Fostering Metacognition to Support Student Learning and Performance

This article by Julie Dangremond Stanton, Amanda J. Sebesta and John Dunlosky “outline the reasons metacognition is critical for learning and summarize relevant research … in … three main areas in which faculty can foster students’ metacognition: supporting student learning strategies (i.e., study skills), encouraging monitoring and control of learning, and promoting social metacognition during group work.” They then “distill insights from key papers into general recommendations for instruction, as well as a special list of four recommendations that instructors can implement in any course.”

CBE Life Sci Educ June 1, 2021 20:fe3

https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-12-0289

Metacognition Activities & Strategies: The Ultimate Guide

This Ultimate Guide webpage put together by Global Metacognition shares 40 metacognition activities and teaching strategies, along with short descriptions of each.

Promoting Learning Integrity Through Metacognition and Self-Assessment

by Lauren Scharff, Ph.D., U. S. Air Force Academy*

When we think of integrity within the educational realm, we typically think about “academic integrity” and instances of cheating and plagiarism. While there is plenty of reason for concern, I believe that in many cases these instances are an unfortunate end result of more foundational “learning integrity” issues rather than deep character flaws representing lack of moral principles and virtues.

Learning integrity occurs when choices for learning behaviors match a learner’s goals and self-beliefs. Integrity in this sense is more like a state of wholeness or integrated completeness. It’s hard to imagine this form of integrity without self-assessment; one needs to self-assess in order to know oneself. For example, are one’s actions aligned with one’s beliefs? Are one’s motivations aligned with one’s goals? Metacognition is a process by which we gain awareness (self-assess) and use that awareness to self-regulate. Thus, through metacognition, we can more successfully align our personal goals and behaviors, enhancing our integrity.

Metacognitive Learning and Typical Challenges

When students are being metacognitive about their learning, they take the time to think about (bring into awareness) what an assignment or task will require for success. They then make a plan for action based on their understanding of that assignment as well their understanding of their abilities and current context. After that, they begin to carry out that plan (self-regulation). As they do so, they take pauses to reflect on whether or not their plan is working (self-awareness/self-assessment). Based on that interim assessment, they potentially shift their plan or learning strategies in order to better support their success at the task at hand (further self-regulation).

That explanation of a metacognitive learning may sound easy, but if that were the case, we should see it happening more consistently. As a quick example, imagine a student is reading a text and then realizes that they are several pages into the assignment and they don’t remember much of what they’ve read (awareness). If they are being metacognitive, they should come up with a different strategy to help them better engage with the text and then use that alternate strategy (self-regulation). Instead, many students simply keep reading as they had been (just to get the assignment finished), essentially wasting their time and short-cutting their long-term goals.

Why don’t most students engage in metacognition? There are several meaningful barriers to doing so:

Pausing to self-assess is not a habitual behavior for them
It takes time to pause and reflect in order to build awareness
They may not be aware of effective alternate strategies
They may avoid alternate strategies because they perceive them to take more time or effort
They are focused on “finishing” a task rather than learning from it
They don’t realize that some short-term reinforcements don’t really align with their long-term goals

These barriers prevent many students engaging in metacognition, which then makes it more likely that their learning choices are 1) not guided by awareness of their learning state and 2) not aligned with their learning goals and/or the learning expectations of the instructor. This misalignment can then lead to a breakdown of learning integrity with respect to the notion of “completeness” or “wholeness.”

For example, students often claim that they want to develop expertise in their major in order to support their success in their future careers. They want to be “good students.” But they take short-cuts with their learning, such as cramming or relying on example problem workout steps, both of which lead to illusions of learning rather than deep learning and long-term retention. These actions are often rewarded in the short term by good grades on exams and homework assignments. Unfortunately, if they engage in short-cutting their learning consistently enough, when long-term learning is expected or assessed, some students might end up feeling desperate and engage in blatant cheating.

Promoting Learning Integrity by Providing Support for Self-Assessment and Metacognition

Promoting learning integrity will involve more than simply encouraging students to pause, self-reflect, and practice self-regulation, i.e. engage in metacognition. As alluded to by the list of barriers above, being metacognitive requires effort, which also implies that learning integrity requires effort. Like many other self-improvement behaviors, developing metacognition requires multiple opportunities to practice and develop into a way of doing things.

Fortunately, as instructors we can help provide regular opportunities for reflection and self-assessment, and we can share possible alternative learning strategies. Together these should promote metacognition, leading to alignment of goals and behaviors and to increased learning integrity. The Improve with Metacognition website offers many suggestions and examples used by instructors across the disciplines and educational levels.

To wrap up this post, I highlight knowledge surveys as one way by which to promote the practice and skill of self-assessment within our courses. Knowledge surveys are shared with students at the start of a unit so students can use them to guide their learning and self-assess prior to the summative assessment. Well-designed knowledge survey questions articulate granular learning expectations and are in clear alignment with course assessments. (Thus, their implementation also supports teaching integrity!)

When answering the questions, students rate themselves on their ability to answer the question (similar to a confidence rating) as opposed to fully writing out the answer to the question. Comparisons can be made between the confidence ratings and actual performance on an exam or other assessment (self-assessment accuracy). For a more detailed example of the incorporation of knowledge surveys into a course, as well as student and instructor reflections, see “Supporting Student Self-Assessment with Knowledge Surveys” (Scharff, 2018).

By making the knowledge surveys a meaningful part of the course (some points assigned, regular discussion of the questions, and sharing of students’ self-assessment accuracy), instructors support the development of self-assessment habits, which then provide a foundation to metacognition, and in turn, learning integrity.

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* Disclaimer: The views expressed in this document are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U. S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U. S. Govt.

How can I help students become more expert learners, so they engage in active learning?

by Stephanie Chasteen, University of Colorado Boulder

“This chapter focuses on helping students engage productively in active learning classrooms by teaching students reflect on their learning and develop productive mindsets towards learning. It is part of a series on helping students engage productively in active learning classrooms.” It includes a list of tangible teaching and student metacognition strategies to use when working with students.

Developing Metacognition with Student Learning Portfolios

In this IDEA paper #44, The Learning Portfolio: A Powerful Idea for Significant Learning, Dr. John Zubizarreta shares models and guidance for incorporating learning portfolios. He also makes powerful arguments regarding the ability of portfolios to engage students in meaningful reflection about their learning, which in turn will support a metacognitive development and life-long learning.

A ‘New Ear’ for Student Writers: Building Awareness of Audience

by Michael Young, Robert Morris University

Downloadable

Motivation and Background:

A fundamental hurdle for most inexperienced writers is gaining a sense of their audience, and how a different consciousness may interpret the words, the organization, and the presentation that they (the writers) use to share ideas. It is different than knowing rules, techniques, or traditions of writing. It requires more than knowledge of the topic about which they are writing. Writers must be aware of their own individual thinking, their own choices, their motivations, and how these could be interpreted or misinterpreted by other people’s ways of thinking. This need for awareness of their own thoughts that could then support their writing efforts, i.e. metacognitive writing, led me to develop a new pedagogical process for the writing classroom that uses active presentations by others to convey audience interpretation.

I used this process for three years in creative writing courses, partially because students were already pursuing genres that often are interpreted orally, but believe it could be applicable to any writing course, especially with the following course characteristics: 1) upper division/at least sophomore level so the students are already somewhat experienced collegiate writers and 2) class size is small, ideally 20 or fewer students. No special materials, other than imagination and the means to convey ideas, are needed for the in-class exercises.

Nuts and Bolts:

This pedagogical process has several steps. To first prepare the students and get them thinking about how an audience might interpret their work, the students are given an initial survey on their then-current process of writing and concept of their potential audience. Consistently, three out of five agreed that they had a “mental picture” of their reader, but it was often no further developed than their college peers or even themselves. Most could not describe their readers any further and some said they had not considered a concept of a readership. Perhaps, for them, they had written only and ever with the teacher, and so a grade, in mind.

The second step involves having canonical examples of their genre, fiction or poetry, interpreted by others. During this step those others give a presentation / reading of the work in a manner that conveys their interpretation of the writing. Those others can be classmates or a more external audience. For example, the first two years I used this process, the others were members of the Forensics Team from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, then led by Professor Ann Burnett.

