, working to improve self-regulated learning.
[00:02:22] Kate: I love that. And we're going to dive into all the self regulated learning good stuff in a moment. But, what was your PhD in again? Remind me. I know, I know. I should know. And , I, I did know at one point, but I've forgotten and obviously the audience don't know. So please, please share with us.
[00:02:38] Shyam: So my, my PhD actually focused on a, well, middle leaders. So if you're familiar with the term middle leaders in particularly in their educational literature, there's senior leaders, middle leaders, and, and obviously teachers tend to be kind of the key roles. Uh, middle leaders are that group that kind of operate, they function as. In some literature, it's referred to a, sort of a powerful filter between the vision and the mission of senior leaders and, and teachers who are working in the classrooms. And so they play a really critical role in any actually I'd say in any organization, middle leaders play really critical role in, the uptake of any new improvement initiative.
[00:03:16] Shyam: And so my research actually looked at the way that middle leaders think about self-regulated learning in schools, 'cause that's my area. My jam, that's where I like to hang out. And so it was interesting to, to see what they think about it. Also to see how they practice, self-regulated learning how they teach self-regulated learning, and then work with them for a period of time, as for sake of a better word, like an intervention, but a professional learning experience and to see how, they're thinking practice changed over time.
[00:03:45] Shyam: So that's it in a nutshell. Just for some fancy language, I'm sure your listeners would love some fancy language. I was, you know, I was digging into a concept known as epistemic cognition. So, it, it is a form of thinking and decision making around a body of knowledge in this case, a body of knowledge and beliefs that we hold about learning.
[00:04:05] Shyam: And so, you know, if you're interested in, digging into a philosophical space, epistemic cognition, check it out.
[00:04:12] Kate: I love that. And, and I do think a lot of my audience will totally nerd out on that kind of thing. Cause I know I would. so you are now doctor Shyam Barr, is that correct?
[00:04:21] Shyam: That is correct?
[00:04:22] Kate: You've. We've gotta make sure we get that in 'cause you've worked hard for that doctor.
[00:04:25] Shyam: Thanks Kate. Yeah, I think so. You know, PhD's no easy feat and, yeah, it's funny. I'm still coming to, to terms, even though I graduated from my PhD early last year, I think I'm still finding my space of comfort with the, the new kind of title. But yes, doctor
[00:04:42] Kate: Yes own it, own it. okay. So I think this is a good place to dive into self-regulated learning. Cause many people may not know what that is. So do you wanna just give us a bit of a, layman's definition or a non layman's definition? Whatever tickles you, fancy.
[00:04:59] Shyam: Yeah. Absolutely. Self-regulation actually, I'll, I'll start with, because I think a lot of people, sorry, a lot of people, when they think of self-regulated learning, they hear self-regulation and the word or the phrase self-regulation actually is commonly used in the sort of social, emotional learning space.
[00:05:17] Shyam: And so we think of self-regulation in the way that we regulate our emotions and that is quite common kind of perception. Self-regulated learning is slightly different, different in the sense that learning is a context. And, you know, if I think about, the way I kind of approach life, I think, and my co-host on our podcast, Educate to Self REgulate, just a sneaky drop there.
[00:05:42] Shyam: But, my co-host Rory, he most recently said, I loved it. He said everything, the way we kind of perceive life is everything can be boiled down to a learning problem. And, and I agree with that, even whether it's in a school or outside of school, just in life, in general. Now, as parents, Kate, you know, everything can be boiled down to a learning problem.
[00:06:00] Shyam: And so self regulated learning is how we regulate our engagement in a learning process. And given you said your listeners tend to nerd out on, the tech and the psychological language. I'll give you a little bit more information. I view self-regulated learning as a process typically as kind of a three phase process.
[00:06:23] Shyam: Those phases for, for ease of access here would be sort of planning, monitoring and evaluating. Or planning being kind of the, the forethought that we engage in before any learning activity. And so that, that might involve kind of setting goals, thinking about our sort of our motivation. You know what the drivers are to engage in that activity, whether or not we're taking, an adaptive approach to that, or a defensive approach to that.
[00:06:50] Shyam: Or where do we sit in terms of our expectations of the outcome? Do we believe we can have success in the activity? So there's a range of kind of things that go through consciously or subconsciously that occur before we engaged in the learning activity. Then the second phase, the, the monitoring is essentially when we we're performing the activity.
[00:07:08] Shyam: And then obviously self-evaluation being kind of self-reflection, you know, have we had success? What was the reasons for our success or failure, and sort of explaining that in some way, shape form for us, that then fuels the, the planning phase again. And so that's a common interpretation. There's, there's multiple models that exist in the literature around self-regulated learning, but those three phases is, Is reasonably well established, comes from a researcher known as Barry Zimmerman.
[00:07:34] Shyam: So if anyone's interested in digging into that, you can check out Zimmerman's research. Would you like me to go on.
[00:07:42] Kate: I'm going to stop you there cuz I, what I'd love to know is like, okay, so there's this thing called self regulated learning. Why is it important for humans? Why is it important? For leaders, professionals like even, you know, outside of that classroom context.
[00:07:56] Shyam: Yeah, absolutely. So even an organizational setting and I I've always argued for, you know, if you think about your staff in any organizational setting, I would say that the most, not productive, but perhaps the most successful in an organization are typically our best learners. they adopt a learning mindset for almost everything that they, they operate within.
