Tag: Students

The College Transition: Making Time Tangible

by Mary L. Hebert, PhD; Director, Regional Center for Learning Disabilities; Fairleigh Dickinson University

In preparing students for the college transition, it behooves them to reflect on the differences between high school and college. Important considerations for reflection include questions related to the difference of the pace and volume of work, and the degree of independence required for that work. Students with learning differences are statistically more at risk of challenge and adjustment issues and consequently the incompletion of college. The more metacognitively they enter their new academic environment, the greater the likelihood they will be prepared, build upon their self-efficacy and self-advocacy. Using metacognition as a tool to pause, reflect, and pivot accordingly has the potential to optimize capacity to adapt and adjust to the context of one’s learning environment.drawing of a human brain with a 5-step cycle overlaid: Plan, Apply strategies and monitor, Reflect and adjust if needed, Assess the task, Evaluate strengths and weaknesses

                                                                          

Making Time Tangible

Executive function issues can have a significant impact on college students. Many factors can contribute to this. For students who have a learning disability, high co-morbidity rates are noted in the literature (Mohammadi et al., 2019). The executive function skill sets are some of the most critical to manage the rigor and independence of the adult learning experience. A student learning in an adult context are often adjusting to a living and learning environment on a college campus for the first time. Common symptoms of executive function challenges include a distorted sense of time, procrastination, difficulty engaging and disengaging in tasks, and cognitive shifts in task management. The more tangible and observable time can be made, the greater the likelihood of manipulating time and advantageously managing it towards the achievement of one’s immediate, short term and longer term goals.

It takes a synthesis of academic, social, and emotional skill sets to operate collaboratively during a time of transition. In work with new students, it is prudent to encourage and sharpen metacognitive reflection on the process of recognizing time as something that is tangible and malleable and now on the student to manipulate accordingly to accommodate their new adult learning environment. Enriched self-awareness of one’s challenges as well as strengths in regard to executive function, has the potential to support enriched self-competence. Both are cornerstones for success.

Reflect and plan: tackle time management, don’t let it tackle you!

One of the metacognitive tasks that a supportive adult can encourage when a student prepares for the college transition is to create a weekly schedule with their courses listed on the schedule. Likely, the student will observe that there is far more white space than ‘ink on the page’ or black space. I tell the student that I am far less concerned about the ink on the page. Why they ask? Because the ink on the page very nicely identifies where they have to be, for what and with whom. I ask students what they notice about their schedule in comparison to their high school schedule, which is often structured from 7:00 am until 3:00 pm, or even later, given extracurricular commitments and homework. Next, I ask students to identify and list not only academic commitments but study time, wellness hygiene tasks (eating, sleeping, doctor’s appointments, exercise), social time, and other responsibilities and suggest plotting how many hours these will take during the 24 hours day.

image of a blank weekly calendar planner                                    

It becomes evident during this task that college success is highly dependent on the use of the white space. Academic coaching has become a popular and sought out experience. In fact, embracing a coaching experience correlates with a higher GPA, retention and success for students (Capstick et al. 2019). While academic coaching has the potential to offset executive function challenges and is excellent to have available, ultimately the goal is internalization of metacognitive skills that support more independent and effective executive function. Consequently, the coaching model should focus on internalization as the goal.

Executive function skills are essential to sustain motivation and support perseverance in academics, particularly for students with a learning difference. If executive function skills are challenged and the student does not possess adequate focus, stamina, and organization, there is potential for impact on academic performance. This can increase risk for poor grades and low self-efficacy, and have the potential to compromise the completion of academic tasks. Metacognition facilitates success through promoting self-awareness of one’s executive skill profile of strengths and challenges, and then using that awareness to promote self-monitoring and checking in on one’s task management.

Making time tangible is a powerful strategy in managing executive function symptoms. Metacognitive reflection of the college schedule is a power-tool to support college students who now are in the driver’s seat of managing time rather than being a passenger with others who have managed it for them. The internalization of this skill will be essential to the successful navigation of the ‘white space.’

This added layer of independence and competence will lead to a position of empowerment in the transition to college and be a skill set necessary for career readiness.

References

Capstick, M.K., Harrell-Williams, L.M., Cockrum, C.D. et al. Exploring the Effectiveness of Academic Coaching for Academically At-Risk College Students. Innov High Educ 44, 219–231 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-019-9459-1

Mohammadi M-R, Zarafshan H, Khaleghi A, et al. Prevalence of ADHD and Its Comorbidities in a Population-Based Sample. Journal of Attention Disorders. 2021;25(8):1058-1067. doi:10.1177/1087054719886372


U.S. Army Cadets and Faculty Reflecting on a Metacognitive Assignment from a General Education Writing Class

by Brody Becker, Jack Curry, Charlie Gorman, Caleb Norris, J. Michael Rifenburg, and Erik Siegele

We offer an assignment from a general education writing class that invites students to hone their metacognitive knowledge by, oddly enough, writing about writing. Before we turn to this assignment, we need to detail who we are. We are a six-person author team. Five of us are first-year U.S. Army cadets. All five plan to commission into the U.S. Army following graduation. One of us is a civilian, tenured professor in the English Department.