A third step, which has evolved over the years, was to have others present the students’ own writing back to them. This third step was implemented as a cycle. The students wrote their piece (either individually or as a group) and then gave it to others (classmates or external individuals) for interpretation with no additional input from the writers. The presenters would convey their interpretation, which then could be used by the writers to guide their revisions based on a better understanding of possible audience interpretation. If revisions were made, then the cycle of interpretation could be repeated.

Outcomes:

When this was done at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in a project funded by a grant from the university’s Teaching Council, 80% of the collaborative groups elected to revise their texts after hearing them interpreted. They noted the experience of hearing their stories being told by someone else, someone who was sharing their own understandings and insights into the words, heightened an awareness of qualities like the “flow and rhythm” of words or of “trying to make a picture in my head”, and an overall greater attention to what their drafts were able to communicate. For example, the potential hollowness of easy clichés might not have occurred to the writers or a lack of descriptions they had had in mind but which were not articulated were now more evident. Further, the majority of the class reported being much more aware of their own thinking (an aspect of metacognition) and the thinking of others.

By hearing, and sometimes seeing by the use of movements, how another person re-created the writer’s intentions, each writer had the opportunity to perceive how their audience understood what had been written down – in a way, to hear their own thinking – and to questions themselves. Is that what they had wanted someone else to feel, to think or had their expression fallen short of their conception? In other words, the process allowed them to “hear it (their work) with a ‘new ear’” and some of them realized they “should have found another way to get that (sic) message across.” That “new ear”, hopefully, was them more carefully listening to and questioning their own thoughts, i.e. being metacognitive about their own writing.

Participatory Pedagogy: Inviting Student Metacognition

by Nicola Simmons, Brock University, nsimmons@brocku.ca

Downloadable

Background

I teach higher and adult education, including adult developmental psychology, and like to invite my students to be aware of their cognitive processes. I see this as central to being an adult learner. One strategy I have developed is engaging students in creating course outcomes and content. I hope to help students become more aware of, more involved in, and better assessors of their own learning; in short, to examine their learning through a metacognitive lens.

This example is from a Masters of Education class, Exploring Approaches to Professional Development. The class is typically quite small (up to 20 students) but I have used it in groups of 50 students at the undergraduate level as well.

The Approach

The course follows Siemens’ (1984) participatory pedagogy (see syllabus excerpt) to invite students to co-construct the course process, including choosing course readings and creating grading rubrics:

As Biggs (2011) notes, student course co-ownership helps engage students in deep learning; it also builds their awareness of their learning processes. The first assignment, for example, asked them to:

Articulate your intended learning during this course, including a focus for personal and professional development. What will your development focus be? What will you do to realize your plan?

This engages students metacognitively as they take responsibility for their learning path and prepares them for the final assignment, a reflective ‘portfolio,’ in which they synthesize their learning over the term:

Create a creative and critical summary of your changing perspectives and reflections throughout the course, integrating readings (both assigned and others). Discuss your key learning, referring to course and outside experiences. Exemplary projects demonstrate critical analysis, synthesis, and self-evaluation. Can be any format (paper, song, performance, art; format negotiable). Addresses:

What theories help you?
What have you learned?
How can you use that?
How have you changed?
How do you know?

Each of these prompts invites consideration of the learning and development process and supports students in acquiring habits of mind that will allow them to approach future courses with a metacognitive lens. This has also led to their growth as scholars: One year, many of the students engaged in a self-study that included conducting a literature review and creating questions to guide our reflections. The result of that work was several conference presentations and a peer-reviewed paper (Simmons, Barnard, & Fennema, 2011) that outlined the transformative learning resulting from the student co-constructed course.

What was fascinating to me were the ways the course process built not only students’ metacognition about their learning, but also about their teaching. One wrote

I told my colleagues the story of this course and they were moved to consider new ways of doing culminating projects. Why isn’t there more choice? Why do we tell students what they must produce to demonstrate their own learning? Why don’t we add the additional layer of asking students to find the best way to demonstrate their learning?

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Developing metacognition is not a pain-free process! One student described the transformation during the process from fear to increased confidence.

Activities were out of my comfort zone and there were times that I struggled with the unknown … I was able to see the value once I moved beyond the frozen fear of uncertainty to ask myself “What did I want to gain from this course? How did I learn when pushed out of my comfort zone?” I had to be transformed into a student who was open to this new concept and new territory for learning…[where] mistakes … would not be judged but instead used as stepping stones toward learning.

Instructors should be mindful of the importance of support throughout the process. Just as the students are invited to be metacognitive about their processes, it helps if the instructor is transparently metacognitive about the overall course path. For me that looked like saying things like “this may be new for you, but I’d like you to consider trying it” and reassuring them that discomfort was a sign they were onto something good!

The course format continues to unsettle students but also transform them into metacognitive learners, and I finish with one student’s illustrative words:

I remember thinking at the time that the final project was the most difficult task that I had encountered … I really had to ponder … how my journey through the course could be effectively captured and conveyed … It continues to personify my journey through work/life, the choices we make when we meet resistance or the paths we take … how we travel the road is for our choosing.

References

Biggs, J. B., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at the university: What the student does. Maidenhead, UK: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906-911.

Siemens, G. (2008). New structures and spaces of learning: The systemic impact of connective knowledge, connectivism, and networked learning. Paper Presented for Universidade do Minho, Encontro sobre Web 2.0, Braga, Portugal, October 10. Available online at http://elearnspace.org/Articles/systemic_impact.htm

Simmons, N., Barnard, M., & Fennema, W. (2011). Participatory pedagogy: A compass for transformative learning? Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 4.

Make It Stick in Cognitive Psychology

by Jennifer A. McCabe, Goucher College,
jennifer.mccabe@goucher.edu

Downloadable

Motivation and Background: I am a cognitive psychologist with a research program focused on metacognition and applied memory in education. I decided three years ago to structure my Cognitive Psychology course around the principles described in the book, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel (2014). Many memory-improvement principles are discussed in this book, including: practice retrieving new learning from memory, space out your retrieval practice, interleave the study of different problem types, elaboration, and reflection. Other topics include the fluency illusion, getting past learning styles, and developing a growth mindset. Adopting this book as required reading, and structuring the course to reflect these principles, dovetailed with my increasing commitment to prompt and support students’ metacognitive growth. I hoped that this would both enhance student learning on objective tests (in a notoriously challenging course), and also explicitly support a course learning outcome: Improve your metacognitive skills (knowing what you know, learning how to learn).

Context in which the activity or process has been used: This has been included in three sections of Cognitive Psychology, a 200-level course offered at Goucher College, a small liberal arts institution in Baltimore, Maryland. The class size is 25-30 students, and I have been teaching this course for 13 years.

Description of activity or process methods: The description of the activity is in my Cognitive Psychology syllabus (available through Project Syllabus: http://teachpsych.org/Resources/Documents/otrp/syllabi/JM16cognitive.pdf). On the first day of class, I describe the Make It Stick” Reflection Papers. For each class period in which a chapter is assigned, students prepare and bring to class a 1-page, single-spaced reflection. Content and style is open, but they must demonstrate deep and careful thinking about the topic, and explicit connections to life experiences, habits and plans/intentions, and course material. They can also include questions and/or other personal reactions to the chapter. I note that this assignment requires elaboration and reflection, two effective learning strategies discussed in the book. Students submit 8 reflection papers during the semester (one per chapter), each worth up to 5 points. Out of a 500-point class, this assignment is worth up to 40 points (8%).

The first reflection paper is due early in the semester, typically the second week, then the subsequent seven chapters/papers are due approximately once per week. We take time in class on those days to engage in small- and large-group discussion. Most of these discussions are framed in terms of metacognition, particularly in light of research suggesting that college students do not always understand how learning works, and cannot always predict which memory strategies lead to the best retention (e.g., McCabe, 2011). I encourage them to consider their lives as learners, and how they can use information from the book to adjust their strategies.