[00:08:17] Shyam: So even if you take like a, a staff meeting, for example, or, you know, a small, small staff meeting, you know, it's the individual who's sitting there and actively listening. And carefully kind of curating their questions, possibly even waiting until the end, that individual there is self-regulating their learning behavior.
[00:08:37] Shyam: Listening in itself is a skill that we can self-regulate. We have to, you know, resist that urge to intervene in a conversation immediately. We have to remind ourselves that we want to engage in deep or active listening and not that sort of surface level, cosmetic listening. You know, we might engage some strategies like taking notes, you know, or anything along those lines to help us process the information.
[00:09:01] Shyam: And then we're carefully thinking about the questions we wanna ask and making sure we frame them in a way that's going to support the conversation and productive and future focused kind of way. and you can see that just even, even in like a small staff meeting, which we all have in organizations like meetings are everywhere.
[00:09:21] Kate: Far too much everywhere. Yes.
[00:09:23] Shyam: But if you've got, if you've got your staff, if, if your staff are capable of self-regulating the way they're managing themselves in those meetings, because the meeting is a learning experience, that is going to fuel and influence the quality of the conversation, the quality of the meeting and the quality of the outcomes that are generated of the actions that are generated from that meeting. each meeting is a micro component of a, an organization. If we just focus on improving that one micro component, they're going to compound after a while, and that's going to have, that's going to mean great success for your organization.
[00:09:56] Kate: Mm.
[00:09:57] Kate: I really love how you frame a meeting as a learning experience and obviously a lot of other things as a learning experience too. So tell, tell me more about that. Tell me how, like, how is everything a learning experience?
[00:10:10] Shyam: Well, you know, if I take a typical, you know what I imagine a typical corporate organization to be from the minute a staff member, arrives, well, this might be a little bit traditional in the sense. You know, the minute a staff member arrives at at work. Now we know that that's not exactly what's happening right now, cuz people are working from home, et cetera.
[00:10:29] Shyam: But if we say the minute, you know, a staff member engages into work, whatever that might look like, whether it's, you know, engaging in a meeting a conversation with a colleague, it's a conversation with the client. It's with email, every single one of those, activities. Requires a level of processing of information.
[00:10:52] Shyam: And therefore a level of kind of, internal, not only processing, but decision making around what the next steps are. Okay. Now that is, problem solving. It might be a level of critical thinking. The, the simple act of processing information is in learning.
[00:11:10] Kate: Mmm.
[00:11:10] Shyam: And so all three of those kind of skill sets come into play in the way that we engage with the information.
[00:11:16] Shyam: And so. You know, the ability for someone to self-regulate, which is simply to ask themselves some really rich questions about, well, how important is this information? What does this information mean for me and the organization? What's my, what's my intention with engaging in this information. You know, these are all questions that will help us regulate the way we engage with that.
[00:11:38] and therefore the quality of this, you know, so-called learning experience. I would also, I guess, if leaders view. Every activity or kind of micro moment in organization has a learning experience. It changes the way we actually approach leading in an organization. Because actually what we're trying to do is create meaningful learning moments.
[00:12:04] Shyam: You know, whether that be a conversation that those are actually opportunities. For our staff to learn our, our team to learn perhaps a new skill, a, new direction, a new set of actions. It could be, I'm just, I'm brainstorming out loud here, Kate, but, you know, even if it's, the way we design meetings, you know, we move away from these rigid, agenda based, you know, very kind of, talk at type meetings and we move into much more kind of co-constructed socially constructed spaces where actually it's not just a briefing style meeting, but it's an opportunity for us as, as members of a team to, like it's an added level of collaboration, for the organization or the team to gain a new level of understanding and, and meaning.
[00:12:55] Shyam: Anyway, I'm getting philosophical years, so sorry.
[00:12:58] Kate: no, I love it. I'm all about the philosophy. So you, you talked about creating meaningful learning moments. So what, what would be some of the components that really create a meaningful learning moment?
[00:13:10] Shyam: A meaningful learning moment. So if, no matter what position listeners might be in, if we think about identifying first and foremost as a learner. And I've written, I know, you know, we had conversations about this many years ago, about leaders adopting the lens of learning, as a perspective on the way they lead. And I think there's, there's two ways that I would see it is that as a leader, we have to adopt a learning orientation and say, okay, what can I learn from this staff member?
[00:13:41] Shyam: What can I learn from this conversation? And then at the same time, almost in parallel to that, I need to view the person that I'm working with as a learner. So that could be a client. It could be a colleague or a peer. you know, it could be anyone really, but I have to view them as a learner. And that simple lens influences the way I behave in the conversation and that lens on the other person influences my perception on the way they respond as well.
[00:14:10] Shyam: Because if we've used someone else as a learner, I think we automatically create opportunities for them to, to ask questions. Because, because it's a learning opportunity. Okay. Hey, is there something else that you need to know? You know, are you, how are you feeling confident with completing this task?
[00:14:29] Shyam: You know, what else, or what else would you need to be successful in this activity? Like these are the types of questions we're thinking about. If we're, we're viewing the person as a learner, as opposed to the expectation that you should know how to do this. Off you go, go and do it. it's what I pay you for.
[00:14:45] Shyam: You know, I pay you to, to have this set of skills and capabilities. So there's, it's almost the set of assumptions that we're operating.