group of 5 army cadets standing outsideDuring the Fall 2021 semester, we met in English 1102, a general education writing class offered at the University of North Georgia (UNG). Our university is a federally designated senior military college, like Texas A&M and The Citadel, tasked with educating future U.S. Army officers. Civilians also attend UNG. At our school, roughly 700 cadets learn alongside roughly 20,000 civilian undergraduate students. These details are important to what we want to describe in this post: not only a metacognitive writing assignment for this specific class but also the perspective of cadets who completed this assignment and the value of such metacognitive work for cadets. We write as a six-person team and offer collective ideas (as we do in this paragraph). However, we also value individual perspective. Author order is alphabetical and does not signal one writer contributing more than another writer.

An Overview of this Metacognitive Assignment

I (Michael) regularly teach this general education writing class. One writing assignment opened with the following prompt: “For this second paper, I invite you to reflect on a previous paper you wrote during your college or high school career. Through detailing when and where you wrote the paper, the processes you undertook to write the paper, and the feedback or grade you received on this paper, you will make a broader argument about the importance of reflecting back on writing and lessons one learns from undertaking such reflection.” This assignment is a modified version of a similar writing assignment in Wardle and Downs’s (2014) popular textbook Writing About Writing.

To prepare to write this paper, we read the “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing,” a national consensus document outlining, as the title suggests, a framework for students to succeed at college level writing. This document offers eight habits of mind essential for student-writers to hone: one of these habits of mind is metacognition. We also read through portions of Tanner’s (2017) “Promoting Student Metacognition.” Tanner provided a table of metacognitive questions instructors can ask students before, during, and after the course.

Students then wrote a 1,500 word essay in response to this assignment. All student co-authors for this blog post enrolled in this specific class and completed this assignment. I now turn to my co-authors, cadet Charlie Gorman and cadet Brody Becker, to hear their perspectives on this assignment.

Cadets’ Reflections

Charlie’s reflection on this metacognitive assignment

I found that this assignment was beneficial to grow as a writer. Reflecting back on activities or assignments is a great way to improve in any aspect of life. I would have never thought about writing a paper about a paper until I was given the opportunity to write this assignment. As a future leader in the military, my writing will consist of educating material, reports, and special directions. Completing this assignment has set me up and taught me how to use past failures and successes to improve upon a future performance.

photo of a cadet writing on his laptop

Brody’s reflection on this metacognitive assignment

This paper on metacognition was difficult for me because I had never done anything along these lines in a writing aspect previously. However, I soon found it to be helpful because of all the things I could learn from and look for in future writing. I had never thought about how looking back at previous writing could be helpful to me, so I always disregarded any past assignments and never thought about them again. This was a teaching moment for me, and I always take chances to learn new things. This assignment was one of the more beneficial things that I have done that I will continue to use for future assignments and will carry over to other things in life.

Why such an assignment is particularly helpful for cadets

In this section, Cadet Jack Curry considers why such a metacognitive writing assignment is particularly helpful for cadets who, after graduation, will commission as officers in the U.S. Army.

As a cadet, metacognition is an important step for our future progress. Being able to review and learn from our mistakes and our successes, helps us become better leaders. After any exercise or training, we conduct After Action Reviews (AARs) to find out how we can either improve upon or continue upon our training. As future officers, our job is to continue improving the skills we will use to lead future soldiers. The U.S. Army’s publication Training Circular 25-20: A Leader’s Guide to After Action Reviews (1993), states “the reason we conduct AARs are in order to find candid insights into specific soldier, leader, and unit strengths and weaknesses from various perspectives, and to find feedback and insight critical to battle-focused training.”

Concluding words of hope for more faculty-student partnerships

Our partnership started as a teacher-student one. Michael designed writing assignments and led classroom activities, and Charlie, Caleb, Jack, Brody, and Erik completed writing assignments and completed classroom activities. Near the end of the semester, our partnership shifted into one of co-authors where we wrote this blog post together over Google Docs, bounced ideas back and forth in-person after class, and coordinated further over email. We use the noun partnership intentionally to signal our commitment to pedagogical partnerships, an international and interdisciplinary movement to re-see the student-faculty relationship as one in which both serve as active agents in curriculum design, implementation, and assessment (e.g., Cook-Sather et al., 2019). As readers of and contributors to Improve with Metacognition continue to explore the benefits of structured metacognitive tasks throughout higher education, we hope that undergraduate students are at the forefront of this exploration. Partnerships between faculty and students are one productive step to ensuring that our classroom practices and processes best serve all our students.

References

Cook-Sather, A., Bahti, M., & Ntem, A. (2019). Pedagogical partnerships: A how-to guide for faculty, students, and academic developers in higher education. Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Book Series. Retrieved from https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/books/pedagogical-partnerships/

Council of Writing Program Administrators et al. (2011). “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing.” Retrieved from http://wpacouncil.org/files/framework-for-success-postsecondary-writing.pdf.