We also talk about how this course is structured to reflect “best practice” learning strategies. For example, students take a self-graded “retrieval practice” quiz at the start of most class periods, because research shows that frequent, effortful, low-stakes, cumulative, spaced (distributed) retrieval practice: (1) produces the most durable learning; and (2) improves metacognitive accuracy of what you know. I strive to be transparent in the purpose for all course elements. In a sense, then, I see Make It Stick as a framework for the entire course – core content and topics for discussion, rationale for course design, and hopefully motivation for students to engage and feel empowered in their own learning.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned:

Since implementing this assignment, I believe that students’ knowledge about effective learning strategies has improved. They seem to enjoy the book as a required course component – on an anonymous questionnaire, 88% agreed that Make It Stick should be included in future classes. When asked whether this course had supported the learning outcome of improving metacognitive skills, 100% agreed or strongly agreed (71% strongly agreed). And when asked about one way this course has changed the way they think or behave in the world, 78% included a statement relating to metacognition. Some examples include:

“I now analyze the way I am absorbing and encoding information. I have never thought about the way I learn but now I am so grateful to accept the study strategies that work and throw away the ones that don’t.”

“It has helped me to develop a better understanding of effective study/learning strategies. Improved my metacognitive skills!”

“When I study and am overconfident in my skills, I think about metacognitive skills and test myself. This class helped me study better.”

Of course the major challenge with teaching students metacognition is that it is only half the battle to acquire knowledge about how learning works. I still struggle with motivating students to actually implement these strategies. Many are desirable difficulties (Bjork, 1994), feeling effortful and error-prone (and even frustrating) in the short term, and only showing benefits due to this initial challenge at a later time. I encourage students to use the strategies regularly, so that they become habits of mind, but I’m not convinced they consistently do so after one semester of exposure to this material. Yet the fact that they make statements such as the ones above gives me hope that they are integrating the Make It Stick ideas about metacognition into their lives.

Though this assignment has been part of a highly relevant course, Cognitive Psychology, the book Make It Stick (or selected chapters) could enhance a number of courses in and outside of psychology – as well as first-year seminars and similar courses that focus on student skill development, with the goal of teaching them how to be better learners.

References

Bjork, R. A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings.

In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185–205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University.

McCabe, J. (2011). Metacognitive awareness of learning strategies in undergraduates. Memory & Cognition, 39, 462–476. doi:10.3758/s13421-010-0035-2

Utilizing a Metacognition Chart for Exam Review and Metacognitive Skill Development

by Dana Melone, Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School

Downloadable

Motivation and Context:

I teach AP Psychology at a Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My students range in age from 15-18 years old. They also come into my classroom with a variety of grade point averages ranging from below a 2.0 to above a 4.0. While some students have excellent, note taking and study skills as well an understanding of what they need to study, I find that most of my students (even the top ones) tend to try to study everything and get overwhelmed. They also do not utilize review time to their advantage.

At the same time my students love review games and in class review time. However, for years I was hesitant to play them or give them time to review in class because they would be so actively engaged in the game or review activity that they would not take the time to consider what they knew and what they did not know, and how this should effect their studying (i.e. practice metacognition about their learning). I wanted to engage them in demonstrations and games but I also wanted them to use those activities to guide their studying and develop effective learning strategies that could be used beyond my course. In response to this dilemma, I developed the metacognitive prompt chart below.

Nuts and Bolts:

In order to help students gauge how much they know, I have started requiring them to complete the metacognitive chart as they are reviewing in class or playing a review game I have also pointed out that they can use the chart even when they are working on current content. The chart consists of 4 columns that help students categorize their understanding of the concepts.

Students use the chart by putting the concept names in the column that best describes their understanding of each concept as we move through review activities or games. There are also two questions at the bottom that ask them about the focus of their studying and patterns they have seen over time. In the end, they have a chart that allows them in one glance to know what they need to study and what they have knowledge of.

What concepts need to be the focus of your studying? How will you make sure you are studying them actively?
Look at your past charts, what concepts seem to remain a problem? How will you address this?

My students have this chart out any time we are going over previously learned content or reviewing (multiple times a week). I encourage my students to re-examine their charts once a week to look for patterns over time and reflect on what they need to get help with or review. I also encourage them to combine any charts as we near assessments that are cumulative. Multiple times a month I collect the sheets and can visibly see areas that all my students are struggling. I have been able to use it for my own personal metacognition in planning review, re-teaching, and remediation times.

Outcomes:

This chart has proven its effectiveness on many levels. Students have been able to visibly see the areas that they need improvement in and should focus on. They are also able to examine these sheets over time to see patterns in the content that they are struggling with and doing well with. An unintended outcome has been the ability to use it as the teacher for ongoing formative assessment of my classes.

Metacognitive Time Capsule Assignments for Reflection on Writing Skills

by Sarah Robinson*, U. S. Air Force Academy
sarah.robinson@usafa.edu

Downloadable

Motivations and Context:

I teach upper level Geoscience courses on Remote Sensing and Imagery Analysis—essentially using satellite imagery to study earth surface materials and processes. In addition to the course objectives on imagery analysis, I also have a course objective on communication. Specifically, I want my students to be able to construct a convincing, clear, and concise written argument that communicates their analysis choices and subsequent results. Using imagery to analyze a geospatial problem is not enough; students also need to be able to write a convincing technical summary that communicates their analysis and results to others.

One of the challenges with communication course goals is that writing is often approached with a fixed mindset (Dweck, 2007), meaning it is viewed as some innate quality that you either have or you don’t. With a fixed mindset, it simply doesn’t make sense to expend effort on writing (ex. write drafts or read feedback) because there is no clear path for improvement—it is a fixed skill regardless of effort. However, if students alternatively view writing with a growth mindset they see writing as a skill that can be improved with practice and use of specific actions/strategies to make progress. Engaging in a growth mindset requires reflection on abilities and progress (self-awareness) and identification of strategies for improvement (self-regulation). In terms of writing, this translates into effort expended on practice in multiple assignments/drafts, reflection on progress and feedback, and identification of strategies to improve future writing assignments. Course design and assignments that promote metacognition through self-awareness and self-regulation can help students develop this growth mindset. Specifically, I incorporate systematic practice, actionable feedback and a time capsule reflection assignment in my course design.

Nuts and Bolts:

Systematic Practice:

Students have 3 lab assignments and a final project where they are asked to analyze geospatial problems using imagery and then summarize their analysis and results in 1-2 paragraphs. Each lab assignment has different geospatial problems, but the writing expectations and format are the same—for each geospatial problem, students write a summary that includes an introduction to the research problem, an explanation of their analysis choices in solving the problem, and an evaluation of their results. By having the same format (but different topic) for each writing assignment, students get systematic practice in writing a convincing, clear, and concise written argument.

Actionable Feedback:

The consistent format and expectations across writing assignments allows me to use the same rubric for every assignment. While the content changes with each assignment, students can reflect on their progress by looking at their rubric scores across the semester. For the first assignment, the rubric is the same, but a multiplier is applied to the score to compensate for their initial lack of familiarity with the format. In addition to rubric scores, I provide comments in the text (students submit electronic copies of their assignments) that provide actionable feedback on how to improve the next submission. Because the comments are relevant to a future assignment, students report that they engage in self-regulation by reading and using the feedback to improve their next assignment.

Metacognitive time capsule assignment

To support student self-awareness of their progress over the semester, I created a time capsule assignment where students compare their writing on the first lab with their writing on the final project. This assignment supports student metacognitive development because it asks students to develop self-awareness by reflecting on the changes they see in their writing. As all of their submissions are digital, students have copies of all their assignments and feedback across the semester. This assignment asks students specific questions to guide their reflection and asks them to provide example text from their assignments to support their statements. I am very clear in class that they receive full credit for participating in the assignment—they are not graded on what is in their answers, only on whether they provided complete answers.

There are two keys to this assignment for effective student reflection: the “time capsule” aspect and the consistent assignment format. Having students preserve and read their actual first writing assignment is critical—this first assignment essentially captures who they were at the beginning of the semester and preserves it, as in a time capsule, to be revealed intact at the end of the semester. The time capsule aspect allows for unfiltered, direct comparison by students of their skills then vs. their skills now that is not overwritten by their experiences during the semester.

The other key component is having a consistent assignment format to make comparison easier. This assignment would not have worked as well if students were comparing writing assignments that had very different formats or expectations. By keeping the format/expectations consistent, students are better able to see and explain their progress.

