Exploring teachers' practices to develop students' self-regulated learning in U.S. K-12 online schools

Students' ability to be engaged in self-regulated learning (SRL) has become more important in the emerging information age paradigm of education where learners have more control over their learning process. With growing interest in and popularity of online learning and lifelong learners, SRL is becoming more and more important for learners' successful learning experience. In addition, online learning in K-12 is the area that is becoming more popular followed by higher education and corporate. Although SRL has known to be a teachable skill, little research has been done on how teachers develop their students' SRL in online learning environments, and especially online K-12 school contexts.;This dissertation aimed at 1) examining how teachers at online K-12 schools in the U.S. perceive the importance of SRL for their students and the importance of teachers' teaching SRL skills to their online students, 2) examining how frequently teachers are providing supports for their students to develop SRL skills, 3) identifying what types of supports teachers are providing for their students to develop SRL skills, 4) examining how technology is being utilized to support teachers' practices of developing students' SRL, and 5) identifying whether teachers need to see more functions from technology in supporting their practices of developing SRL skills of their students.;Survey responses of 112 teachers who were teaching at K-12 online schools in the U.S. revealed that they perceived that it was important for their online students to have self-regulated learning skills to be successful in their online learning experience. Moreover, they also perceived that it was very important for the teachers to teach their students SRL skills at K-12 online schools. In general, the teachers indicated they were frequently providing some supports for their students to develop SRL skills through their practices. Follow-up interviews and content analysis results showed the types of supports provided by teachers or institutions for students to develop SRL skills such as direct guidance, prompting, institutional support, and so on. Although there was little direct instruction support, teachers utilized various supports to develop their students' SRL skills, and implications such as personalization, creating a learning community, and maintaining a balance between teacher-regulated learning and SRL were derived.