U.S. Department of the Army. (1993). Training Circular 25-20: A Leader’s Guide to After Action Reviews. Army Publishing Directorate. Retrieved from https://armypubs.army.mil/productmaps/pubform/details.aspx?pub_id=71643

Tanner, K. (2017). Promoting student metacognition. Life Sciences Education, 11(2). Retrieved from https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.12-03-0033

Wardle, E., & Downs, D. (2014). Writing About Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. Bedford.


Wisdom Gained from a Tree Assignment

by Dr. Anne Gatling, Associate Professor, Chair Education Department, Merrimack College

(Post #4 Integrating Metacognition into Practice Across Campus, Guest Editor Series Edited by Dr. Sarah Benes)

On the first day of class, I greet my new students with “get to know you” games before walking them through the outline of the semester. I am a science educator and my students are either juniors or graduate students preparing to teach early childhood and elementary education majors.

The last assignment I share with my students is a tree study. Out of all of my assignments, the tree study assignment captures their attention in very different ways. Students often say: “Observe a ‘what’, for the whole semester?” They ponder this for a while. I reply, “Yes, observe a tree, any tree, at least once a month for the whole semester.”

You may be wondering what the connection is to metacognition with this assignment. I view the tree study as a “stepping stone” toward building metacognitive skills. Students develop self-awareness and mindfulness, which can both contribute to metacognition. It can be helpful to have multiple “entry points” for students when it comes to developing metacognition and metacognitive skills. While this may be a more “indirect” path, it can be beneficial to address self-awareness and mindfulness on their own and recognize the potential benefits for metacognition as well.

Tree Study Overview

Each month, for this assignment all they need to do is make a prediction of their tree and an additional new task along the way, such as sketch your tree, observe little signs of critters, and/or work to identify it. Little did I know that this assignment would become much more than a simple observation. Yes, the students became aware of their surroundings through the observation of the trees, more in tune with the process of observing how things change over time, but more importantly I see my students becoming more and more aware of themselves and their environment.

Here is an example of one students’ tree sketch.

a student's sketch of a large tree along with a note regarding the beauty of the day (May 1) when it was sketched.

This assignment is much different than my other assignments in that I don’t require much more than them taking a picture of their adopted tree once a month and making a few general observations and predictions. I try to meet the students where they are. Some dive in and some just skip around with minimal observations. It is ok. There are far too many things that are high stakes, I just let this one be. I honestly have come to a point where I don’t even want to give this assignment a grade.

What have I learned?

However, I didn’t always have this perspective about the assignment. Initially, this assignment was to help students experience a long-term biology observation, closely investigating changes in a tree, identification, tree rubbings, height etc. But over the years I have come to discover that this assignment means so much more to the students, especially now with quarantines etc.

While I initially didn’t think of this assignment in this way, I have come to realize that these students were also building an awareness of how much of their lives aren’t in the moment and are just beginning to build skills to find their place in the world. This has the potential to help them with their emotional regulation and mindfulness.

More recently I have come to realize that these students were also building an awareness of how much they weren’t in the moment and are beginning to build skills to find their place in the world. This has the potential to help them with their emotional regulation and mindfulness.  

While I enjoy seeing their tree pictures, sketches and observations throughout the semester, I have come to love their final reflections. Students each find their own way with the assignment, learning patience in waiting for a new bud, or reaching to touch a tree for the first time. Many students mention becoming more aware of, and appreciating, nature and their surroundings and becoming more aware of small changes. As I consider metacognition and its role in this assignment, I see it as a type of proto-metacognition activity.  

Student Outcomes

This process of long-term observation has many students learning the importance of patience. Either their tree sprouted much later than others or their predictions missed the mark. Many students become more aware of and gain an appreciation for the subtle changes as well. “I would never have paid any attention to the trees or thought about doing this if it were not for this assignment. I was able to observe how quickly the tree changes and how crazy it is how the trees just do that on their own.”

One student named her tree and a few students even got their friends involved in making observations. Some were able to spy critters they never knew visited their trees via tracks, and even direct observation. Many students mention looking forward to continuing to observe their tree to see how it continues to grow and change and think of a variety of ways to bring a similar type of study to their future students.

In the beginning, I set more expectations, and not every student saw such value in the assignment. Yet, over time I have learned where to give and where to let go and students seem more ready to see where this experience takes them.   This final tree study reflection gives students an opportunity to consider how this tree study impacted them and their learning.

Some students have even found a deeper connection to this assignment. One student, a graduate student placed in a challenging classroom, said, “You go about your day-to-day life and never notice the intricate details that nature undergoes during the springtime. Overall, I think that this assignment forced me to take a second and look at the things that surround me every day. I had never really noticed the tree across the street. . . I like that I got to look closer at the things around me and just take a second. I love trees when I am hiking and sometimes feel like I can only get it then, but this assignment showed me that it is right out my front door always.”

Students, especially now since Covid, seem to be making more changes in how they are looking, slowing down in their process of observation. Maybe by developing more self-awareness and a deeper awareness of their surroundings this assignment can contribute to metacognition perhaps in a more indirect way, offering my students different entry points to the field.