Outcomes:

I had trepidations about giving this time capsule assignment the first time I used it—I honestly didn’t know how students would respond. I was pleasantly surprised to see how engaged they were—instead of just writing their answers during class time, they were sharing with each other their comparisons between their first paragraphs and what they were then able to write for their final project. Their written answers documented their reflection on the changes they saw in their technical writing skills (self-awareness) and identified writing habits that they could continue/change in future classes (self-regulation).

Lessons Learned and future directions:

This type of time capsule assignment is something that I will continue to build into my courses. The planning required to design a consistent format and preserve early assignments is a small cost for the benefits of having students develop self-awareness and self-regulation and supporting a growth mindset.

Reference

Dweck, Carol S. (2007). “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” New York: Ballantine Books.

* Disclaimer: The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U. S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U. S. Govt.

Promoting Metacognition with Retrieval Practice in Five Ateps

by Blake Harvard, James Clemens High School

Downloadable

Motivation for Activity

I am very lucky to work at a high school with students who are quite focused and, from the standpoint of intelligence, very gifted. This does not make them great learners though. I realize a lot of my students clearly benefit from being able to memorize information. This may work in high school, where assessments are given sometimes daily. In college, however, this will not work. Assessment of material may consist of a midterm and a final. As a teacher who wants to better prepare my students for a lifetime of learning, I am motivated to introduce and cultivate learning strategies that focus on this personal growth and better understanding of their own learning through specific exercises promoting metacognition.

Context for Activity

I use this activity with my high school AP Psychology classes. These classes average about 30 students. Although my situation is quite specific, I believe this activity can easily be accommodated to fit most class sizes in almost all disciplines of study.

Description of Activity

Let me put all the cards out on the table: I am a big believer in using researched/proven learning strategies promoting metacognition to improve retention of classroom material. I have applied strategies in my high school Advanced Placement Psychology classes and seen notable improvements in three areas:

Test scores
Study habits
Student’s understanding of their learning

Improvement in test scores is important for many reasons and ultimately describes an overall level of understanding. While I am thrilled to see my mean test score increase and standard deviation shrink a bit, that is not what I’m most excited about when lauding learning strategies. I am far happier with the student growth with respect to their study habits and metacognition about their learning. While I instruct highly intelligent adolescents, most of my students do not enter my room as great learners. They are merely great memorizers. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it becomes much more difficult to just memorize your way through college and most of my students (80% to 90%) will attend university.

In particular, one learning strategy that I believe to be the most effective is retrieval practice. The Learning Scientists provide a great overview of the strategy. Basically, the idea is to attempt to retrieve information from your memory a bit after it’s been presented to you. This can be done minutes, hours, or days later, and can be seen in many forms: multiple-choice or matching questions, essays,. I have written before on the topic of retrieval practice and its impact on my classroom. Today, I want to focus on how I promote metacognition through the use of retrieval practice in my classroom.

Usually the day after a lesson, I use these steps to practice retrieval of the information:

Provide questions or a prompt. Since I am preparing my students for an AP exam in May, I usually provide AP style questions (no more than 7). By ‘AP style’, I mean, either multiple-choice questions with five possible answers or an essay prompt requiring students use terms or concepts from the previous lesson to successfully relate their knowledge to a given scenario.
Answer using only their brain. This step starts to break their habit of asking those around them for help or looking at their notes/the internet for assistance. In my opinion, this step is the most important aspect of retrieval practice. They are forced to attempt to retrieve material as they practice answering test questions, which is the process in which they will have to engage during the actual test. A second benefit is that this practice can help to reduce test anxiety. A lot of students shy away from this step because it can be difficult or because it highlights flaws in their learning, but I tell my students it’s definitely better to struggle with the material now than on the test. If the test is the first time a student is presented with material in a way that utilizes the use of retrieval practice, we’ve all probably failed.
Evaluate their answers. How many answers are they very confident with? How many answers are simply guesses? I want students to understand that if they just guessed and answered correctly, they still don’t know the answer, they just got lucky. Sometimes I’ll have my students delineate, by using a different color pen on their paper, answers they are confident with and those they are not. This helps them to visualize their pre-grade understanding.
Compare/contrast answers with neighbors. I instruct the students to have a conversation; debate any discrepancies. At this point, if they can thoughtfully discuss answers they probably have a decent grasp of the information and have taken time to reflect on their learning; specifically where their may be holes in their learning of the material or with what they thought they knew, but may have been mislead.
Grade their paper. After students grade their paper I want them thinking about the following questions that really allow the students to practice their metacognition and regulate/reinforce their study habits for future practice.

a. Does my grade reflect my knowledge?

b. Am I happy with my grade?

c. If no to either of the above questions, what strategies can I utilize to successfully retain the material? At this point, many students incorrectly believe that their understanding of material is complete…for better or worse. You can almost see them thinking either “Oh well, I just don’t know this” or “I scored well, I must know this”. I attempt to impress upon my students that use of other strategies, like spaced practice and dual coding, will further aid to improve and solidify retention of the material.

d. If yes to the above questions, I ask students to reflect on what work they put in to remember this material so they can plan to use that strategy again for future learning. This step also helps reinforce that they should focus on learning strategies, not just guessing / luck.

Reflection

After many semesters of working with students, I have come to believe that metacognition and reflection on study habits/strategies is of foundational importance. One of the goals I have for the students in my class, over the course of a semester, is these learning strategies become their norm for studying. It’s not something extra, it is what they do to practice and learn. Without the reflection piece of using retrieval practice and other learning strategies, it is hard for high school students to examine their study/practice growth. While walking the students through these five steps may seem a little laborious, the explicitness of the instructions seems to work well to increase their awareness of their own learning shape their behaviors toward more effective practices.

It is often quite difficult to convince teenagers their study/practice habits, that usually rely on simple memorization, will more than likely not be successful at college. They need to see results from their added efforts. Using these five steps, I have witnessed student’s grades improve and study/practice habits change for the better. As a teacher, I’m not sure it gets any better…improving a student’s learning and making them more successful. It’s why we get paid the big bucks. 🙂

References

Learn How to Study Using…Retrieval Practice, The Learning Scientists, www.learningscientists.org

Retrieval Practice in the High School Classroom, The Effortful Educator, www.effortfuleducator.com

Learn How to Study Using…Spaced Practice, The Learning Scientists, www.learningscientists.org

Learn How to Study Using…Dual Coding, The Learning Scientists, www.learningscientists.org

A Project-Based Method to Help Students Practice Study Strategies in an Authentic Context

by Hillary Steiner, Kennesaw State University

Downloadable

Motivations and Context: Success in college requires the development of self-regulated learning strategies that move beyond high school skills, but teaching these strategies can be challenging. I teach a first-year seminar at a large comprehensive university that includes helping students develop college-level studying and time management skills among its goals. Knowing that students would be more likely to value these skills (and later, transfer these skills) if they were situated in context, I developed an assignment that requires students to practice self-regulated learning strategies—active reading, management of study time and achievement goals, proactive interaction with faculty, metacognitive reflection, and more—within the context of a student-selected course.

Assignment: In the Strategy Project assignment, students learn time management, communication, and study strategies in the process of preparing for an actual test. Students then demonstrate that learning by submitting their test preparation activities as part of a graded project in the first-year seminar.

First, students choose a test in another course that they find challenging. Then, they complete a contract, in consultation with their first-year seminar instructor, that indicates their individualized due dates and studying plans based on their chosen test. Students also write a pre-project reflection paper discussing their current approaches to studying and time management.

Next, the students complete a “professor interaction” activity where they visit the instructor of the chosen course to discuss a previous test or quiz, if applicable, and ask for advice about achieving success in that particular course. This portion of the project helps first-year students become comfortable interacting with their instructors and reinforces help-seeking behaviors. After this meeting, students develop a plan of study that outlines the strategies they will use to study for the test. This activity encourages effective time management and allows students to experience the benefit of study time that is distributed over several days.

