Training Tutor-Learners in Contemplation: Reflection in the Writing Center

by Gina R. Evers, M.F.A., Director of the Writing Center, Mount Saint Mary College

REFLECTION AS BENCHMARK

An institution that foregrounds “contemplation” as one of its core Dominican values, Mount Saint Mary College is no stranger to conversations around metacognition. I chime in as the founding director of our on-campus Writing Center. Our mission is to provide supplemental writing instruction, which we do through one-on-one, peer-facilitated consultations. I train and mentor a staff of seven undergraduate writing tutors, who conduct an average of 614 consultations every academic year.

As peer tutors, my team moves fluidly between learning and teaching as they participate in ongoing tutor training while simultaneously advising their writers. This makes training complex, as their roles as tutor-learners shifts to those of tutor-teachers the moment they sit down for an appointment.

So how do I know whether I’ve effectively trained my tutors to not only navigate their dual roles but also to be successful in the one-to-one teaching of writing? My benchmark has become reflection itself. While I certainly equip my team with the necessary grammatical concepts, rhetorical awareness, and writing process theory, I’ve designed this writing instruction within pedagogically reflective structures. Anyone can train in comma usage – no doubt a valuable communication skill – but training in reflection allows the tutor to determine whether and how a lesson on the comma might benefit their writer. When my tutors engage in authentic and honest self-observation, reflection, and ultimately metacognition during our staff meetings, they demonstrate the requisite skill to be effective teachers of writing.

TUTOR-LEARNERS REFLECT ON WRITING CENTER WORK

I asked my tutors for their insights on the role of reflection in tutor training during a recent staff meeting. During our meeting, we discussed assessment scholars Elizabeth Barkley and Claire Major’s comparison of student-learning outcomes to archery. Barkley and Major say a learning goal is an archer seeing their target; a learning objective is an archer aiming for their target, and a learning outcome is an archer hitting their target.

Applying this to the Writing Center, my tutors were quick to extend the analogy. The archer is one of our writers, who comes to us for assistance wielding the bow of writing skills. With our training on how to use the bow, the writer is able to hit their target: a “good” paper. But, as my tutor Leanna astutely noted, if all we do is teach writers to produce “good” papers, once they’re in a new environment they won’t be able to use the bow independently, making the target suddenly elusive and strange.

In his foundational 1984 essay, Stephen North notes that a writing center “represents the marriage of … [writing] as a process … [and] that writing curricula need to be student-centered” (North 49-50). In the Writing Center, it’s the tutors who tailor our writing curricula to every individual writer who walks through our doors. We understand that the writing process is distinct for every individual writer and for every individual writing project they undertake.

North understands this too, and that understanding fuels his dictum that writing centers create “better writers, not better writing (50, emphasis mine). That is to say, because curricula is tailored to each individual, and because that individual’s process varies based on their current project, we have to focus on the individual and their skill set – the archer and their technique in using the bow – in order for them to be able to navigate any future writing project that might be coming their way. In order for the Writing Center to truly support our writers in this, its tutors must be equipped with tools to assess and reflect on what each individual writer needs before teaching them that content.

REFLECTIVE PEDAGOGIES IN WRITING TUTOR TRAINING

For tutor training, my staff and I meet for a two-hour seminar each week. During these meetings, I structure reflection on writing center scholarship, reflection on the tutors’ own writing and writing process, as well as reflection on tutoring skills. The common denominator is clear:

Writing Center Scholarship. No tutor training program would be complete without covering foundational theories in the one-to-one teaching of writing, and discussions of the readings ask tutors to thoughtfully reflect on their own tutoring practices in light of the scholarship, thereby connecting writing center theory to writing center practice.
Writing Instruct-shops. A term of my own invention, the writing instruct-shop blends three modes of writing instruction: in-classroom instruction, the writing consultation, and the writing workshop. Using one of the tutor’s pieces of academic writing as the text, I facilitate these instruct-shops to simultaneously practice tutoring skills (borrowing from the writing consultation model), improve tutors’ writing skills (borrowing from the writing workshop model), and gain fluency with the identification and application of components of the writing process, rhetorical concepts, and grammatical conventions (borrowing from the traditional classroom model). Because the tutors’ works are at the center of these conversations, reflection on the duality of their roles as tutor-learners and tutor-teachers emerges.
Triumphs & Challenges. As a regular agenda item, tutors share the details of one recent writing consultation that left them feeling triumphant as well as one that was particularly challenging. We spend about an hour hearing these reflections and discuss how to revise tutoring techniques for future consultations.

It is pedagogical nomenclature to say that teaching, like writing, is a “reflective practice”; however, I can say with certainty that tutor training is an environment where the rubber meets the road. My tutors concurred: “It’s the reflection that allows us to become better tutors.” Even if you have a challenging session, reflecting on it and asking for help will give you the skills to do something differently next time.

TUTORS AS THE FIRST LINK: A CHAIN OF REFLECTING

The ability to reflect before proceeding is the benchmark of an effectively trained writing tutor. Returning to Barkley and Major, this means that, at least in my work, the target is teaching my students how to reflect before charging through the challenge at hand. Armed with insights from their reflection, the tutors are able to more effectively choose individualized pedagogies to teach their writers. In other words, tutor reflection evolves into tutor metacognition as they adapt skills they’ve learned as tutor-learners and then put them to use as tutor-teachers. My tutor Leanna calls this evolution “a chain of reflecting.” I build reflection into tutor training, my tutors think metacognitively as they transform insights they’ve learned into teaching strategies, and writers then have tools of reflection at their disposal for both their writing projects and the challenges of everyday life. Reflection is the ultimate transferrable skill.

WORKS CITED

Barkley, Elizabeth F. and Claire H. Major. Learning Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty, Jossey-Bass, 2016.

North, Stephen M. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” The St. Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, Edited by Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood, Fourth Edition, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2011, pp. 44-58.

Changing Campus Culture with the Ace-Your-Course Challenge

In the final post of the guest blog series on “Working with Faculty to Promote Metacognition,” Dr. Eric Kaldor discusses lessons learned from the implementation of a campus-wide metacognition program inspired by Saundra McGuire’s work. The associated research project was awarded the Robert J. Menges Award for Outstanding Research in Educational Development by the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network.

by Eric Kaldor, Ph.D.; Associate Director, Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning, Brown University

For many faculty members, the “fact” that some students are just not capable of college-level learning remains part of the taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in the culture of disciplines and campuses. Despite significant efforts to share insights from the scholarship on metacognition and growth mindsets (e.g. Doyle & Zakrajsek, 2013; Dweck, 2016; McGuire, 2015; Nilson, 2013), campus cultures are slow to change, and fixed mindsets continue to dominate many institutions. This post describes efforts to change the culture at the University of Rhode Island, the communication strategy we used, and some lessons learned.

With approximately 14,000 undergraduate students and 1,000 full and part-time faculty, the University of Rhode Island is a challenging setting to advance culture change. Our story began with a conversation with Melvin Wade, former Director of the Multicultural Student Services Center (MSSC). I was working in the Office for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning (ATL) and planning for Saundra McGuire to visit our campus. I was particularly concerned to fill our 1,000-person auditorium with students for her “Metacognition is Key” workshop. When I asked for his advice, Melvin insisted we must ensure her visit had a lasting impact on our campus. Toward this end, we assembled a group of professional staff and graduate students from ATL, the MSSC, the Academic Enhancement Center, First-Year Programs, and Professional Advising. Over a series of conversations, this informal group conceived of something we came to call the Ace-Your-Course (AYC) Challenge. We assumed we would only run the AYC Challenge once as a companion to Dr. McGuire’s workshop. Instead, a snowstorm gave the Challenge a much longer life.