[00:14:53] Kate: Mm. Yeah. I was just thinking, as you were saying that I love that it's kind of like the assumption that everybody has, or could have something to learn in any particular moment or space and that making the assumption that there is some kind of learning to be had, have, do you have learning, learning to be learned?
[00:15:15] Kate: Making that assumption means that you, you are always kind of creating those opportunities and you know, it doesn't matter if you assume that there might be some learning that's needed and there's not. Because if there's not, it doesn't really matter. Assuming that there is learning that's needed will always kind of open up the space and, you know, for, for growth, because you know, through learning comes growth, right?
[00:15:36] Shyam: Yeah, absolutely. And I know there's teams in, you know, big organizations or even, even solo entrepreneurs and, there's a focus on learning and development, but that notion of learning development almost needs to be infused and integrated into everything we do.
[00:15:49] Kate: Hmm.
[00:15:50] Shyam: I guess that's the, that's the kind of.
[00:15:53] Shyam: That's the stance that I take anyway,
[00:15:55] Kate: Yeah.
[00:15:55] Kate: So when you're going into schools and you are, you know, trying to infuse this kind of learning way into schools, not so much for the, the students, but also for the educational leaders and, and the teachers. What are some of the things that are, are most important for infusing that into, an environment?
[00:16:17] Shyam: Yeah, absolutely. So as a leader, you know, I think this is where the beauty of self-regulation comes into and, we can, self-regulate our leadership in from a learning perspective. So I'm, as a, as a leader, I'm a trying to build relationships with the people that I work with as quickly as possible.
[00:16:36] Shyam: And I know that's not always possible if you've got big teams, et cetera, but it's it's an intention of mine to get to know people as quickly as possible. And the reason I say that is relationships directly influence the quality of learning.
[00:16:52] Kate: Mm, why is that?
[00:16:53] Shyam: So, you know, how comfortable someone feels to ask questions, to share limitations, to share barriers that you know, that's going to come through, if they feel comfortable in a relationship with you, if they don't feel comfortable with you as a leader. I suspect there's, you know, in some cases it's going to be a place of fear, fear of disappointment, fear of looking stupid. you know, these are formalized fears, but this is what people experience. I remember working with a leader at a school, you know, almost four years ago now. And I was coaching her and she was new, like first year into this leadership position.
[00:17:31] Shyam: And she felt the pressure to just know a certain process. And that is the process that has been at the school for a number of years. And that's you know, that's what she told me. This process has been here. So we just have to, we have to do it. And I said, but out of curiosity, what makes this process, the right process for what you're trying to achieve moving forward?
[00:17:54] Shyam: And she said, oh, I'm not sure. And I said, is there, is there an opportunity to ask? And it was interesting. Cause in that conversation, she realized that a) for one, she wasn't questioning the status quo. So she wasn't adopting a learning mindset, which is, you know, to ask questions like that. two, there was a level of fear that her superior just expected her to go with a process that had been in place for multiple years.
[00:18:19] Shyam: So she wasn't asking why it was important. Why the process serve the organization? Well in the current state, and, you know, from a, from a self-awareness perspective, she wasn't even aware that those two things were happening, that she wasn't asking the questions and that there was potentially this fear of not knowing and therefore, appearing like she was incapable of being a leader of that team.
[00:18:41] Shyam: And so those, those are just two examples of how someone might hold back if they don't feel comfortable or they're not prompted in a learning kind of experience. So as a leader, that's what I'm trying to do. Build realtionships as quickly as possible. I model a lot of, I guess my own beliefs about learning in that I, you know, I really encourage questioning.
[00:19:01] I'm often asking, so it's not just. Not just me saying, Hey, you know, please feel free to ask me questions. I know that that staff doesn't always do that. so I'm creating kind of structures in my organization to allow staff, to ask questions in what might be argued as a safe, a safe and comfortable way.
[00:19:21] Shyam: So, you know, whether that's through, you know, your classic feedback surveys or even, you know, I use tools in staff meetings sometimes where they can anonymously kind of post questions, that pop up on like my PowerPoint. And, and then I can answer those questions for the group, but, you know, they're anonymous.
[00:19:39] Shyam: So depending on the size of the group, you know, typically if you know, if it's a staff meeting of 20 or 30, that's a really easy way for people to be able to generate questions without feeling the pressure of putting their hands up and asking. so those, you know, those are just small examples as a leader, what I'm trying to do, I'm always modeling. I say always, but that's not
[00:19:59] Kate: mostly
[00:20:01] Shyam: Self regulation is a practice.
[00:20:03] Kate: Mm.
[00:20:04] Shyam: so some days I self-regulate better than others. And, so I'm trying to model, deep listening
[00:20:14] Kate: Yep.
[00:20:14] Shyam: and that enables me to really dig into what might be holding a staff member back as a learner. noting that, you know, I'm, I'm working with organizations to be more adaptable, noting that sort of change and uncertainties is the only guarantee really in the way that business is and, the future kind of is unfolding. And so. That's that's my goal is to, to help these organizations and these leaders become more adaptable. And so I think listening is core, not just listening to someone else, but listening to ourselves, listening to,
[00:20:48] Kate: Yeah. I love that.
[00:20:49] Shyam: listening to the broader environment. So listening on multiple levels is something that I think is really cool to self regulation..