Finally, the largest portion of the project requires students to complete a variety of metacognitive strategies such as textbook annotation, self-quizzing, concept-mapping, etc. Providing choices in strategies allows students to demonstrate metacognition by effectively matching studying techniques to their chosen test. After the test is graded and returned, students again complete a metacognitive reflection on the outcome of their studying habits in a short informal paper and presentation to the class.

Outcomes: For a number of years, I have studied the Strategy Project as a method for students to practice metacognition in an authentic, valuable context. I have used the project as a component in STEM learning communities that paired a first-year seminar with first-year STEM courses (e.g., Steiner, Dean, Foote, & Goldfine, 2016) as well as stand-alone first-year seminars (e.g., Steiner, 2016; 2017). Results from these studies have indicated that the project did raise awareness of, and encourage the use of, beneficial metacognitive strategies, and for most students, also increased their test scores in the chosen courses. One study’s preliminary findings (Steiner, 2017) also show a gain in self-reported metacognitive behaviors as measured by the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993). Anecdotally, students tell me that the Strategy Project was a powerful motivator to change high school habits that had become ineffective. Many students say that although they realized their strategies needed to change, without the incentive of a graded project, they would not have committed to changing their approaches. Students also have responded positively to learning more about metacognition in my first-year seminar (Steiner, 2014), suggesting that metacognition may be an important topic for others to address in similar seminars or “learning-to-learn” courses.

Lessons Learned and Future Directions: I continue to revise the Strategy Project yearly as I learn more from my students about its efficacy. To date, I mostly have used the Strategy Project in my own classroom. However, a colleague and I are planning a large-scale study of the Strategy Project which will compare the metacognitive gains made by students in sections of the first-year seminar that include the project versus those that do not. Because many faculty who teach the first-year seminar do not have a background in educational psychology, we will include professional development on metacognition and memory as part of the training. I look forward to continuing to revise the Strategy Project in light of others’ experiences using it. I would appreciate any feedback you or your students have on the effectiveness of this assignment in your own classroom.

References

Pintrich, P.R., Smith, D.A., Garcia, T., & McKeachie, W.J. (1993). Reliability and predictive validity of the Motivated for Learning Strategies Questionnaire (MSLQ). Education and Psychological Measurement, 53 (3), 801-814.

Steiner, H.H. (2017, March). Using a strategy project to promote self-regulated learning. Paper presented at the SoTL Commons Conference, Savannah, GA.

Steiner, H.H. (2016). The strategy project: Promoting self-regulated learning through an authentic assignment. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28 (2), 271-282.

Steiner, H.H.; Dean, M. L.; Foote, S.M; & Goldfine, R.A. (2016). The targeted learning community: A comprehensive approach to promoting the success of first-year students in general chemistry. In L.C. Schmidt & J. Graziano (Eds.), Building synergy for high-impact educational initiatives: First-year seminars and learning communities. Columbia, SC: National Resource Center.

Steiner, H.H. (2014). Teaching principles from cognitive psychology in the first-year seminar. E-Source for College Transitions, 11 (2), 14-16.

Metacognitive Reflection Assignments in Introductory Psychology

by Dennis Carpenter, University of Wisconsin-Colleges

Downloadable

Motivations and context: These assignments focus on study strategies, goal setting, and reflection on the effectiveness of study strategies and the extent to which goals have been achieved. These assignments are used in Introductory Psychology courses at UW Richland, one of fourteen UW Colleges open-enrollment freshmen-sophomore liberal arts campuses throughout Wisconsin. These classes typically enroll 15-35 students in each of two sections per semester. A diverse range of students take these classes from varying ethnic/racial/language backgrounds and levels of academic preparation. Many students struggle with basic academic and study skills. Such skills have been emphasized in these courses over the 16 years I have taught in the UW Colleges and the present metacognitive reflection assignments represent an evolution of this work.

Nuts and Bolts: The materials included represent a series of three assignments used in the Spring 2017 semester. These assignments vary across semesters based on the students, information I encounter in my reading, and my own reflection on their impact in previous semesters. This series of assignments is introduced at the beginning of the semester. For new students, this occurs within the context of discussing ways that college might be different from high school in demands and strategies required for success. For continuing students, this occurs within a discussion about student perceptions of what is required for success in college based on their own experiences. The course textbook includes personal application sections (Improving Academic Performance and Improving Everyday Memory) that are assigned as part of the first week’s readings (Weiten , 2017, pp. 23-25, 252-255). Sternberg (2016) provides an excellent overview of evidence-based effective study strategies and tips for success. This was used for the first time in the Spring 2017 semester as a supplement to Weiten (2017).

In the first assignment, students are encouraged to write about study strategies they intend to use in the course as well as goals for the first unit of the course concluding with the first of four exams. The first assignment is graded very quickly with feedback given to students within a week of submission. In-class feedback typically includes a focus on writing goals in more clear and specific ways so they are attainable. Online worksheets are readily available for helping students write SMART goals and can be helpful at any stage in this sequence of assignments. The second assignment is due a week after the first exam. At that time, students reflect on their exam performance and the effectiveness of their study strategies as well as the extent to which they met their goals. Students are encouraged to refine their strategies and goals for the second unit based on the outcome of the first exam, having a better idea of what is required in the course, and greater insight into their own learning processes. The third assignment is due a week after the second exam. Again, students are asked to reflect on their exam performance, the effectiveness of their study strategies, and the extent to which they met their goals. Students are also encouraged to narrow their focus for this assignment and discuss two main strategies or goals they intend to focus on for the rest of the semester. Over the years, students have appeared to increasingly struggle with focused study given the multitasking demands of their electronic devices. For this reason, the third and final assignment also includes a reading about unplugging from devices and regaining control of one’s life (Weir, 2017), and questions about student experiences related to points made in this article.

Outcomes: I have witnessed students making significant changes in their approach to academic work with improvements in course performance over the semester. Unfortunately, many students have not seemed to benefit from such intervention, at least during the semester taking this course or in ways visible to me. Goal setting and evaluation routinely emerge as significant challenges for students. Distributed practice, self-testing, and minimizing distractions represent some of the more common strategies students report being successfully used. Improved management of electronic devices while studying has been one of the most significant outcomes for students revealed in these assignments.

Lessons learned and future directions: I intentionally front-load these assignments to have maximum benefit. Students have perceived such assignments to be redundant when done after every exam in the past. In the future, I plan to re-introduce an end-of-the-semester reflection to better gauge the impact of these assignments. The student writing in these assignments provides a basis for one-on-one conversations with students about improving academic performance during office meetings. The positive impact of these assignments could be enhanced by structuring ways to have more follow-up conversations with students about their preferred study strategies and learning goals. I highly encourage integration of strategies for improving relationships with devices in any material on study strategies and metacognition. I welcome your feedback about how I might improve these attempts to improve student metacognition and look forward to learning more about your attempts to do so.

Readings Provided to Students

Sternberg, R. J. (2016). Introduction to optimizing learning in college: Tips from cognitive psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 642-660.

Weir, K. (2017, March). (Dis)connected. Monitor on Psychology, 48(3), 42-48.

Weiten, W. (2017). Psychology themes and variations (10^th ed). Boston, MA: Cengage.

Grading rubrics: Rubric 1, Rubric 2, Rubric 3

The Promotion of Metacognition Through Soft Skills

by Mary Hebert, Fairleigh Dickinson University

Downloadable

Description of Activity:

I teach a course in Metacognitive Strategies which focuses on the social and emotional components to academic success. These are referred to as ‘soft skills’ (emotional intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal awareness, emotional regulation, problem solving etc.) The course is presented to students who are members of the Regional Center at FDU who have been diagnosed with a language-based learning disability and or ADHD/ADD. Weekly journal reflections are completed based on a prompt that reflects a soft skill that is being addressed in the lecture. These journal entries serve as a means of enhancing metacognition and reflection of the material and focus on strategies of incorporating the skill into practice of academic performance.

An additional element involves a final project which requires the students to identify an individual they have admired for their successful accomplishment of some specific achievement. They are required to interview this individual and discover the soft skills associated with their accomplishment, not the ‘hard skills’ which are traditionally aligned with success (GPA, School Attended, Titles achieved etc). Furthermore, the student specifically is asked to assess their own soft skill set, including areas that are strengths and those to develop, and implement a plan of incorporating these into their academic goals and pursuits.