Building on the McGuire Model

We designed the AYC Challenge to extend students’ metacognitive experience and reflections beyond Dr. McGuire’s workshop. We developed the AYC Challenge as four weekly self-assessment surveys (for detailed description see Kaldor & Swanson, 2019) to create additional metacognitive experiences (Flavell, 1979) by encouraging students to:

Test learning strategies relevant to them individually.
Engage in key practices for metacognitive reflection: observation, description, evaluation, and action planning.
Feel part of a larger community working to grow as learners.

When a snowstorm postponed Dr. McGuire’s visit to the next semester, our multi-unit team led her workshop twice using slides and talking points from her book (McGuire, 2015) and invited students to participate in the AYC Challenge. Of the 240 students attending a workshop, 50 completed all four weeks of the challenge. After we shared the positive results from our pilot with faculty members, many encouraged their students to attend Dr. McGuire’s rescheduled workshop in September 2017. Some went further and agreed to share grade data as part of an IRB-approved study to examine how participation affected grades. We specifically identified a set of gateway science courses from Chemistry, Biology, and Nutrition and Food Sciences that have large enrollments of first-year students.

Over 1,000 students attended Dr. McGuire’s workshop with some in remote viewing locations, and 202 of those completed the second AYC Challenge. The self-reported results for this larger group were strikingly similar to those from students in the pilot AYC Challenge when we led the workshops. Holly Swanson and I analyzed final grades for 979 students in the eight gateway science sections (347 attended the workshop and of those 55 completed the challenge) using OLS regression with controls for several predictors of academic performance including high school GPA and exam 1 z-score. Compared with their peers who did not attend the workshop or participate in the challenge, attending the workshop and completing the AYC Challenge was associated with a final course grade half of a letter grade higher (Kaldor & Swanson, 2018).

Inclusive and Extensive Communication

Much of our success originated from a spiral of communication that grew outwards from a core group of professional staff and graduate students who became involved in planning for Dr. McGuire’s originally scheduled visit. Our colleagues working in various student support services helped develop a plan to reach students and motivate them to attend the workshop and participate in the challenge. These colleagues advised us on when to hold the workshop, how to market our efforts, and what kinds of messages would appeal to students.

One critical piece of advice was that students were more likely to attend if instructors offered extra credit. In the faculty development office, we knew that instructors of large enrollment courses would only offer extra credit if it did not add significant work. Using google forms, a mail merge add-on, card swipe readers, and course rosters, we developed a system for students to pre-register, receive reminder emails, and swipe their id cards after the workshop. With this system in place, instructors for over 30 courses received a list of student attendees within a week of the workshop.

To nudge students who attended the workshop to start the Challenge and complete all four weeks, we used two techniques. First, students were told that completing all four weeks would make them eligible for a drawing for ten $100 gift cards to the campus book store. Second, we started the Challenge at the end of the workshop with students selecting one or more strategies to try on a Google form at the end of the workshop.

photo of Ace Your Course Challenge winners — Four of the ten winners of a raffle for students who completed the Ace Your Course Challenge.

The next spiral outwards involved engaging more faculty in a conversation on the powerful ways they could help their students learn. Prior initiatives that had promoted Dweck’s (2016) insights on growth mindsets had primed many faculty and staff for these conversations. Specifically, they wanted to know what else they could do beyond promoting a growth mindset, and a metacognitive approach to learning strategies offered them concrete answers.

In addition, faculty members who had moved away from fixed mindsets about who could succeed in their courses shared their insights on how to approach their still skeptical peers. We developed a strategy of presenting quantitative data alongside student voices to describe the student experience (examples are available here: https://web.uri.edu/atl/ace-your-course-challenge/). Initially, our quantitative data was limited to student self-reports. With the benefit of a snowstorm, we had the chance to organize an IRB approved research project to answer important questions that skeptics raised.

As we shared this data on campus, we were asked to try different permutations of the Metacognition Workshop plus AYC Challenge in two different settings – a support program for conditionally readmitted students and two gateway chemistry courses. In addition, we were asked to offer workshops for professional staff and faculty so they could include McGuire’s approach in their programs and courses.

