Tag: instructional strategies

Psychological Myths are Hurting Metacognition

by Dana Melone, Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School

Every year I start my psychology class by asking the students some true or false statements about psychology. These statements are focused on widespread beliefs about psychology and the capacity to learn that are not true or have been misinterpreted.  Here are just a few:

  • Myth 1: People learn better when we teach to their true or preferred learning style
  • Myth 2: People are more right brained or left brained
  • Myth 3: Personality tests can determine your personality type

Many of these myths are still widely believed and used in the classroom, in staff professional development, in the workplace to make employment decisions, and so much more.  Psychological myths in the classroom hurt metacognition and learning.  All of these myths allow us to internalize a particular aspect of ourselves we believe must be true, and this seeps into our cognition as we examine our strengths and weaknesses. 

Myth 1: People learn better when we teach to their true or preferred learning styles

The learning style myth persists.  A Google search of learning styles required me to proceed to page three of the search before finding information on the fallacy of the theory.  The first two pages of the search contained links to tests to find your learning style, and how to use your learning style as a student and at work.  In Multiple Intelligences, by Howard Gardner (1983), the author developed the theory of multiple intelligences.  His idea theorizes that we have multiple types of intelligences (kinesthetic, auditory, visual, etc.) that work in tandem to help us learn.  In the last 30 years his idea has become synonymous with learning styles, which imply we each have one predominant way that we use to learn.  There is no research to support this interpretation of learning styles, and Gardner himself has discussed the misuse of his theory.  If we perpetuate this learning styles myth as educators, employees, or employers, we are setting ourselves up and the people we influence to believe they can only learn in the fashion that best suits them. This is a danger to metacognition.  For example, if I am examining why I did poorly on my last math test and I believe I am a visual learner, I may attribute my poor grade to my instructor’s use of verbal presentation instead of accurately reflecting on the errors I made in studying or calculation. 

image of human brain with list of major functions of the left and right hemispheres

Myth 2: People are more right brained or left brained

Research on the brain indicates a possible difference between the right and left-brain functions.  Most research up to this point examines the left brain as our center for spoken and written language while the right brain controls visual, imagery, and imaginative functions among others.  The research does not indicate, however, that a particular side works alone on this task.  This knowledge of the brain has led to the myth that if we perceive ourselves as better at a particular topic like art for example, we must be more right brained.  In one of numerous studies dispelling this myth, researchers used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to examine the brain while completing various “typical” right and left brained tasks.  This research clearly showed what psychologists and neurologists have known for some time.  The basic functions may lie in those areas, but the two sides of the brain work together to complete these tasks (Nielsen, Zielenski, et. al., 2013). How is this myth hurting metacognition?  Like Myth 1, if we believe we are predetermined to a stronger functioning on particular tasks, we may avoid tasks that don’t lie with that strength.  We may also use incorrect metacognition in thinking that we function poorly on something because of our “dominant side.” 

Myth 3: Personality tests can determine your personality type

In the last five years I have been in a variety of work-related scenarios where I have been given a personality test to take.  These have ranged from providing me with a color that represents me or a series of letters that represents me.  In applying for jobs, I have also been asked to undertake a personality inventory that I can only assume weeds out people they feel don’t fit the job at hand.  The discussion / reflection process following these tests is always the same.  How might your results indicate a strength or weakness for you in your job and in your life, and how might this affect how you work with people who do and do not match the symbolism you were given?   Research shows that we tend to agree with the traits we are given if those traits contain a general collection of mostly positive and but also a few somewhat less positive characteristics. However, we need to examine why we are agreeing.  We tend not to think deeply when confirming our own beliefs, and we may be accidentally eliminating situational aspects from our self-metacognition.  This is also true when we evaluate others. We shouldn’t let superficial assumptions based on our awareness of our own or someone else’s personality test results overly control our actions. For example, it would be short-sighted to make employment decisions or promotional decisions based on assumptions that, because someone is shy, they would not do well with a job that requires public appearances. 