[00:20:58] Kate: Yeah. Oh gosh. There's so much in here that I wanna dig into. but I want to go back a moment because I think something that really jumped out at me in what you were saying was the relationship between fear and, and learning or the inability to learn and fear. And. Oh, my gosh, that hits home so true from, you know, from my experiences from experiences with clients, from, you know, just generally observing the human condition.
[00:21:26] Kate: I think you're so right. That when fear is present, it really does block us from growing, from moving forward from learning. And, you know, I think there's a lot of what you're saying that's kind of very, aligned with the, the coaching space as well. I think too, because I mean, really coaching is a space for learning and learning about ourselves and learning about how we can operate better.
[00:21:48] Kate: But I do see that it's like when fear is present, that's one of the biggest barriers. Do you know of any research, particularly around fear and learning? I'm putting you on the spot here.
[00:21:59] Shyam: Specific research is a tricky one. I will share what I think might be helpful in this instance is that we, you know, learners hold a range, a set of beliefs, that influence whether or not we take action. So essentially motivation. And so, you know, particularly in the coaching space where, you know, we are trying to help people take action towards their own goals, gain clarity, take action towards their own goals. And so there's a set of beliefs that influence that. And so that fear that, we feel 'cause fear is, is a feeling can be generated through any one of those beliefs. So for example, if there's a particular task, someone might believe that they're not capable of achieving that. Okay. So they're, they're scared of, you know, failing essentially because they don't believe they can complete the task.
[00:22:49] Shyam: Now that is self-efficacy, in its most basic sense of belief in whether or not we can, we have the, you know, the skillset to complete a task. And that actually is the, the belief that. You know, particularly as a coach, I'm trying to dig that belief up and make that sort of quite explicit so that we can, we can deal with that belief, but you can be influenced by multiple beliefs. So for example, it could be, I don't have the skill set to do this task. I don't believe I'm going to be successful, which is actually an outcome belief.
[00:23:18] Shyam: So even though I feel like I've got the skillset, I actually don't believe I'm going to be successful. So other beliefs that come into play that could manifest as fear. most people would've heard of, of mindset, beliefs about kind of intelligence, whether or not we believe that we can actually grow as individuals or whether or not our capabilities are genetic capabilities are fixed.
[00:23:43] Shyam: And so we might, you know, if we're operating from a fixed mindset, then that. Manifest as fear because we genuinely don't believe that we can grow as individuals. We may also not see value in the task or the task is well beyond our, our scope of kind of achievement right now. So that puts us into a place of kind of almost paralysis generally because of the nature of the task. That's a few examples of belief, but it could also be like, this is just from a cognitive psychology perspective. Sometimes when we're interpreting what a task involves, there's so much information to process that in the moment we get overloaded with information and that in itself can lead to a sense of sort of paralysis. Like, you know, you just are so fatigued from trying to process information. It doesn't make sense.
[00:24:36] Kate: Mm.
[00:24:36] Shyam: And that in that overwhelm in itself could lead to fear 'cause you don't actually understand what the task is asking. Let alone whether or not you believe you have the skillset for it.
[00:24:47] Kate: It's interesting. What strikes me about a lot of this like, you've talked about the important of kind of building relationships and kind of creating these safe spaces to ask questions. You've talked about deep listening, you know, overloading of information and something that kind of has come up for me with all of this, is that so much of it is based on the relationship between the learner and you know, the people in that learning environment. And, you know, without those relationships being strong and open and positive and, built on trust, the learning environment kind of can't really thrive can it ?
[00:25:26] Shyam: I agree completely. I think there's a, there's a concept of sort of professional learning communities, which is really strong in the educational context sector. But I think that notion of any organization adopting this idea that we're actually a professional learning community, could support this idea that yeah relationships learning, et etc. At the core of what we do.
[00:25:49] Kate: Yeah, ah, and all this stuff about beliefs and self-efficacy, I love it. When you were talking about self-efficacy, it made me think about the, you know, the idea of imposter syndrome, which is obviously everywhere at the moment. Everyone talks about it. I hear it so much in my work. Everyone talks to me about having imposter syndrome and I feel, you know, imposter syndrome is this kind of new term. That's come up in the last however many years, but really imposter syndrome is almost a lack of self-efficacy in a way, isn't it.
[00:26:22] Shyam: It could be my understanding of imposter syndrome is. Yeah. You don't believe you have, I guess you lack confidence. Is that right? Is that what imposter syndrome is?
[00:26:33] Kate: Well, I think it shows up in many ways, but I think often it's people don't believe they have the skills or the level of knowledge or the whatever to, to be able to do something.
[00:26:42] Shyam: To do something? Yeah.
[00:26:43] Kate: so that that's kind of, self-efficacy in a way, isn't it?
[00:26:46] Shyam: Yeah, absolutely. Perhaps the other side of imposter syndrome. So yeah, I, I agree. Self-efficacy absolutely. The other side might be social comparison.
[00:26:54] Kate: Mm. Yes.
[00:26:56] Kate: That's
[00:26:56] Shyam: fear, which is, I don't believe I have sufficient skill in comparison to this person to do this task, but you know, on their own, they probably do have the skill set, but in comparison to others,
[00:27:08] Kate: Mm.
[00:27:09] Shyam: they might feel like an imposter.
[00:27:13] Kate: So is that something that you have seen in a kind of classroom educational environment, like that comparison with others?