One of the most successful workshops, “Teach Your Students How to Learn in 50-minutes” provided an annotated version of Dr. McGuire’s slides with breakout discussions about the key messages to motivate students. This led many instructors to experiment with including different elements of her metacognitive approach to learning strategies into their courses.

Some Lessons Learned and Suspected

Each AYC Challenge has generated new data and insights into the potential for URI students to make significant gains in their metacognition. This new data has generated new conversations, which have led to variations on the McGuire workshop and/or the AYC Challenge. This has been a fruitful if unintended process.

Our skeptical internal voice continues to ask how we could nudge more students into participating. We noticed lower participation rates for students from historically marginalized groups in our gateway science course study. This led us to experiment with embedding the workshop plus challenge into courses, but our early experience raised many concerns around overloading instructors and maintaining fidelity with the core AYC challenge experience.

In a promising next iteration, my URI colleague Michelle Fontes-Barros has suggested a partnership with student organizations and clubs, particularly STEM affinity groups for students from historically marginalized groups. Convinced of the value, a student group might sponsor a workshop in a regular meeting space. Student leaders might promote peer commitments to complete the AYC Challenge. Past AYC Challenge participants might help present the workshop and send messages during the Challenge to encourage persistence. This next iteration has the potential to be much more student-centered, but it will be important to critically evaluate the student experience and share results with the wider university community to energize the campus conversation on metacognitive development.

Doyle, T., & Zakrajsek, T. (2013). The New science of learning: How to learn in harmony with your brain. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset: The new psychology of success (Updated Edition). New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

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

Kaldor, E., & Swanson, H. (2018, November). A campus-wide strategy to develop metacognition in gateway science courses. Paper presented at the POD Network Conference, Portland, Oregon.

Kaldor, E., & Swanson, H. (2019). How can you elevate metacognition on your campus? Try the Ace-Your-Course Challenge. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 28(2), 5–7.

McGuire, S. Y. (2015). Teach students how to learn: Strategies you can incorporate into any course to improve student metacognition, study skills, and motivation. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Nilson, L. B. (2013). Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students’ self-awareness and learning skills. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Personal Characteristics Necessary for Metacognition

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

At my institution we have created the Science of Learning Team, a group of students who learn about the science of learning (including metacognition) and then lead seminars for other students who are hoping to improve their academic success. Additionally, as part of an ongoing scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project, a small group of us (faculty and students) has assessed the efficacy of our various efforts to disseminate the science of learning to both faculty and students.

Students attending a seminar — Students attending a science of learning seminar

This past academic year I had the pleasure of working with Troy Mather, a senior who joined both the Science of Learning Team and the SoTL project effort as his capstone project. Below are some of his final reflections regarding his experiences helping develop his peers’ metacognition and learning skills. I believe they provide some great insights regarding the personal characteristics necessary for metacognition. He also shares some personal applications that many of us might use as a model as we work to develop metacognition in our students.

What is metacognition and why is it important?

My personal definition for metacognition is having the awareness to self- regulate your learning approaches through modifications or corrections. Having the awareness to identify what you need to work on or change gives you the opportunity to grow. It does require modesty and humbleness to look at yourself and be motivated to change something you see as an area for growth. If you are someone like me, who isn’t someone naturally gifted with academics, metacognition is a tool that you can use to guide your growth as a student and learner.

What is the biggest challenge to developing student metacognition skills?

The biggest challenge I see with developing student metacognition skills is the fact that this skill is largely correlated with maturity. Time is a limiting factor because developing self-regulation doesn’t happen overnight. This makes teaching metacognition hard because you can tell others the definition of the concept and why it is important, but you can’t make them internalize the importance or change their behaviors. However, I have seen that most students eventually figure it out with time and maturity.

How can we overcome this challenge?