I just assigned the fall tree study this week. I will check in each week and yesterday took them to visit the school garden. There I welcomed them to taste some of its bounty and relax in the peaceful lawn under the trees. Just take time.

In closing, I feel one undergraduate truly embraced this experience in her final project. She placed this poem just above her final tree illustration slide.

Here I sit beneath a tree,
Heartbeat strong,
My soul hums free.
Angie Weiland Crosby

A special thank you to Marcia Edson and Jeff Mehigan for their design of the initial tree study.


Learning in Pandemic Times

In this video, Dr. Stephen Chew shares a model about how people learn, and highlights key points about memory that will benefit students as they are trying to learn and cope, especially in stressful times like we are experiencing with the Covid pandemic. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOKG2LrnwYo&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3gTAiimRTNoNRNJiPGp4IdAQIH0-4JjlEd6iwd4mER1KeXQmQ3TAKEAFM

 


How to Use Post-Test Analysis to Facilitate Metacognition in the College Classroom

by Gina Burkart, Ed.D., Learning Specialist, Clarke University

Pedagogy for Embedding Strategies into Classes

The transition to college is difficult. Students quickly discover that their old strategies from high school do not serve them well in college when they fail their first exam. As the Learning Specialist, I guide these students in modifying strategies and behaviors and in finding new strategies. This also involves helping them move away from a fixed mindset where they believe some students are just born smarter than others and move toward a growth mindset where they reflect on habits and strategies and how to set goals and make changes to achieve desired outcomes. Reflective metacognitive discussion and exercises that develop a growth mindset are necessary for this type of triaging with students (Dweck, 2006; Masters, 2013; Efklides, 2008; VanZile-Tamsen & Livingston, 1999; Livingston, 2003).

As the Learning Specialist at the University, I work with students who are struggling, and I also work with professors in developing better teaching strategies to reach students. When learning is breaking down, I have found that oftentimes the most efficient and effective method of helping students find better strategies is to collaborate with the professor and facilitate strategy workshops in the classroom tailored to the course curriculum. This allows me to work with several students in a short amount of time—while also supporting the professor by demonstrating teaching strategies he or she might integrate into future classes.

magnifying glass with the words Exam Analysis shown

An example of a workshop that works well when learning is breaking down in the classroom is the the post-test analysis workshop. The post-test analysis workshop (see activity details below) often works well in classes after the first exam. Since most students are stressed about their test results, the metacognitive workshop de-escalates anxiety by guiding students in strategic reflection of the exam. The reflection demonstrates how to analyze the results of the exam so that they can form new habits and behaviors in attempt to learn and perform better on the next exam. The corrected exam is an effective tool for fostering metacognition because it shows the students where errors have occurred in their cognitive processing (Efklides, 2008). The activity also increases self-awareness, imperative to metacognition, as it helps students connect past actions with future goals (Vogeley, Jurthen, Falkai, & Maier, 1999). This is an important step in helping students take control of their own learning and increasing motivation (Linvingston & VanZile Tamsen, 1999; Palmer & Goetz, 1988; Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990).

Post-Test Analysis Activity

When facilitating this activity, I begin by having the professor hand back the exams. I then take the students through a serious of prompts that engage them in metacognitive analysis of their performance on the exams. Since metacognitive experiences also require an awareness of feeling (Efklides, 2008), it works well to have students begin by recalling how they felt after the exam:

  • How did you feel?
  • How did you think you did?
  • Were your feelings and predictions accurate?

The post-test analysis then prompts the students to connect their feelings with how they prepared for the exam:

  • What strategies did you use to study?
    • Bloom’s Taxonomy—predicting and writing test questions from book and notes
    • Group study
    • Individual study
    • Concept cards
    • Study guides
    • Created concept maps of the chapters
    • Synthesized notes
    • Other methods?

Students are given 1-3 minutes to reflect in journal writing upon those questions. They are then prompted to analyze where the test questions came from (book, notes, power point, lab, supplemental essay, online materials, etc.) It may be helpful to have students work collaboratively for this.     

An Analysis of the Test—Where the Information Came From

  • For each question identify where the test question came from:
    • Book (B)
    • In-class notes (C)
    • Online materials (O)
    • Supplemental readings (S)
    • Not sure (?)

After identifying where the test information came from, students are then prompted to reflect in journal writing upon the questions they missed and how they might study differently based upon the questions they missed and where the questions came from. For example, a student may realize that he or she missed all of the questions that came from the book. That student may then make a goal to synthesizing class notes right after class with material from the book 30 minutes after class, and then use note reduction to create a concept map to study for the next test.

Another student might realize that he or she missed questions because of test-taking errors. For example, she didn’t carefully read the entire question and then chose the wrong response. To resolve this issue, she decided she would underline question words on the test and in attempt to slow down while reading test questions. She also realized that she changed several responses that she had correct. She will resist the urge to overthink her choices and change responses on the next test.