[00:27:21] Shyam: Oh, absolutely social comparison is by far our worst enemy when it comes to any form of action taking. So it's, it's funny because on one hand there's an argument that, you know, Take, observational learning theory or social cognitive learning theory where we can learn through observation of others, which has merits.
[00:27:40] Shyam: And that modeling , plays a key role in that observational process. So there's a, there's a moment where social actually is very beneficial, so we can learn through social observation. You know, Vigotsky, this is just name dropping for fun, really. But we take the notion of social constructivism that we actually learn through socially constructing our knowledge in conversation with others.
[00:28:05] Shyam: So there's a benefit of a social kind of component, but the minute we get into a notion of where do I sit in comparison to others, almost like a normative reference, like where do we sit in comparison to others? That if anything more of the, not acts as a barrier to action and progress. And for some, it won't always like, you know, for some that could be very motivating 'cause you know, if, if you know, you're looking at someone else and you're thinking that's the path I wanna get on. And you know, that's probably the next step that I need to do or something like that. You can use that as a, almost a beneficial goal setting. But when you're just comparing about where your progress sits in comparison to someone else, I think that's a limiting factor and that's going to hinder motivation.
[00:28:52] Shyam: But we see that in schools all the time, all the time.
[00:28:56] Kate: So from a self regulated learning perspective, what, what could a learner do to nip that in the bud basically to, to avoid the negative side of social observation.
[00:29:08] Shyam: Yeah. So, you know, with any what's, what's beautiful about self-regulated learning is the first thing if, if you wanted to improve your capacity as a self-regulated learner and the, the number one thing I tell you to do is go away and, and learn about. Motivation learn about cognition and learn about a third concept, which is metacognition.
[00:29:29] Shyam: So those are the three kind of key domains of knowledge that underpin self-regulated learning.
[00:29:34] Kate: Can you say those again for us?
[00:29:35] Shyam: yeah, motivation, cognition, and metacognition.
[00:29:41] Kate: and meta cognition.
[00:29:42] Shyam: So just, just in layman's terms, what they are so motivation. I think most people will understand what motivation is being a driver, a reason for action.
[00:29:49] Shyam: Cognition is how we think. So when I was talking about processing information that would sit under the umbrella of cognition. How do we process information? How do we encode and retrieve that information from our long-term memories? That's essentially what cognition is. What's our working memory? How do we make decisions? All that sits underneath that umbrella.
[00:30:12] Shyam: Metacognition is more about the space of self-awareness. And it's self-awareness of our motivation and our cognition. Okay. So it's often in schools, you know, if you ask a teacher, what metacognition is, they'll, they'll tell you, it's thinking about thinking and, and it's sort of meta being that meta level.
[00:30:34] Shyam: It's how we actually kind of observe our own thinking processes. So the question was, how do we help someone? Improve their self regulated learning in, in this social comparison setting. Right, right. Yeah. so, so first thing I'd say is, you know, dig deeper into those three concepts, even understanding the influence of social comparison on motivation, both negative and positive, the pros and cons, the, the pitfalls, et cetera, understanding that in itself is going to lead to greater, greater awareness.
[00:31:05] Shyam: This is one of those cases where knowledge is power.
[00:31:09] Kate: Mm. Yeah. And am I right? That the research shows that, you know, when you have that knowledge, once you know something, you can't un know it kind of thing and it gives you that awareness of...?
[00:31:19] Shyam: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So developing knowledge is, is going to lead to greater awareness about these things. And so even just, you know, for your listeners today, if they have, they're not familiar with imposter syndrome, well, they've just been exposed to it. And now that's going to hopefully increase their awareness around perhaps their own feeling of imposter syndrome.
[00:31:38] Shyam: So yes, developing the knowledge is going to lead to awareness. Which is great. The next thing that, you know, I advocate for is it's not just enough to have knowledge. What we need to do is have strategies to regulate.
[00:31:53] Shyam: So those are kind of the two components develop knowledge about these three domains, motivation, cognition, meta cognition. And the second thing is to develop a broad repertoire of strategies in those three domains. And so what that means is that for the student or the learner who in that moment is aware that they're engaging in social comparison.
[00:32:15] Shyam: So there has to be that moment of awareness. Okay. Oh, Ooh. Okay. I don't feel good. I'm experiencing fear. Oh yeah. I am engaging in social comparison. That's great. That that first level is great, but then the next step would be, and this is the regulation part is that the learner has to change something.
[00:32:36] Shyam: It has to be some change and it has to be okay. I know that social comparison is not helpful for my motivation in this instant. So I'm going to focus on my own personal progress. And I'm only going to compare to where I was yesterday or where I was last week or where I was in my previous performance in this.
[00:32:53] Shyam: And so that regulation in that component is a shifting from social comparison to personal progress.
[00:33:01] Kate: Hmm.
[00:33:01] Shyam: And so you can see in that, that example, I've just given you how important self-talk is in a self-regulation kind of phase. Is that how a learner engages in that internal dialogue and the self instructions, the self questions, but even the adoption of different strategies that is in itself, self-regulated learning or self-regulation.
[00:33:25] Kate: Mm, I love that. And it comes back to that asking good questions. Doesn't it. But it's asking the good questions of the self rather than of somebody else.