Something I found to help students get on that track of appreciating metacognition is by providing some personal examples of ways I have self-regulated my learning approaches and made clear improvements. Students listen to those moments of success and often feel more willing to make changes or even become more aware of what they should work on. Sometimes this goes outside of the academic environment. For example, one of the ways I have been most impacted by metacognition is with my training to be selected for Special Tactics/ Combat Rescue following my graduation.¹
I told my students in our Science of Learning seminars that my training experience was a journey of self-reflection and deep accountability. Every day I had to have the self-awareness and honesty to identify my weak areas and do something about it. Some days I didn’t want to drown in the pool. Some days I didn’t want to run a marathon. And some days doing thousands of body weight exercises when I was already sore was a miserable thought. But, I pushed myself to do those things everyday because I knew if I didn’t, I wouldn’t reach my goal. I got a professional free- dive instructor and a track coach to help me with my training regimen. It was metacognition that allowed me to see areas to improve and reach out for resources.
With academics, students need to take advantage of all the resources they have in front of them. But, this requires self-accountability to make those identifications and be willing to put in that extra work. I told our students about my experience training for Special Operations because they hopefully saw someone with high ambitions and the willingness to put in the work. Every once in a while, learners need a motivational story to put them on track to accomplish their own goals. I have learned that metacognition is the start to achieving any level of greatness.

Using Troy’s Examples

Troy mentions humbleness and self-honesty as underlying characteristics of successful engagement in metacognition. That is not an aspect of metacognition that I have seen widely discussed, but it’s a great insight. It can be uncomfortable acknowledging aspects of our own efforts that have not been successful, and then examining them closely enough to come up with alternate strategies. This discomfort is especially strong if the alternate strategies appear to require more effort, and we’re not certain that they will lead us to success.

Many of our students face these uncomfortable moments on their path to become better learners. Perhaps we can help them through these uncomfortable barriers by more openly acknowledging the discomfort in facing one’s shortcomings, and letting students know that they are not alone in experiencing discomfort. Motivational stories such as the one Troy shared can help ease the resistance to being metacognitive. I’m sure we can all come up with a personal story or two that illustrate our own experiences as developing learners in some realm. Hopefully we can move past our discomfort in sharing our struggles in order to motivate our students to face their own struggles and self-regulate to move beyond them.

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¹ Special Tactics/ Combat Rescue is an elite team within the Special Operations career field of the Air Force.

* 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.

Metacognition at Goucher II: Training for Q-Tutors

by Dr. Justine Chasmar & Dr. Jennifer McCabe; Goucher College

In the first post of this series, we described various implementations of Goucher College’s metacognition-focused model called the “New 3Rs”: Relationships, Resilience, and Reflection. Here we focus on how elements of metacognition have driven the training of tutors in Goucher’s Quantitative Reasoning (QR) Center.

image from https://www.goucher.edu/explore/ (faculty and student giving a high five)

The QR Center was established in the fall of 2017 to support the development of numeracy in our students and also specifically to bolster our new data analytics general education requirement (part of the Goucher Commons Curriculum, described in depth in our first article). The QR Center started at a time of transition as Goucher shifted from a one-course quantitative reasoning requirement to a set of two required courses: foundational data analytics and data analytics within a discipline. The QR Center mission is to help students with quantitative skill and content development across all disciplines, with a focus on promoting quantitative literacy. To foster these skills, the QR Center offers programming such as appointment-based tutoring, drop-in tutoring, workshops, and academic consultations, with peers (called Q-tutors) as the primary medium of support.

Metacognition is a guiding principle for the QR Center – especially reflection and self-regulated learning. This theme is woven through each piece of QR Center programming, from a newly-developed tutor training course to the focus on academic skill-building at tutoring sessions.