Further details of the activities can be found here.

Motivation and Context:

The class is designed to explore the ‘soft skills’, which include the social and emotional skills that are associated with academic success. The assignments are designed to provide tangible exercises that, when explored in a metacognitive manner and applied purposefully with a plan, can result in success and improve the academic and career course of an individual. The goal is improved self-regulation and critical thinking in regard to specific social and emotional skills that are highly correlated with academic success.

Nuts and Bolts:

The specific intent of this course and its assigned exercises is to weave an academic experience with the content of metacognition and soft skills that are connected to academic and career success. Specific topics addressed include emotional intelligence, personal responsibility, grit, self-motivation, interdependence, active listening, self-awareness, life-long learning, motivation, growth mindset, and goal setting. Students participate in discussion, reflection exercises, and the final project requiring them to take the knowledge of soft skills presented in class, think critically and analyze these topics, and implement them by carrying out an interview and create a presentation. The final project of interview and presentation is a culmination of analyzing a ‘story of success’ that from a distance may have looked easily attained for the interviewee. The task is for the student to discover through inquiry about soft skills, how in fact these played a critical role in the successful outcome for the interviewee. The students acquire insight into the ‘reality’ of the achievement, reflect on the soft skills they have developed and ones that they would benefit from developing further. A key feature is working on the plans of implementation which demonstrates improved critical thinking and capacity for self-regulation of good decision making and goal attainment.

The result is metacognitive ‘boot camp’ in regard to the less frequented content in the classroom that are key to academic effectiveness. Metacognition has been associated with improved critical thinking skills (Magno, 2010). Students are given knowledge about soft skills, asked to discuss through oral and written means of reflection, and then take it a step further and asked to apply the concepts to their own academic tasks throughout the semester. This sequence of knowledge acquisition, analysis, and application are the nuts and bolts of weaving the material together.

Outcomes:

The highly interactive nature of the course forces the contemplation necessary for students to adopt a more metacognitive approach to learning and their goals beyond the classroom. Critical thinking and self -regulation related to the connection between soft skill development and their academic and learning capacity is improved. As a counselor within the program that serves the students, I meet with each student individually one time per week during their freshmen year. I have observed that students begin to synthesize the course material with their academic functioning and improve their approach to matters related to their courses, studying, and academic goals. Many students begin to consider options to their approach in regard to their broader education and learning environment.

The culminating final project results in enhanced awareness of the interdependent nature of soft skills and hard skills for overall success in learning and career effectiveness. Presentations have been extraordinarily diverse with students choosing political figures, doctors, artists, students, business people, professors, peers, parents, coaches etc. Each year the series of presentations showcases the synthesis of soft skills and how growing awareness and purposeful use of these optimizes success academically as well as in career endeavors. Students demonstrate through their writing and oral reflection of their own use of soft skills, goals of further developing targeted soft skills during college to assist them in achieving academic success as well as future career success.

Lessons Learned and Future Directions:

The literature is clear in support of the importance of soft skills both in the classroom and in life. While some time during the course is spent connecting the material to career endeavors, future directions might include more of this element. In addition, it would be worthy to have a ‘maintenance program’ that extends beyond the time of the course, so that as the freshmen students progress, they are provided with opportunities to review and integrate the soft skill concepts throughout their remaining years of their college experience.

As a higher order thinking strategy, metacognition offers the opportunity to enhance and tap into the potential of the brain power within each student. Greater flexibility and awareness in thinking is the outcome and the continued goal of this form of application of metacognition.

Reference

Magno, C. Metacognition Learning (2010) 5: 137. doi:10.1007/s11409-010-9054-4

Metacognitive Reading Boosts Philosophy Exam Scores

by John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

Downloadable

Motivations and context

I teach philosophy at a state university with approximately 10,000 undergraduates. I started incorporating the following metacognitive reading activity in order to promote the deep thinking and synthesis that students often struggle with on my essay exams. The bulk of my teaching falls within the general education curriculum where I help students develop help students develop critical skills (e.g.,close reading, careful writing, critical thinking) as well as expose them them to big concepts. I want students to see that topical topical debates over abortion, euthanasia, and hate speech often boil down to similar big conceptual issues (e.g., how to balance individual liberty against government intrusion, how to assess the benefits of individual expression against the harm to others). My exam questions typically ask students to consider the views of three authors across topical debates (e.g., one writing on abortion, one on euthanasia, one on hate speech) and then discuss which two authors are most alike and which are most different. Some students are stuck almost immediately because they have a hard time seeing how the conceptual issues could be at all alike when the topical issues are so different. These students resort to summarizing the authors. Some students can begin to see the underlying conceptual connections, but they often have difficulty developing those ideas. Both groups of students are left wondering how they could earn full credit on the exam.

Nuts and bolts

I’ve started asking students a series of questions that help make their thoughts about the writings and their own thinking about the writings more explicit, ultimately supporting their synthesis of the different authors and concepts for the exams. In order to prevent these questions from being interpreted as busy work, I introduce metacognition on the first day class. I explain that I want them to learn how to learn, and the writing assignments will help them figure out how to develop the type of thinking required for this course.

The questions fall into three categories. The first category alerts students to importance of having a reading strategy and being engaged.The second category pushes students beyond mere identification of an author’s thesis towards identifying the underlying issues. The third category prompts students to reflect on how the reading led to their identification of the underlying issues. This last category is the most metacognitively focused and important for helping them synthesize their understanding.

General — what was the most challenging part of the reading? What was the most useful part? What was your reading strategy? How might you approach the reading differently next time?
Conceptual issues — what was the central issue in the reading? How are the central conceptual issues related to the author’s thesis? How does this author frame the central issue compared to the other? How might this author respond to the previous author?
Putting it altogether — what is a passage in the reading that illustrates the underlying issue? What is the evidence that the author takes this issue to be central? What is your strategy for uncovering these issues? How would you know if you’re correct? How would you change your approach if you’re not).

Because I want my students to be on a “steady diet” of metacognitive reflection, students are asked at least one question from each of the three categories as part of their preparation for each lesson. Responses to each question tend to be approximately a paragraph in length, and and they are graded pass/fail. Grades are determined less by the accuracy of the content, but by whether they made a “good faith” effort, which reduces the grading load.

Outcomes

Because students are required to explicitly practice with sort of thinking at the heart of the course, students are in a position to engage their own learning, which enables them to monitor their progress and make adjustments as necessary (e.g., ask questions in class, adapt reading strategies, attend office hours). When it comes time for the exam, students are better prepared for the type of thinking they are required to display and express much less confusion about what is being asked of them. As I grade the exams I am pleased to observe that many fewer of them resort to simply summarizing authors and they at least attempt to engage in the required type of thinking.

Lesson learned and future directions

Prior to this metacognitive activity, I thought that I was being clear about the type of thinking that I required of students, and I thought they were receiving plenty of opportunities to practice during class discussion. Even with this activity, however, I believe I need to provide students with more opportunities to become explicitly aware of their thinking and how to modify their strategies to achieve success.

Encouraging Metacognition in the Advanced Physics Lab

by Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Carleton College

Downloadable

Description of activity:

I have incorporated metacognitive support activities in the form of written reflections and class discussions to help students develop better approaches to dealing with challenges that arise in open-ended experimental work in an advanced lab course in physics.

Motivations and context:

The advanced lab course is the third of three required intermediate/advanced courses for the physics major that has a significant lab component. This course typically enrolls 18-24 physics majors, and the labs are significantly less scripted than the other required lab courses. The laboratory activities consist of three two-week-long, instructor-designed labs and four weeks of students carrying out an experimental project of their own design.

While some students welcome the move to more open-ended laboratory work, others struggle. Some students are reluctant to take initiative; rather than trying to problem solve on their own, they seek help from course instructors as soon as problems arise. Other students have difficulty developing a strategic approach to troubleshoot the challenges they encounter. To encourage independence in the lab, I have introduced reflection prompts to support student metacognition. Encouraging students to reflect on how they approach challenges and how they will do things differently going forward helps students develop more thoughtful problem-solving approaches in open-ended laboratory work, thereby increasing self-sufficiency and reducing frustration.