[00:33:32] Shyam: Absolutely. Yeah. And that's why coaching I think, you know, I almost think everyone should be trained as a coach because. When you train as a coach, you are trained in a, in a way of listening, but also in a way of asking really rich questions to someone else that in itself has a kind of internal influence on your own internal conversation because you automatically well, not automatically, but through that knowledge, you then are able to engage in a deeper level of listening to yourself. But you're also able to ask yourself richer questions.
[00:34:06] Kate: Yeah, and richer questions just always lead to a richer understanding of self don't they?
[00:34:13] Shyam: Yeah, absolutely. And I know Kate, like with your background in meditation and coaching, is that something that you have personally experienced as you developed your knowledge around sort of meditation, but even as a coach and working with the number of people that you work with. As you develop that skillset, I can only imagine that there's a correlation to your own kind of self-awareness and,
[00:34:33] Kate: absolutely. Yeah. And I would say too, that I think what happens, the more you learn how to ask deep questions, the more you're not sitting there in your head going. Hmm. I'm going to ask myself a deep question. It's kind of becomes more intuitive and you are, you are almost. Asking yourself, those questions, as a part of the natural flow of day to day life. Like I don't sit down and ask myself those questions.
[00:34:55] Kate: Well, sometimes I do. But mostly I think the questions and the answers arise just more spontaneously as the, the better you get at deliberately asking those questions of others. And I think, you know, my work even before a coach was doing service and experience and human-centered design, which was the same thing, it was asking the right questions and asking deep questions to get at what the heart of something is.
[00:35:20] Kate: And so. Absolutely. I think it just infuses into you after a time. It's funny. I was out on a, a girl's weekend, the other day, and someone talked about, having a particular challenge about something and, and all of a sudden, like the question started flowing out of me and someone said, oh, here comes the coach.
[00:35:40] Kate: I was like, but , once you kind of Deep questioning embedded in your way of living and working. It's like, it's something that you can't not do in many ways.
[00:35:50] Shyam: And, and what's nice about that too, is even when you do come across those, perhaps those barriers of those hurdles in life, you do use questions as a way of almost problem solving the situation. There's almost like an abundance of questions that we can continue to ask ourselves to keep shifting lens and shifting perspective on the problem itself. So it's a good skillset to have if you don't have it, listeners get on it.
[00:36:11] Kate: Yes. Power of a powerful question. Ah, wonderful. I love this. Like, gosh, we could go into so much depth on self-regulated learning, but I'd actually love to kind of switch for a moment and, and talk a little bit more about you and you as a leader and, as a human and a person in the world.
[00:36:29] Kate: And, you know, I know you are a great self leader. I love that term of self leadership and kind of how we show up for ourselves and lead ourselves. And I think that's something you do really well from having observed that as you know, being friends for quite a while now.
[00:36:41] Kate: So I'd love to hear from you, like how do you bring this into your own life and how do you think it's really, supported you in becoming a better human, a better leader, a better business person, a better educator.
[00:36:55] Shyam: It's a big question. That one. So there's kind of multiple ways, I guess. So just a little bit more background on me is that I started to discover the field of self-regulated learning probably around 2014 and 2013, 2014. And it was the same kind of time that I was really starting to dig deeper into personal development or personal mastery type literature.
[00:37:18] Shyam: And so I was at the same time of kind of discovering this concept. I was at the same time, also discovering a range of strategies that as a leader. Cause I was full-time working as an executive in a school at the time. I was trying to find ways to better regulate, which was arguably a very large workload.
[00:37:39] Shyam: And so the, the two kind of complimented each other really nicely in that I was developing my knowledge of those three domains, but at the same time I was developing a broad repertoire of strategies to have me regulate. And so I installed a number of practices at the time that have continued today, but I guess, all my practices, You know, I mentioned before self-regulation is a practice.
[00:38:04] Shyam: And I think if we get too bogged down in like, you know, a commitment to doing something every day, I think that can, sometimes... you can lose the kind of adaptability that you need with a strategy. And so I hold all my structures lightly for the very reason that I want them to. Shift with context. and so I try not to be... most people would think, oh, Shy loves his schedule. You know, he's, he's a schedule guy. He loves to lock things in. And I do, I think schedule gives me freedom to be able to be spontaneous and autonomous. But, my schedule in itself is adaptable, and flexible in the way that it functions. And so. For example, you know, I installed a morning routine morning routines are very popular in kind of the leadership space. my morning routine. and Kate, I know you have a, you have a, well, you have multiple structures and strategies that you use in your own life as well.
[00:38:55] Kate: I did until I had a, a baby, but you know, we we're trying to get back there.
[00:38:59] Shyam: Yeah. And, and this is where you, this is the reason that right holding things lightly.
[00:39:03] Kate: Hmm.
[00:39:04] Shyam: You had a baby, you know, my wife and I, we have a two year old and so I can empathize with that. So I had to change even when that shift happened in our life, I had to change structure. I had to change strategies, but I have a morning routine typically starts with meditation.
[00:39:17] the reason I have a 15 minute meditation, first thing in the morning is personally, my brain is wired the minute I wake up, and. I instantly go into planning mode. I'm thinking about work. I'm thinking about the worries of the world. That's just how my brain kind of functions. You know, I'm not sure everyone's brain functions like that, but mine definitely does.