To support the professional development and training of the Q-tutors, the director (co-author of this blog, Dr. Justine Chasmar) created a one-credit course required for all students new to the position. This course combines education, mathematics, quantitative reasoning, and data analytics, and focuses on the intersection of teaching pedagogy within each realm. Because it is primarily set within the context of quantitative content, this course is more focused, and inherently more meaningful, than traditional tutor training. The course is also unique in combining practical exercises with metacognitive reflection. Individual lessons range from basic pedagogy to reviews of essential quantitative content for the tutoring position. Learning is scaffolded by supporting professional practice with continuous reflection and applications toward improved self-regulated learning – both for the tutors and for the students they will assist.

The content of each tutor preparation class meeting is sandwiched by metacognitive prompting. Before class, the Q-tutors prepare, engage, and reflect; for example, they may read a relevant piece of literature and respond to several open-ended reflective prompts about the reading (see “Suggested Readings” below). The synchronous tutor preparation class lesson, attended by all new Q-tutors and the director who teaches the course, involves discussion and other activities relating to the assigned reading, especially emphasizing conversation about issues or concerns the tutors are facing in their new roles. The “metacognition sandwich” is completed by a reflective post to a discussion board, where the Q-tutors respond and build on each other’s reflections, describing what they had learned that day, asking and answering questions, and elaborating on how to apply the lesson to tutoring.

In addition to these explicit reflection activities, the tutor preparation course facilitates discussion of the use and importance of self-regulated learning strategies (SRL) and behaviors. Q-tutors are provided many opportunities to reflect on their own learning. For example, they complete and discuss multiple SRL-based inventories, such as the GAMES (Svinicki, 2006) and the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire (credit to Richard Felder and Barbara Solomon). Class lessons revolve around evidence-based learning strategies, such as self-testing, help-seeking, and techniques to transform information.

One assignment requires tutors to create and present a “study hack,” an idea adapted from a thread on a popular and supportive listserv for academic support professionals (LRNASST). The assignment, inherently reflective, allows the tutors to consider strategies they successfully utilize, summarize that information, and translate the SRL strategy into a meaningful presentation and worksheet for the tutor group. The Q-tutors present their “study hacks” during class time, with examples from past semesters ranging from mindfulness exercises to taking notes with color coding. These worksheets are also saved as a resource for students so they can learn from SRL strategies endorsed by Q-tutors.

Q-tutors are encouraged to “pay forward” their metacognitive training by focusing on SRL and reflection during their tutoring sessions. They teach study strategies such as self-testing and learning-monitoring, and support student reflection through “checking for understanding” activities at the end of each tutoring session. Tutors know that teaching study skills is one of the major priorities during tutoring sessions; and they close the loop by meeting with other tutors regularly to discuss new and useful skills they can communicate to students they work with. Tutors also get a regular reminder about the importance of study skill development when they read the end-of-appointment survey responses from their tutees, particularly in response to the prompt for “study skill reviewed.”

As a summative assignment in the course, Q-tutors write a Tutoring Philosophy, similar to a teaching statement. By this time, the tutors have gained an awareness of the importance of SRL and metacognitive reflection, as seen in excerpts from sample philosophies from previous semesters:

I strive to strengthen numeracy within our tutees, rid them of their anxieties surrounding quantitative subjects, and build up their skills to become better learners.

Once the tutee gains enough trust and confidence in the material, it is essential for them to begin guiding the direction of the session toward their own learning goals.

By practicing good study habits, self-advocacy, organizational skills, and a calm demeanor when tutoring, tutees learn what it takes to be a better student.

By thinking intentionally about what it means to be an effective tutor,these students realize that they must model what they teach in a reflective, continuous mutual-learning process: “[In tutoring] my job is to identify what each person needs, use my skills to support their learning, and reflect on these interactions to improve my methods over time.”

In sum, using an intentional metacognitive lens, Q-tutor training at Goucher College supports quantitative skills and general learning strategies in the many students the QR Center reaches. Through this metacognitive cycle, the QR Center supports Goucher’s learning community in improving the Reflection component of the Goucher 3Rs.