Next, students are taught about Bloom’s Taxonomy and how it is used by professors to write exams. In small groups, students then use Bloom’s Taxonomy to identify question types. This will take about 20-30 minutes—depending upon the length of the test. For example, students would identify the following test question as a comprehension-level question: Which of the following best describes positive reinforcement? Whereas, the following question would be noted as an application-level question: Amy’s parents give her a lollipop every time she successfully uses the toilet. What type of reinforcement is this?

Question Type: Identify What Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy the Test Question is Assessing

  • Knowledge-level questions
  • Comprehension
  • Application
  • Analysis
  • Synthesis
  • Evaluation

Students sometimes struggle with distinguishing the different levels of questions. So, it is helpful to also ask small groups to share their identified questions with the large group, as well as how they determined it to be that level of question. The professor also is a helpful resource in this discussion.

After discussion of the questions types, students then return to individual reflection, as they are asked to count the number of questions they missed for each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They are also asked to reflect upon what new strategies they will use to study based on this new awareness.

Adding It All Up

  • Count the number of questions missed in each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
  • Which types of questions did you miss most often?
  • Compare this with your study methods.
  • What adjustments might you make in your studying and learning of class material based on this information? Which levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy do you need to focus more on with your studying?

Finally, students are asked to use the class reflections and post-test assessment to create a new learning plan for the course. (See the learning plan in my previous post, Facilitating Metacognition in the Classroom: Teaching to the Needs of Your Students). Creating the Learning Plan could be a graded assignment that students are asked to do outside of class and then turn in. Students could also be referred to the Academic Resource Center on campus for additional support in formulating the Learning Plan. Additionally, a similar post-test assessment could be assigned outside of class for subsequent exams and be assigned a point value. This would allow for ongoing metacognitive reflection and self-regulated learning.

This type Cognitive Strategy Instruction (Scheid, 1993) embedded into the classroom offers students a chance to become more aware of their own cognitive processes, strategies for improving learning, and the practice of using cognitive and metacognitive processes in assessing their success (Livingston, 2003). Importantly, these types of reflective assignments move students away from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006). As Masters (2013) pointed out “Assessment information of this kind provides starting points for teaching and learning.” Additionally, because post-test assessment offers students greater self-efficacy, control of their own learning, purpose, and an emphasis on the learning rather than the test score, it also positively affects motivation (VanZile-Tamsen & Livingston, 1999).

References

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Balantine Books.

Efklides, A. (2008). Metacognition: Defining its facets and levels of functioning in relation to self-regulation and co-regulation. European Psychologist, 13 (4), 277-287. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232452693_Metacognition_Defining_Its_Facets_ad_Levels_of_Functioning_in_Relation_to_Self-Regulation_and_Co-regulation

Livingston, J. A. (2003). Metacognition: An overview. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED474273.pdf

Masters, G. N. (2013). Towards a growth mindset assessment. Retrieved from https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=ar_misc

Palmer, D. J., & Goetz, E. T. (1988). Selection and use of study strategies: The role of studier’s beliefs about self and strategies. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 41-61). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Palmer, D. J., & Goetz, E. T. (1988). Selection and use of study strategies: The role of studier’s beliefs about self and strategies. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 41-61). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Pintrich, P. R., & DeGroot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40

Palmer, D. J., & Goetz, E. T. (1988). Selection and use of study strategies: The role of studier’s beliefs about self and strategies. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 41-61). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Pintrich, P. R., & DeGroot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40

Pintrich, P. R., & DeGroot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40.

VanZile-Tamsen, C. & Livingston, Jennifer. J. A. (1999). The differential impact of motivation on the self regulated strategy use of high- and low-achieving college student. Journal of College Student Develompment, (40)1, 54-60. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232503812_The_differential_impact_of_motivation_on_the_self-regulated_strategy_use_of_high-_and_low-achieving_college_students

Vogeley, K., Kurthen, M., Falkai, P., & Maier, W. (1999). Essential functions of the human self model are implemented in the prefrontal cortex. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 343-363.


To Infinity and Beyond: Metacognition Outside the Classroom

by Kyle E. Conlon, Ph.D., Stephen F. Austin State University

My wife, Lauren, and I met in graduate school while pursuing our doctoral degrees in social psychology. Since then, we’ve taught abroad in London, moved to two different states, landed jobs at the same institution—our offices are literally right next to each other’s—bought a house, and had a child. It’s fair to say that our personal and professional lives interweave. One of the great joys of having an academic partner is having someone with whom I can share the challenges and triumphs of teaching. Although we have long promoted the benefits of metacognition in our classrooms, we use metacognition in so many other domains of our lives as well. But the link between metacognitive practice in the classroom and real-world problem solving isn’t always clear for students.

In this post, I’ll discuss how facilitating metacognition among your students can benefit them long after they’ve finished your class, with an emphasis on two important life goals: financial planning and healthy eating.

Metacognition and Money

At first glance, a college student may find little connection between thinking about his or her test performance in an introductory psychology class and building a well-diversified investment portfolio years later. But the two are more intimately linked than they appear. Students who possess high metacognitive awareness are able to identify, assess, and reflect on the effectiveness of their study strategies. This process requires the development and cultivation of accurate self-assessment and self-monitoring skills (Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009). As teachers, then, we serve as primary stakeholders in our students’ metacognitive development.