[00:39:41] Shyam: Kickstarts first thing in the morning. And so I actually have to reign it back in. And so as opposed to kind of kicking my day off reactive to my own thinking processes, I spend 15 minutes reigning it back in to create a space of kind of calm so that I'm actually going into the, the day quite intentional.
[00:40:00] Shyam: And you know, leaders are very, like typically very busy and we have so many things on our plates . And perhaps others share this similar experience where they're just kind of firing. And, I think the worst thing to do is kind of enter your day reactive, in the same way I advocate for don't don't read emails first thing in your Workday is because emails create, sort of a motion of reaction. So yeah, meditation's one, you know, there's a range of things I do. Would you like me to share kind of my morning routine game what's useful?
[00:40:29] Kate: that's all right. Maybe not the whole routine, but you know, just, I, I was just keen to understand. Yeah. Generally how some of these self-regulation practices have kind. Kind of infused into your own life. Are there, I mean, outside of, kind of routine, what are some other ways that you've used self-regulation in your daily life?
[00:40:48] Shyam: In daily life. Yeah. So I, I guess on personal level, not just in my work, but as a parent, but also my relationship, my knowledge of self-regulation influences every single one of those, those different hats that I wear. And it's, it's that ability to, so becoming aware of yourself in the moment. So whether it's, you know, my daughter's saying something funny or she's doing something, I have, and you know, it is a practice.
[00:41:15] Shyam: I'm not always acutely aware of this, but I'm practicing being. Sort of really present in the moment and acutely aware of what's happening. And then I'm carefully thinking, so this is, you know, this is parent but I do the same in my relationships as well. You know, in that I'm really trying to think about how I respond to anyone or anything, with that lens of learning and it's, you know, What can I learn from this instance?
[00:41:45] Shyam: Or how can I support my two year old daughter to become a better learner? What can I do it? You know, if it's a conversation with my wife, you know, what questions can I ask here? That allow me to learn and be a better husband. but also, you know, to, to take our relationship to a deeper level and take the conversation to a deeper level. So I'm, I'm constantly thinking about those types of things.
[00:42:06] Shyam: I know that my ability to self-regulate is influenced by a range of things. So, you know, I mentioned meditation, but I know that sleep and exercise directly influenced my ability to regulate regulating or self-regulating at a very basic level kind of decision making. Even internally we're making small decisions about whether or not we respond in a certain way, whether or not we adopt a learning perspective and you know, decision fatigue is, is a thing.
[00:42:35] Shyam: And so I know that there's a range of things that influenced my ability to self-regulate particularly over the course of the day. And so I'm putting in, Structures to make sure to help me be able to make those good decisions for me, my organization, my family, et cetera.
[00:42:50] Kate: Mm. Yeah, I love that. And I just wanna kind of, you know, really bring that one home for the audience that like the ability to self-regulate has that foundation in kind of your, I suppose it's your, your physical, mental, emotional wellbeing really? Doesn't it?
[00:43:05] Shyam: Absolutely. Yes.
[00:43:06] Kate: Yeah, I'm always harping on about potential and how, you know, the, our potential is also, requires those things for a foundation.
[00:43:15] Kate: So I love that it comes together with learning too. It's almost like, you know, our potential is also related to our, our ability to learn.
[00:43:25] Shyam: And it's interesting, 'cause I think health, particularly for leaders, health perhaps can sometimes be compromised.
[00:43:36] Kate: Mm,
[00:43:37] Shyam: and health I'm using health in a very broad sense. But if, we recognize that as a fundamental need, you know, a basic need that has to be met before we can. Maximize or reach or achieve? Well, I think your languages often exceed almost our potential isn't it?
[00:43:54] Kate: I think it's utilize our potential.
[00:43:56] Shyam: Utilise our potential.
[00:43:57] Kate: I hate the, I actually hate the word utilize, but like yeah. Make the most of our potential. Cause the way I see potential is it's kind of like its own energy force and it's something that's there, which we can either use or not use in a certain way. And we can nurture it and we can grow it so that we can use it better. But, but yeah, it's just something that's kind of there to be. Yeah. To be used or not.
[00:44:20] Shyam: To be used or not. Yeah. And even that instance, like, you know, whether or not you use your potential or maximize that potential, that in itself is a choice. It's a decision. And you know, if your goal is to, to use your potential, then the process to do that, you know, is to regulate, or to self-regulate your way towards that.
[00:44:42] Shyam: You know, that's going to include a range of strategies, self questions, self talk, et cetera, that you want to infuse in your life to be able to move yourself forward in that way.
[00:44:51] Kate: Mm. Yeah, I totally love that. So we're getting towards the end of our time together. So I'd love to ask you the question, which, which I ask everyone, which is, what does it mean to you to be a leading being.
[00:45:06] Shyam: To be a leading being. I think, I think our job as leaders is to grow other leaders. And so. I think on one hand. Well, you know, I, I definitely, the way I approach life is to be a model of, of learning and mastery. And so, you know, my commitment in serving the world to be better learners is to also personally, as a leader to, to model that as best as I can daily.
[00:45:38] Shyam: To be a leading being perhaps is to, yeah, I like the word infuse. We've used it a number of times in today's podcast, but, almost infused that into a way of life. leadership is not about, and you know, this is perhaps popular opinion, but leadership is not about a title. It's not about a hierarchical kind of position in an organization and whether or not I'm. Yeah. Leading my own business as a sole trader or whether I'm in a, you know, an organization with thousands of employees. I don't think it matters. I think it is about how we live our life. So I, you know, used to use the word conscious, a lot. And I think consciousness sort of relates really nicely to self-regulation.