Suggested References

Scheaffer, R. L. (2003). Statistics and quantitative literacy. Quantitative Literacy: Why Numeracy Matters for Schools and Colleges, 145-152. Retrieved from https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/QL/pgs145_152.pdf

Siegle, D., & McCoach, D. B. (2007). Increasing student mathematics self-efficacy through teacher training. Journal of Advanced Academics, 18, 278–312. https://doi.org/10.4219/jaa-2007-353

Svinicki, M. D. (2006). Helping students do well in class: GAMES. APS Observer, 19(10). Retrieved from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/helping-students-do-well-in-class-games

Williamson, G. (2015). Self-regulated learning: an overview of metacognition, motivation and behaviour. Journal of Initial Teacher Inquiry, 1, 25-27. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10092/11442

Can Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Increase Metacognition in Your Students?

Aaron S. Richmond, Ph. D.

How many of you use collaborative learning in your classroom? If you do, do you specifically use it to increase metacognition in your students? If the answer is yes, you are likely building on the work of Hadwin, Jarvela, and Miller (2011) and Schraw, Crippen, and Hartley (2006). For those of you unfamiliar with collaborative learning, I tend to agree with Slavich and Zimbardo’s (2012) definition, in collaborative learning students “…tackle problems and question with peers—especially more knowledgeable peers—insofar as such experiences provide students with opportunities to learn new problem-solving strategies and to debate ideas in a way that challenges their understanding of concepts” (p. 572). There are many ways to use collaborative learning in the classroom, jigsaw classroom, paired annotations, send-a-problem, think-pair-share, three-step interview, peer tutoring, number heads, etc. Of particular interest, recent research on collaborative learning suggests that reciprocal peer tutoring may be particularly useful when your goal is to not only learn course material, but to increase your student’s metacognition (De Backer, Van Keer, Moerkerke, & Valcke, 2016).

In their innovative study, De Backer and colleagues (2016) investigated the effects of using reciprocal peer tutoring (RPT) to support and increase metacognitive regulation in higher education. De Backer and colleagues defined RPT as “the structured exchange of the tutor role among peers in groups/pairs…and enables each student to experience the specific benefits derived from providing and receiving academic guidance.” (p. 191) De Backer et al. had students, over a course of the semester, complete eight peer tutoring sessions. All students were trained to be a tutor, experienced being a tutor, and tutored their peers at least twice. Tutoring sessions were 120 minutes in length and occurred outside of class. The tutor’s role was to manage the tutees and promote collaborative learning. During each tutoring session, the tutees were asked to solve a problem related to the class content. Each problem had three specific components:

(1) An outline of learning objectives to guide peers’ discussion to central course-related topics; (2) a subtask aimed at getting familiar with the theme-specific terminology; and (3) a subtask in which students were instructed to apply theoretical notions to realistic instructional cases. (De Backer et al., 2016, p. 193)

The problems presented, often did not have clear-cut answers and required considerable cognitive effort. De Backer et al. video recorded all the tutoring sessions and then scored each session on the amount and type of metacognitive regulation that occurred by both tutors and tutees. For example, they looked at the student’s ability to orient, plan, monitor, and evaluate. They also measured the level of processing (whether it was shallow or deep processing of metacognitive strategies). Appendix D of De Backer et al.’s article provided examples of how to code metacognitive data. See Table 1 for an example of the scoring (De Backer et al., 2016, p. 41). They then scored the frequency of metacognitive regulations that occurred per session.