Nuts and bolts:

One of the four course goals for the advanced lab course is that students will demonstrate the ability to be reflective on the practice of experimental physics. I introduce the importance of reflective practice on the first day of course, and incorporate reflection activities in both the two-week instructor-designed labs and throughout the final project. These reflection activities account for 10% of the course grade, and most of these reflection activities are graded using a rubric.

1. First day of class. Prior to the first class, I ask students to respond to the prompt: “In two sentences, describe your definition of a successful experiment.” Then I select a number of student statements and share them the first day of class. Although student definitions of a successful experiment vary widely, many responses fall into one of two categories; a successful experiment is a) an experiment that gives a result that is in agreement with what is expected, or b) an experiment in which the experimenter learns something (maybe not what they intended). We discuss these two definitions of successful experiments, and I encourage students to adjust their expectations and appreciate that learning from things that go wrong is still a “success” in the experimental realm. These conversations allow me to introduce the importance of metacognition and the course goal of helping students become reflective practitioners.

2. Reflections on the instructor-designed labs. At the end of every two-week instructor-designed lab activity, I ask students to reflect on their most recent lab and respond to five questions designed to foster metacognition:

Tell me a bit about how you approached the lab.
When you ran into problems, what was the strategy your group employed for troubleshooting the problems you encountered?
What types of pre-reading or additional research did you do to prepare for this lab?
When you asked for help, who did you seek help from (other members of your group, other groups, your lab assistant, your instructor) and what kinds of questions did you ask?
What is one thing that you will do differently when tackling labs going forward?

Students write individual responses to these prompts, and I provide feedback using the rubric. When I first began using these reflective prompts, I did not grade them. Grading the responses has increased the quality and depth of the reflections.

3. Reflections on the final project. I ask students to reflect on their final project work throughout the course of the project. Here is a sample of the questions used:

What did you learn from the process of identifying and refining your final project proposal? What are you most looking forward to and what do you anticipate the biggest challenge will be as you begin working on your final project?
What aspect of your contributions to the final project demonstrates your strengths and talents and why?
What is one significant problem that your group encountered when working on your project in the past week, and how did you overcome it or redesign your project to work around it?
What are your main project goals for the coming week, and how do you plan to pursue those goals?

The format for the responses has varied over the years. Sometimes lab groups respond to one of these prompts during a short oral report to the whole class. Other times, students write individual responses. Still other times, one of these questions serves as the starting point for an in-class discussion. I have found benefits and drawbacks to each of these approaches, and I continue to experiment with the format.

Outcomes:

Including metacognitive support activities in the advanced lab course, being explicit about why reflection is important in experimental physics, and grading student reflective responses has had a positive impact on the quality of student reflections and student attitudes towards the course. Students develop a more self-sufficient approach to tackling challenges that they encounter in the lab, and frustration is reduced. I reported some of the outcomes in a paper presented at the 2016 Physics Education Research Conference. That paper has been published in the conference proceedings:

Eblen-Zayas, M. (2016). The impact of metacognitive activities on student attitudes towards experimental physics, In D. L. Jones, L. Ding, & A. Traxler (Eds). 2016 PERC Proceedings, 104, doi:10.1119/perc.2016.pr.021

Addressing Metacognition Deficits in First Semester Calculus Students: Getting Students to Effectively Self-Evaluate their Understanding

by Derek Martinez, University of New Mexico

Downloadable

Motivations and context:

The problem I chose to tackle as a UNM Teaching Fellow was to develop methods for how to teach first semester calculus students to effectively self-test and develop metacognitive skills. One of the biggest issues I have seen over the years is students thinking they understand the material, getting over confident, and then performing horribly on an exam. The practices described below were carried out during the spring 2016 semester in two math 162 (Calculus I) classes.

Method: The two main ways that metacognitive strategies were incorporated into the curriculum were (1) daily “Test Yourself” exercises and (2) exam skills check self-assessments (essentially practice tests) before each exam. The “Test Yourself ” exercises were designed to be a daily reminder to the students that they should not confuse the ability to follow a lecture with the ability to solve a problem on their own. The purpose of the self-assessments was to help students identify where they had gaps in their understanding before taking each exam.

The “Test Yourself” exercises (example attached) were e-mailed to students the night before the lecture and were designed to give students a way to assess whether or not they understood the fundamental concepts of the lecture the following day. For example, if the lecture that day was about rates of change applications, the exercise would focus on an easy-to-medium level example that would test whether or not the students got the fundamental concepts from the section before going on and trying the more challenging homework problems.

Sending the exercises out the night before was effective in getting many students to read ahead in the text, and try to solve parts of the exercises (this was especially true of students who were struggling, or had math anxiety). If a student had solved the exercise before class, they were instructed to bring in a blank exercise and make sure they could duplicate their results without notes. The format for each class was usually lecture for about 40 minutes and then students would work on these exercises (some in groups, some by themselves).

The self-assessments (example attached) were given about five days before each exam. Participation in this was voluntary. I reserved a room outside of class and students took this like an actual exam. I made it clear to the students that the material on these assessments covered the fundamental ideas and basic examples, but were at a lower level of difficulty than the actual exams. The reasoning behind this was to help students pinpoint what core skills they still needed to work on. I graded these assessments just like exams so students could get feedback on their work as well as use of proper notation. To help identify their level of metacognition, at the end of each assessment the students were asked to rank their performance on a scale of 1-5 (5 being best performance). In many cases this ranking followed by actual exam scores provided further evidence to the students that they tended to be overconfident in their preparedness and needed to study more. In the beginning, students tended to over rank their performance but by the final exam assessment, their rankings were more in line with their performance.

Outcomes: Students in my spring 2016 sections had a final exam pass rate of more than 11% higher than all other sections (group graded without me to avoid any possible bias). These students also had a higher final exam pass rate than my fall/spring 2015 students by about 10% (when I did not yet incorporate these activities). The self-assessments seemed to have the biggest measurable impact on student success, as students who took them consistently outscored those who did not by 10 – 20% on the exams. Further, scores on the actual exams were 15 – 65% higher than on the self-assessments. I believe this was due to the fact that they guided and motivated their learning as well as simply scared some students into studying harder.

Lessons learned: “Buy-in” from the beginning is essential. Sharing the data with the students after the first assessment significantly increased the number of students taking the remaining assessments. These were mainly STEM majors so the statistical evidence went a long way with them. It was also crucial to make time throughout the semester to talk about what metacognition is and remind the students why they were doing these exercises.

Weekly Status Reports to Promote Awareness

by David Woods and Beth Dietz, Miami University

Downloadable

Motivation for the activity or process: Teaching an introductory Information Technology (IT) course involves several goals that focus on creating metacognitive awareness and cognitive monitoring (Flavell, 1979; Schraw, 1998). The main goal of the course is to introduce students to several IT topics (e.g., data representations, computer architecture, and assembly language) that are foundational to the IT curriculum. Other goals of the course include analyzing and solving problems using a computer programming language, as well as applying written and oral communication skills to IT. Teaching these skills also helps address misconceptions about what IT professionals actually do. Students are often surprised to learn that IT professionals usually work in teams for specific projects or on an ongoing basis. Status reports are a key communication tool for groups, and good status reports require the individual to reflect and analyze what they have done, and plan for the future. Considering the course as a project, the status report should prompt the planning and evaluation aspects of metacognitive regulation (Flavell, 1979).

Context: A metacognitive-awareness activity was used in an introductory IT course. The course is a 100-level course and is one of the first courses taken by students considering a major in Computer and Information Technology. Typically, the class size is 20 – 25 students. While the instructor was only in his second year of full time teaching, he also had over 15 years experience working as an IT professional.

Description of activity: Weekly status reports are common activities in many IT positions, especially when an individual is part of a larger project team. They are a basic way for an employee to document what they have accomplished and what they are currently working on. This is valuable in the IT field since work such as writing software or configuring a server does not produce physical objects that provide visual evidence of progress.

The requirements for the status report were simple and made use of several metacognitive processes (Fogerty, 1994). Students were asked to discuss three specific items:

Current week activity: List the main course related activities since the last status report and provide a brief discussion of each along with the amount of time spent on the activity. This prompts the student to evaluate their learning from the past week.
Upcoming activity: List major course related activities planned for the next week with a brief discussion of the activity and what will be completed during the week. This prompts the student to plan the learning for the next week.
Issues and Overdue items: List any problems with the course materials or assignments. If there are no issues, this should be clearly stated. This prompts the student to monitor their understanding of the issues or problems.