Just as successful students think about their own thinking, successful investors spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage their money—how to invest it (stocks, bonds, REITs, etc.), how long to invest it, how to reallocate earnings over time, and so on. Smart investing is virtually impossible without metacognition: it requires you to continually assess and reassess your financial strategies as the markets move and shake.

Even if your students don’t plan on being the next Warren Buffet, financial thinking will play a central role in their lives. Budgeting, buying a house or a car, saving for retirement, paying off debt—all of these actions require some level of financial literacy (not to mention self-control). Of course, I’m not saying that students need a degree in finance to accomplish these goals, just that they are more easily attainable with strong metacognitive skills.

Indeed, financial security is elusive for many; for instance, the 2018 Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households found that many adults would struggle with a modest unexpected expense. There are real financial obstacles that families face, for sure. Because financial literacy has broad implications, from participation in the stock market (Van Rooj et al., 2011) to retirement planning (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007), the transfer of metacognitive skills from academic to financial decisions may be especially paramount.

photo of stack of coins with each stack having more, and each stack having a little plant appear to be growing out of it.

Admittedly, when I was an 18-year-old college student, I didn’t think much about this stuff. (I was too busy studying for my psychology exams!) But now, years later, living on a family budget, I have a deep appreciation for how the metacognitive awareness I cultivated as a student prepared me to think about and plan for my financial future. For your students, the exams will end, but the challenges of adulthood lie ahead. Successfully navigating many of these challenges will require your students to be metacognitive about money.

Metacognition and Food

As with planning for one’s financial future, eating healthy food is a considerable challenge that involves tradeoffs: Do I eat the salad so I can keep my cholesterol low, or do I enjoy this piece of delicious fried chicken right now, cholesterol be damned? Anyone who’s ever struggled with eating healthy food knows that peak motivation tends to occur shortly after committing to the goal. You go to the grocery store and buy all the fruits and vegetables to replace the unhealthy food in your fridge, only to throw away most of it later that same week. Why is eating healthfully so difficult?

There is an important role for metacognition here. When I teach my Health Psychology students about healthy eating, I draw the habit cycle on the whiteboard: cue à routine à reward (Duhigg, 2012). I tell students that breaking a bad habit requires changing one piece of the cycle (routine). Keep the cue (“I’m hungry”) and the reward (“I feel good”) the same, just change the routine from mindlessly eating a bag of potato chips to purposefully eating an apple. Implicit in this notion is the need to be aware of what you’re eating and the benefits of doing so—in other words, metacognition. Another idea is to have students draw out their steps through the grocery store so they can see which aisles they tend to avoid and which aisles they tend to visit (the ones with processed food). Students gain metacognitive awareness by literally retracing their steps.

In college, I survived on sugar, sugar, and more sugar. (One category short of Buddy the Elf’s four main food groups.) Since then, my metabolism has slowed considerably. Fortunately, with the help of metacognition, I’ve changed my diet for the better. I also cook most meals for our family, so I’m constantly thinking about meal plans, combinations of healthy ingredients, and so on. For me, as for many people, healthy eating didn’t occur overnight; it was a long process of habit change aided by awareness and reflection of the food I was consuming. The good news for your students is that they have several opportunities every day to think intently about their food choices.

The Broad Reach of Metacognition

As a teacher, I love those “lightbulb” moments when a student makes a connection that was previously unnoticed. In this post, I’ve tried to connect metacognition in the classroom to two important life domains. By fostering metacognition, you’re indirectly and perhaps unknowingly teaching your students how to make sound decisions about their finances and eating habits—and probably hundreds of other important life decisions. Metacognition is not limited to exam grades and paper rubrics; it’s not confined to our classrooms. It’s one of those special, omnipresent skills that will help students flourish in ways they’ll never see coming.

References

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2019). Report on the economic well-being of U.S. households in 2018. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2018-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201905.pdf

Duhigg, C. (2012). The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. Random House.

Dunlosky, J., & Metcalfe, J. (2009). Metacognition. Sage Publications, Inc.

Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2007). Financial literacy and retirement preparedness: Evidence and implications for financial education. Business Economics, 42(1), 35‒44.

Van Rooj, M., Lusardi, A., & Alessie, R. (2011). Financial literacy and stock market participation. Journal of Financial Economics, 101(2), 449‒472.


Creating a Proactive Transition for the College Student with LD (Part lll): An Elevator Pitch and the Two O’s

By Mary L. Hebert, PhD; Campus Director, The Regional Center for Learning Disabilities; Fairleigh Dickinson University

I have submitted earlier posts (Part 1; Part 2) that have addressed the transition for high school seniors with a learning disability (LD). I’d like to further propose two concepts from the counselor corner of my work with students with learning disabilities and executive function challenges as they navigate their new college learning environment: an elevator pitch and the two O’s.