Dispelling the Myths

The good news is that metacognition itself is a great way to get students and others to let go of these myths. I like to address these myths head on.  A quick true false exercise can get students thinking about their current beliefs on these myths. Then I get them talking and linking with better decision-making processes.  For example, I ask what is the difference between a theory or correlation and an experiment?  An understanding of what makes good research and what might just be someone’s idea based on observation is a great way to get students thinking about these myths as well as all research and ideas they encounter.  Another great way to induce metacognition on these topics is to have students take quizzes that determine their learning style, brain side, and personality.  Discuss the results openly and engage students in critical thinking about the tests and their results.  How and why do they look to confirm the results?  More importantly what are examples of the results not being true for them?  There are also a number of amazing Ted Talks, articles and podcasts on these topics that get students thinking in terms of research instead of personal examples. Let’s take it beyond students and get the research out there to educators and companies as well.   Here are just a few resources you might use:

Hidden Brain Podcast: Can a Personality Test Tell Us About Who We Are?: https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568365431/what-can-a-personality-test-tell-us-about-who-we-are

10 Myths About Psychology Debunked: Ben Ambridge: https://tedsummaries.com/2015/02/12/ben-ambridge-10-myths-about-psychology-debunked/

The Left Brain VS. Right Brain Myth: Elizabeth Waters: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-left-brain-vs-right-brain-myth-elizabeth-waters

Learning Styles and the Importance of Critical Self-Reflection: Tesia Marshik: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Now8h5Rs

The Myth of Catering to Learning Styles: Joanne K. Olsen: https://www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=52624


Distributed Metacognition: Are Two Heads Better Than One—Or Does it Even Exist?

by Aaron S. Richmond

Metropolitan State University of Denver

In many of the wonderful blog posts in Improve with Metacognition, scholars around the globe have described various teaching techniques and strategies to improve metacognition in our students. Many of these techniques require students to openly describe their learning behaviors with the hopes that they will become more metacognitively aware. For example, asking students how, where, and when they study, to reflect on the use of the strategies, and how they can improve their study strategies. Many of these examples are executed in a class setting and even sometimes students are asked to share their strategies with one another and discuss how these strategies work, when they work, when they don’t, etc. In such cases when students are sharing their beliefs about metacognition (e.g., learning strategies) we know that students benefit by improving their own metacognition through this process, but is it possible that they are improving the overall level of the group or class metacognition? Meaning, is it possible that there is more than just an individual metacognitive process occurring—is it possible that there is some form of distributed metacognition occurring across the students that is shared?

What is Distributed Metacognition?

Little is known about the concept of distributed metacognition (Chiu & Kuo, 2009; Wecker, & Fischer, 2007, July). In fact, in a Google Scholar search, there are only 38 results with the exact phrase “distributed metacognition”. In this limited research there is no clear operational definition of distributed metacognition. Therefore, I am interested in understanding and have a discussion with you all about the concept of distributed metacognition. From what I gather, it is not the spreading of metacognition over time (akin to distributed practice, spacing, or studying). Nor am I referring to what Philip Beaman (2016) referred to in the context of machine learning and human distraction in his IwM blog.  However, could it be that distributed metacognition is the ability of two or more individuals to first talk and discuss their personal metacognition (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and to then to use these metacognitive strategies in a distributed manner (i.e., the group discusses and uses a strategy as a group)? Furthermore,  Chiu and Kuo’s (2009) definition of social metacognition may be akin to distributed metacognition.  Although they have no empirical evidence, they suggest that metacognitive tasks can be distributed across group members and thus they engage in “social metacognition”.  For instance, in task management, students can simultaneously evaluate and monitor, regulate others to reduce mistakes and distraction, and divide and conquer to focus on subsets of the problem. Finally, in discussion with John Draeger (an IwM co-creater), he asked whether distributed metacognition was “…something over and above collaborative learning experiences that involve collective learning about metacognition and collectively practicing the skill?” After giving it some thought, my answer is, “I think so.”  As such, let me try to give an example to illustrate whether distributed metacognition exists and how we may define it.

