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Strategie bezieht sich auf die spezifischen Aktionen, Verhaltensweisen, Schritte oder Techniken, die von Studenten verwendet, um ihr eigenes Lernen zu fördern.
I didn’t use werden in sentence above, but I’m not sure if I had to use it or not there. Could somenone please me clear up?
Essentially in that clause the "werden" is missing. "verwendet" is the passive form and needs the additional "werden" to make the sentence complete.
You could rephrase the sentence to convert it to the active form, then you could omit "werden":
Schritte oder Techniken, die Studenten verwenden, um ihr eigenes Lernen zu fördern
This would be correct as well.
If you want to keep the passive form but omit the "werden" as well, then you could change the sentence to be a subordinate clause instead. That way you don't need a verb:
Schritte oder Techniken, von Studenten verwendet, um ihr eigenes Lernen zu fördern.
Yes, werden is required for the passive voice in German. It cannot be left out save in very few cases for advanced stylistic or poetic reasons. Check out Vorgangspassiv on Canoo.net.
Especially in your sentence, leaving out werden creates an allusion towards a participle form as a replacement for a subordinate clause. That is not what you intended, since it would shift the meaning. The problem disappears when adding werden.