Elevator Pitch spelled out in colored blocks

Points of transition, whether perceived as positive or negative, are typically experienced as stressors just by design of being human. Transitions are potentially more stressful for students who have spent a learning career managing an LD.  Anticipatory responses to a transition can include anxiety and concerns about navigating the pace and content of a new academic environment. For a student with an LD, this can feel not just like a change of pace, but rather a frenzied experience without proper preparation.

Metacognition offers an outstanding framework for preparing for this new learning environment. Self-reflection and intrapersonal awareness as far as how the LD has impacted one socially, cognitively and emotionally is an excellent endeavor in order to prepare for the requisite independence of mind and action to tackle the adjustment ahead in college.

Students who have had a documented LD during their k-12 years experience concerns developmentally typical of all new college students:

  • Will I succeed in this new environment?
  • Will I make new friends?
  • How will I manage on my own?

Students with LD, however, sometimes may experience more significant concerns as a result of their prior educational experiences. As these high school seniors transition, they will need to prepare for a new learning environment, one where they are starting everything anew and independently. They will not have the familiar support and structure of a case manager, parents, clearly demarcated schedule encompassing their entire day, or other familiar assistive supports that helped them navigate the terrain of their high school educational experience.

In this post I will focus on two concepts that I have utilized during my time as a counselor for college students with LD. Both of these are transition “tools of mind” that provide a metacognitive orientation to adjustment to college life. The first is the importance of having an Elevator Pitch at the ready upon entry to college. The second is the awareness and reflection on The Two O’s: opportunities and obstacles. As stated in my prior posts, my mission is to support students by helping them prepare, which will ease transition stress and increase readiness. Preparation prevents perspiration!

The Elevator Pitch

We have all heard this expression as it relates to the opportunities in business and ‘selling oneself’ for a position when one does not have much time to pitch their fit for a job. In the case of a student with LD, they will need to be able to independently articulate their needs to relevant others in the college setting. For students with LD it may be challenging to speak in an impromptu fashion with individuals they do not know well. A prepared elevator pitch will help them in such situations.

The elevator pitch becomes particularly important when a student will need to advocate on their own behalf. Self – advocacy skills are significantly associated with success in the college setting. Having a parsimonious, prepared statement of one’s needs at the ready can be advantageous for the student with a LD entering a new learning environment and adjusting to more independent self-advocacy.

An accurate self- assessment or metacognitive reflection of one’s strengths, skills sets and challenges is essential for academic as well as future career selection. Often times, students who have moved through their education with an LD have had to focus significantly on tackling skills sets such as reading, writing, math and other core academic skills. This focus can take away from time spent considering their goals and strengths, which should be the foundation for self-advocacy.  Solid self-advocacy improves the likelihood for a gratifying personal and career experience (Palmer and Roessler, 2000).

I suggest that students be proactive and prepare a metacognitive reflection of their LD, characteristics of its impact on their academics, and what they know to be helpful in their educational environment. It is also key for them to become knowledgeable about college-level accommodations and the rights they will have in college to seek out services for their learning needs. It is advantageous to apply metacognition in a way that will foster an opportunity to  reflect and prepare a succinct, effective pitch that achieves key goals as they adjust to their new learning environment. These key goals include:

  • Self Advocacy
  • Self Awareness
  • Self Efficacy

I like to think of these three goals as the ultimate selfies!  The ability to convey their learning needs and goals to their disability coordinator, a professor, a tutor or another professional in their college environment will be essential to have at the ready. Doing so will decrease stress and increase the ultimate selfies.

Obstacles and Opportunities (the two O’s)

There will be both opportunities and obstacles. Simply and plainly, there is no escaping either for ANY student. Preparing in a metacognitive manner about both these types of eventual experiences will benefit any student but particularly a student with a history of LD.  Provide metacognitive reflection prompts by asking these or similar questions of your student:

  • What have been some successes in your educational career thus far?
  • What have you learned from these? How have they helped you move ahead in regard to the ultimate selfies?
  • What have been some obstacles in your educational career thus far?
  • What have you gained from these challenges? How have they advanced your movement toward your educational goals?

This metacognitive reflection provides the bedrock for continued reflection at the college level.  From the counselor’s chair it is a continued dialogue of self-discovery as the student ultimately encounters and reflects on opportunities and obstacles. The reflection prompts also provide a vocabulary to frame experiences that feel elusive (the opportunities) as well as the stressors (the obstacles), and these prompts promote turning the latter into openings for growth. And yes, they contribute to the ultimate selfies.

In conclusion, my wish is that the summer brings forth much needed time for students to relax, and have fun. But, importantly, the summer is also the ideal time to reflect on the path traveled thus far and prepare for the future. Metacognition offers an effective tool to apply to past educational endeavors, pave the way for the next educational transition, and create a foundation for success.