Using IF-AT’s Collaboratively

I have written on the utility of using immediate feedback assessment techniques (IF-AT) as a metacognitive tool for assessment.  I often use IF-AT in a team-based and collaborative learning way. I have students get into groups or dyads and discuss and debate 1 or 2 questions on the assessment. They then scratch off their answer and see how they do. Regardless of whether they were correct or not, I have students discuss, debate, and even argue why they were so adamant about their answer as an individual and as a group. I then have students then discuss, debate, and answer two more questions with one another. They have to, as a group, come up with strategies for monitoring their performance, steps to solve the problem, etc. They repeat this process until the quiz is finished. When my students are doing this IF-AT process, I find (I know introspection is not the best science) that they become so intrigued by other students’ metacognitive processes, that they often slightly modify their own metacognitive processes/strategies AND collectively come up with strategies to solve the problems.

So, what is going on here? Are students just listening to other students’ metacognitive and epistemological beliefs and choosing to either internalize or ignore these beliefs?  Or in contrast, when there is a group task at hand, do students share (i.e., distribute) the metacognitive strategy that they learned through the group process and then use it collectively?  For example, when students perform activities like dividing tasks and assigning them to others (i.e., resource demand and monitoring), regulating others’ errors or recognize correct answers (i.e., monitoring) within the group— would these behaviors count as distributed metacognition?  Is it possible that in these more collaborative situations, the students are not only engaging in their own internal metacognition, but that they are also engaging in a collective distributed cognition among the group used in a collective manner? That is, in the IF-AT activity example, students may be both becoming more metacognitively aware, changing their metacognitive beliefs, and experimenting with different strategies—on an individual level—AND they may also have a meta-strategy that exists among the group members (distributed metacognition) that they then use to answer the quiz questions and become more effective and successful at completing the task.

Currently (haha), I am leaning towards the latter. I think that the students might be engaging in both individual and distributed metacognition in part because of an article in the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Societyby Christopher Andersen (2003). Andersen found that when students worked in pairs to solve two science tasks, that over time, students who were in pairs rather than working individually made more valid inferences (correct judgments and conclusion about the task) than when they worked alone. Specifically, on the first trial of solving a problem, the dyads use relatively ineffective strategies, on the second trial they expanded and adapted their use of effective strategies, and by the third trial, the dyad expanded even more effective strategies. Andersen (2003) concluded that the students were collectively consolidating their metacognitive strategies.  Meaning, when working collaboratively, students employed more effective metacognitive strategies that led to solving the problem correctly. Although this is only one study, it provides a hint that distributed metacognition may exist.

Tentative Conclusions

So, where does this leave us? As almost always, I am awash with questions. I have more questions than answers. Thus, what do you think? As defined, do you think that distributed metacognition exists? If not, how would you describe what is going on when students share their metacognitive strategies and then employ metacognitive strategies in a group setting? Is this situation just a product of collaborative or cooperative learning?

If you do believe distributed metacognition exists, how do we measure it? How do we create instructional methods that may increase it?  Again, I am full of questions and my mind is reeling about this topic, and I would love to hear from you to know your thoughts and opinions.

References

Andersen, C. (2003, January). Distributed metacognition during peer collaboration. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 25, No. 25).

Beaman, P. (2016, May 14th). Distributed metacognition: Insights from machine learning and human distraction. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/distributed-metacognition-insights-machine-learning-human-distraction/

Chiu, M. M., & Kuo, W. S. (2009). From metacognition to social metacognition: Similarities, differences, and learning. Journal of Educational Research, 3(4), 1-19. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ming_Chiu/publication/288305672_Social_metacognition_in_groups_Benefits_difficulties_learning_and_teaching/links/58436dba08ae2d217563816b/Social-metacognition-in-groups-Benefits-difficulties-learning-and-teaching.pdf

Richmond, A. S. (2017, February 22nd). Scratch and win or scratch and lose? Immediate feedback assessment technique. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/scratch-win-scratch-lose-immediate-feedback-assessment-technique/

Wecker, C., & Fischer, F. (2007, July). Fading scripts in computer-supported collaborative learning: The role of distributed monitoring. In Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Computer supported collaborative learning (pp. 764-772).