[00:46:18] Shyam: And so really being present in the world in the way that we act and, and respond. I think that's what it means to be a leading being.
[00:46:30] Kate: Mm, that's beautiful. I do just want to hook back into one other thing that you've talked a bit about. You you've mentioned your purpose, a number of times or what your work's all about. Would you like to just, share that again so everyone can hear it again?
[00:46:45] Shyam: Yeah. So personally, I'm on a mission to help people become better learners and. Given the audiences heard me say self-regulated learning so much to help people become better self-regulated learners. That is a core driver. It's something that I identified early on as kind of, I guess my service why?
[00:47:02] Shyam: And that has even in the way that I just spoke about a leading being like, what is, you know, what is the legacy? What's the impact that I, you know, want to have here in the world in terms of how will I be remembered? I hope that whether it's one, whether it's a hundred, you know, again, those people who've, I've been blessed to interact with that they have benefited in some way, shape form from that interaction. Hopefully in a positive way. But it's fueled them towards becoming a better learner. That's the aim.
[00:47:33] Kate: Yeah, and I, I wanted to call that out 'cause one of the reasons is because I've always loved your kind of purpose statement and, and that's because it is so applicable in a wide sense. And I have seen you use it in so many ways. And one of the things I say to my clients when we are talking about purpose statements is that it's great to have one for work on life separately, but it's really great. If you can have one for work and life together. And I loved how early you, you were speaking about how you kind of bring that to how you show up with your daughter and how you show up with other people. And yeah, I just wanted to kind of highlight it because I've always loved it. And I think it's such a, a great example of how you can infuse. There we go. Again, purpose into all different facets of your life and, by having something that does encapsulate so much, but in such a beautiful, simple sentence, how did you get to that in the end?
[00:48:30] Shyam: I was working with a coach at the time, and the sentence stem that I was given, which was simply like, I help X.
[00:48:38] Kate: Mm,
[00:48:38] Shyam: Do become whatever, you know, some sort of verb there, do X. Like that was essentially the stem that I use. And, and so I was like, okay, originally I started with like, I help teachers or I help students.
[00:48:49] Shyam: And then, I was like, no, actually I just, I wanna keep that more general. Because I didn't want it to be confined by my work. And it needed to be something. Simple in, in number of words that I could just kind of reel off, you know? And so, yeah, I knew that I was committed to the science of learning and cognitive psychology of learning, but at the very basic level, it was about just becoming better learners.
[00:49:15] Shyam: And so that is for anyone who wants to send stem, that's the sin stem that I used help X become, do something, X. Like that was essentially it. Yeah and it just, I think the beauty of, of that statement is that it was, it, there was so much flexibility in it that allowed it to be adaptable, to other spaces, but you know, hand on heart. I also, you know, through my own coaching and, and my knowledge and interactions with many other people, I understand that a service why like mine, is not necessarily a driving force for everyone. So, you know, find your, why.
[00:49:51] Kate: Yep. Thanks Simon Sinek. that's awesome Shy. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you here and yeah. Dive into your work in a little bit more detail. Now I know you have a podcast. You wanna share that with the audience again?
[00:50:08] Shyam: Yeah. So the podcast is Educate to Self Regulate. If you're looking for it on Twitter or Instagram, it's @edtoselfreg. It's a relatively new podcast. But if you are interested in digging deeper into... Season one's all about motivation. So we've been digging into concepts related to motivations of self-efficacy, for example, goal orientations.
[00:50:29] Shyam: And so if you're interested in digging deeper and developing that knowledge, that could be a place to start the 20 minute episodes.
[00:50:35] Kate: And I've been listening and I can say, like, I've been finding it incredibly informative from the perspective of a coach. And I know it's kind of focused on education and educational, settings, but I would say it's so beneficial for anybody who wants to learn , about self-regulation and, you know, particularly if you're working in some kind of, you know, coaching or learning setting, yeah, incredibly valuable.
[00:50:59] Kate: And I've, I've learned a lot from it already, so yeah. Doing a great job.
[00:51:03] Shyam: Thanks, Kate. Yeah, the work in progress, but iterating our way to awesome.
[00:51:07] Kate: And how else can people find you if they wanna look you up?
[00:51:11] Shyam: So I'm on social media, simple handle @ShyamBarr so, you know, if you just search my name, you'd be able to find me on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even I've got a Facebook business page. I'm not on, well, I am on TikTok, but not actively on TikTok. So,
[00:51:28] Kate: I think, I think our generation are like, we're trying to get there slowly, aren't we?
[00:51:33] Shyam: Trying to. Classic website shyambarr.com.au, which if you're interested, I am trying to regularly get out sort of a fortnightly newsletter with some tips, tricks, and strategies and, and other things related to self-regulated learning. So if anyone's interested in subscribing, you can do that by the website.
[00:51:50] Kate: Wonderful. And I highly recommend it 'cause Shyam's work is all fabulous, and beautifully based in research too. So if you're a research nerd like me and love to know that stuff is, you know, properly, academically validated then, yeah, there's, there's lots of great stuff in there. so thank you so much again and yeah, I will, see you in the world.
[00:52:13] Shyam: Thanks. Kate, it's been a pleasure.