During the semester, students completed 13 status reports. The status reports made up 5% of the final grade and students were allowed to skip three reports (or alternatively earn extra points by doing all of the assigned status reports).

Outcomes and Lessons Learned: The assignment met the immediate goal of prompting metacognitive reflection by asking students to evaluate their prior learning, plan for future learning, and monitor the learning process (Fogerty, 1994). In addition, the status reports gave the instructor good feedback on the amount of work that students did outside of the scheduled class meetings. An additional benefit was the opportunity to provide feedback to students who submitted status reports with limited content and limited evidence of planning and evaluation.

Many status reports showed clear evidence of evaluation and planning as students reported challenges with specific concepts or assignments and then planned activities in response. Some students failed to mention class meetings or submitted assignments in the current week activity. When this was mentioned in grading feedback, later status reports from these student showed improved tracking of completed work.

As the semester progressed and a few students missed assignments, there was an opportunity to ensure that these were noted and discussed in the overdue items section. In several instances, instructor comments led to students evaluating root causes including poor time management and mandatory overtime at work. Not all of the root causes had obvious solutions, but discussing the root causes offered a chance to plan ways to address the issue and was more productive than simply reminding students about late assignments.

The simple structure for the status reports should work well for courses at all levels. In courses where students have more than a week to complete assignments, status reporting could require students to break assignments down into smaller tasks, which is a useful skill to develop.

References:

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34 (10), 906-911.

Fogarty, R. (1994). How to teach for metacognition. Palatine, IL: IRI/Skylight Publishing.

Schraw, G. (1998). Promoting general metacognitive awareness. Instructional Science, 26(1-2),113-125.

Practice with a Reasoning Process to Make Learning Visible and Improve Academic Performance

by Jessica Santangelo, Hofstra University

Downloadable

Description of Activity

Motivations and context: I teach a fast-paced, content-heavy introductory biology course. Many students struggle in the course – not because they are not capable, but because they lack a repertoire of learning strategies that best support learning within the structure of the course. Rather than discuss “study strategies” as an add-on to course content, this activity has students model behaviors that make their learning visible, reduce reliance on memorization, and empowers them with a process to improve academic performance.

My basic goal with this activity was to make a very specific process available to students to mitigate the tendency I saw of students, when faced with a challenging question or concept, to simply guess or give up. Namely, students remember one key fact about a complex system from which all other pertinent facts can be derived. In this specific example, they organize those facts in a table and (critically) use the table when faced with questions regarding the system. The process of reasoning from a key fact to a deeper or more applied understanding is not metacognitive in and of itself. In this case, metacognitive development is promoted by the structuring of the in-class work that allows multiple opportunities for practice with the reasoning process.

Nuts and bolts of an example application

In the course we cover the urinary system. The most challenging aspect of this topic is the function of antidiuretic hormone (ADH). It involves understanding the effects of a diuretic (so students can then understand the effects of an antidiuretic) and osmosis – the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane. It further involves blood pressure, blood osmolarity, stimuli that either cause or inhibit release of ADH from the hypothalamus, and impacts of ADH (or lack thereof) on the kidney. Needless to say, there are a lot of moving parts.

I structure two class periods around one concept: Diuretics promote urine production. I tell students that this is the one thing they should memorize. Everything else follows from that one statement. So, rather than memorizing the entire table below, they memorize one statement, then reason their way through all the other information. Making students aware of this general strategy can greatly reduce the amount of time spent memorizing while increasing the amount of time spent making connections between interrelated facts or processes. Indeed, it’s worth asking students to self-identify one key starting point for any concept such that, if they remember that one key point, they can reason through the rest of the information.

The one concept to remember: Diuretics promote urine production.
	Diuretic	Antidiuretic
urine production	Increases / promotes	Decreases / inhibits
water loss	Increases / promotes	Decreases / inhibits
water retention	Decreases	Increases
blood osmolarity	Increases (more salty as remove water)	Decreases (less salty as add water)
blood pressure	Decreases (as remove water)	Increases (as add water)

I introduce the one concept, then have students work in groups to fill in the table on large wall-mounted whiteboards. Throughout their group work I ask questions to promote their metacognitive development like “What do you already know?” and “How did you come to that conclusion?”. This is a key step in the metacognitive process: asking them to make their reasoning visible to themselves and their group-mates. Though students may get stuck, being metacognitive (i.e., asking “what do I know, how do I know it, and how does that help me?”) helps them reason their way through more effectively. At the end of the class session I remind students to test themselves on their ability to start with the one key concept and subsequently explain the table before coming to the next class session.

The next class session, students put all of their notes and other resources away, and recreate the table on the wall-mounted whiteboards using only their brains. Invariably, most groups jump right into filling out the table. But one or two groups will take the time to write “Diuretics promote urine production” on their board before filling in the table. The groups who write this tend to complete the table more quickly and more accurately. I use this as a teachable moment for all the groups by reminding them that they have a simple tool – the one phrase to remember – to guide them in completing the table.

The groups then use their tables as a guide to answer a series of challenging questions about the stimuli for ADH release/inhibition and the associated outcomes. Most groups get bogged down in the questions – they discuss possible answers with their neighbors but go round and round and get confused. I let this happen for a question or two and then I remind students to use the table they put on the board. I ask one student from each group to stand up and model (with their group’s help) how to use the table to answer the next question. At this point, there are lots of “oh”s and “aha”s as students realize it is much easier to arrive at the correct answer using the table.

I then tell students: “You just used a tool (the table) to help you answer this question. What tools do you have available to you when you face a question like this on the exam?” Most of them look around in bewilderment as I don’t allow them to use any outside resources on exams. I then ask “What about the table?” and they say “But we aren’t allowed to bring anything with us to the exam”. And I say “But where did that table come from today?” and they respond “our brains” and I reply, “Exactly. You remembered ONE sentence and then you filled out that whole table with just your brain. So why not jot that table down on your exam?” And their eyes light up…

This is another key step in the metacognitive process: making it obvious to students how they can use this approach on their own to support learning and achievement. The behaviors they modeled in class (remembering one key concept from which to derive all other relevant information, organizing information into an easy-to-reference format, and utilizing that organized information to answer applied questions) should not be used solely in class or when I ask them to do it. They can use those behaviors on their own to promote learning outside of class or on an exam. I have found that unless I make this explicit to students, they rarely use an approach from the classroom on their own.

Outcomes

I’ve been incorporating a variety of activities and practices to promote student metacognitive development into the course for a few years with success. As a result, many students who would not have passed (or would have barely passed) the course have altered their learning strategies and improved their grades – some to A’s and B’s. As I’ve incorporated this specific example with the urinary system I’ve noticed that students are more willing to attempt the challenging ADH questions and are more likely to reason out the answer than to simply guess.

Lessons learned and future directions

Modeling behaviors in a group context works well for these students. Most of them were not challenged in high school the way they are challenged in this course. Embedding tips and tricks that enhance their ability to make their thought process visible (i.e., that promote metacognition) within the very context of the course 1. makes the tips/tricks an inherent part of learning biology rather than “add-ons” and 2. Increases the likelihood that they will use these metacognitive tips/tricks (self-regulation). My goal is to have students model these behaviors with more topics in the course, constantly reinforcing the thought/reasoning process so it is ingrained by the end of the semester.

The impact of metacognitive activities on student attitudes towards experimental physics

This article by Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Ph.D., shares the implementation of metacognitive activities in an advanced Physics lab. She reports that “the introduction of metacognitive activities in an advanced lab where the laboratory work is not carefully scripted may improve students’ enthusiasm for experimental work and confidence in their ability to be successful in such work.” Check out this article to see the metacognitive prompts they used as well as learn about other metacognition-related activities.

Eblen-Zayas, M. (2016). The impact of metacognitive activities on student attitudes towards experimental physics. 2016 PERC Proceedings edited by Jones, Ding, and Traxler; doi:10.1119/perc.2016.pr.021