Table 1. Examples of Lower and Deep Level Metacognitive Regulation in Reciprocal Peer Tutoring by De Backer et al. (2016, pp. 41-42)
Metacognition–Monitoring
Comprehension Monitoring	Noting lack of comprehension	T: “Does everyone understand the outlines of instructional behaviorism?”
		t1: “I still don’t understand the concept of aptitude.”
	Checking comprehension by repeating (LL)	T: “Does everyone agree now that instructional behaviorism and instructional constructivism are opposites?”
		t1: “I think (…) because in behaviorism the instructor decides on everything but constructivism is about learners being free to construct their own knowledge.:
		t2: “Yes constructivist learners are much more independent and active, not so?”
	Checking comprehension by elaborating (DL)	T: “The behavioristic instructor permanently provides feedback. Who knows why?”
		t1: “Is it not to make sure that learners don’t make mistakes?”
		t2: “Could that also be the reason why they structure the learning materials extensively? And why they don’t like collaborative learning? Because collaborative learning requires spontaneous discussions between students. You cannot really structure it in advance, not so?”
Note. DL = Deep learning, LL = low or shallow learning, T = tutor, t1 and t2 = tutees.

De Backer and colleagues (2016) found that as the semester progressed, students engaged in more and more metacognitive regulatory processes. Specifically, their orientation increased, their monitoring increased and their evaluation increased (in general the frequency was 3 times greater at the end of the semester than at the beginning of the semester). However, planning stayed stagnant over the course of the semester. Specifically, the frequency of planning use continued to be low throughout the semester. Far more interesting was that students (over the course of the semester) decreased their use of shallow or low-level metacognitive strategies and increased their use of deep-level metacognitive strategies as result. Increases in metacognitive regulation occurred across most types of metacognitive strategies (e.g., regulation, orientation, activating prior knowledge, task analysis, monitoring, and evaluation).

As demonstrated by De Backer and colleagues study and the work of other researchers (e.g., King, 1997; De Backer, Van Keer, & Valcke, 2012), RPT and other collaborative learning instructional methods may be a useful in increasing metacognitive processes of students.

Concluding Thoughts and Questions for You

After reading De Backer et al. (2016), I was fascinated by the possible use of RPT in my own classroom. So, I started to think about how to implement it myself. Some questions arose that I thought you might help me with:

How do I specifically scaffold the use of RPT in my classroom? More so, what does a successful RPT session resemble? Fortunately, De Backer and colleagues did provide an appendix to their study (Appendix C) that gives an example of what a tutoring session may look like.
How many tutoring sessions is enough to increase the metacognition in my students? De Backer et al. had 8 sessions. This would be difficult for me to squeeze into my course planning. Would 3-4 be enough? What do you think? But then not all students could be a tutor. Do they get more (metacognitively) out of being a tutor vs. a tutee? This is something that De Backer and colleagues did not analyze. (Hint, hint all you folks—SoTL project in the making;)
De Backer et al. briefly described that the tutors had a 10-page manual on how to be a tutor. Hmm…I don’t know if my students would be able to effectively learn from this. What other simple ways might we use to teach students how to be effective tutors in the context of RPT?
Finally, are you do anything like De Backer et al.? And if so, do you think it is improving your student’s metacognitive regulation?

References

De Backer, L., Van Keer, H., Moerkerke, B., & Valcke, M. (2016). Examining evolutions in the adoption of metacognitive regulation in reciprocal peer tutoring groups. Metacognition and Learning, 11, 187-213. doi:10.1007/s11409-015-9141-7

De Backer, L., Van Keer, H., & Valcke, M. (2012). Exploring the potential impact of reciprocal peer tutoring on higher education students’ metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Instructional Science, 40, 559–588.

Hadwin, A. F., Järvelä, S., & Miller, M. (2011). Self-regulated, co-regulated, and socially shared regulation of learning. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 65–84). New York: Routledge.

King, A. (1997). Ask to think-tell why©: A model to transactive peer tutoring for scaffolding higher level complex learning. Educational Psychologist, 32, 221–235.

Schraw, G., Crippen, K. J., & Hartley, K. (2006). Promoting self-regulation in science education: metacognition as part of a broader perspective on learning. Research in Science Education, 36, 111–139.

Slavich, G. M., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2012). Transformational teaching: Theoretical underpinnings, basic principles, and core methods. Educational Psychology Review, 24, 569-608. doi:10.1007/s10648-012-9199-6

Improve with Metacognition

Tag: peer tutoring