Palmer, C. and Richard T. Roessler (2000). Requesting Classroom Accommodations: Self Advocacy and Conflict Resolution Training for College Students with Disabilities. Journal of Rehabilitation. 66 (3): 38-43


Learning about learning: A student perspective

by Caroline Mueller, B.S., Clinical Anatomy PhD student, University of Mississippi Medical Center

Intro: In this guest editor miniseries, “The Evolution of Metacognition”, we will be discussing a progression of metacognitive awareness and development of metacognition in multiple stages of education, from undergraduate, to graduate and professional students, and even faculty. In this first post Caroline Mueller, a doctoral student in an anatomy education program, is providing a student perspective.  She shares reflections on learning about metacognition, how it has shaped her approaches to learning, and how it is influencing her as an emerging educator.  ~Audra Schaefer, PhD, guest editor

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As a second-year graduate student hearing the word “metacognition” for the first time, I thought the idea of “thinking about thinking” seemed like another activity necessitated by teachers to take up more time. After looking into what metacognition actually meant and the processes it entails, my mindset changed. It is logical to think about the thought processes that occur during learning. Engaging in metacognitive thought seems like an obvious, efficient activity for students to do to test their knowledge—yet very few do it, myself included. In undergrad, I prided myself on getting high grades, thinking that my method of reading, re-writing, memorizing, and then repeating was a labor-intensive but effective method. It did the job, and it resulted in high grades. However, if my goals included retaining the content, this method failed me. If someone today asked me about the Krebs Cycle, I could not recite it like I could for the test, and I definitely could not tell you about its function (something to do with glucose and energy?).

Upon entering graduate school, what I thought were my “fool-proof” methods of study soon became insufficient and fallible. The work load in medical gross anatomy and medical histology increased by at least 20 times (well, it felt like it anyway). It was laborious to keep up with taking notes in lecture, re-writing, reading the text, and then testing myself with practice questions. I felt as though I was drowning in information, and I saw a crippling arthritis in my near future. I then faced my first devastating grade. I felt cheated that my methods did not work, and I wondered why. Needing a change, I started trying different study methods. I started reviewing the information, still re-writing, but self-quizzing with a small group of classmates instead of by myself. We would discuss what we got wrong and explain answers if we knew them. It helped me improve my grades, but I wish I had more guidance about metacognition at that point.

As I begin studying for my terrifying qualifying exams this semester, I am currently facing the daunting task of studying all the material I have learned in the last 2 years of graduate school. Easy task, right? Even though you may sense my dread, I have a different approach to studying because of what I’ve recently learned about metacognition. An important aspect of metacognition is self-assessment, using tools such as pre-assessment and the most confusing point (muddiest point). The pre-assessment is a tool that allows students to examine their current understanding of a topic and to direct them to think about what they do and do not know. It helps guide students to focus their efforts on those elements they do not know or understand well (Tanner, 2012). The muddiest point tool can be used at the end of a long day of studying. Students reflect on the information covered in a class or study session and assess what was the muddiest point (Tanner, 2012).

Both tools have shaped my approach to studying.  Now I study by human body systems, starting each system off by writing what I do know about the subject and then writing down what I want to know by the end of my review. This aids in my assessment of what I do and do not know, so that I can orient myself to where I struggle the most. At first, it seemed like a time-intensive activity, but it quickly made me realize that it was more efficient then rewriting and rereading the content I already knew. I implemented muddiest point in my studies too because after a strenuous day of trying to grasp intense information, I end up feeling like I still do not know anything. After reviewing the information and filling in the gaps, at the end of my week of review, I quiz myself and ask myself what I was most confusing. It helps me plan for future study sessions.

Metacognition feels like it takes a lot of time when you first start doing it because it makes the learner deal with the difficult parts of a subject matter. Students, myself included, want the act of acquiring new information to be rewarding, quick, and an affirmation of their competency of the material. An example of this is when I would get an answer correct when I did practice questions while preparing for an exam, but I never thought about why the correct answer was correct. Getting it right could have been pure luck; in my mind, I must have known the material. By thinking about the “why,” it prompts students to think deeply about their thought process to picking that answer. This act alone helps solidify understanding of the topic. If one can explain how they got to the answer, or why they believe an answer to be true, it allows them to assess how well they understand the content matter.

cartoon of a brain working out using books as weights

My role as a student is beginning to change—I have become a teacher’s assistant, slowly on my way to full-on teacher status. After learning about metacognition and applying it as a student, I attempted to try it on the students I teach.

For example, an important part of metacognition is learning to recognize what you do and do not know. In anatomy lab, in order to prompt students to think deeper about material, I ask students what they know, rather than just giving them the answer to their questions. I let them describe the structure and ask them to explain why they think that structure is what it is.

When I first did this, students resisted—the stress of the first-year medical school makes students desire the answer immediately and to move on. But I persisted in asking questions, explaining to students that finding out what you do know and do not know allows you to focus your studying to filling in those gaps.

Since I am a new convert to teacher assistant from student, students often ask me the best ways to study and about how I studied. I again urge them to take an approach that helps identify gaps in their knowledge. I encourage them to go over the chapter headings and write down what they know about each one, essentially completing a preassessment I previously mentioned.

At this point, I might be a little rough in my approach to instill the incredible power of metacognitive skills in students, but I am still working out the kinks. I am still learning—learning to be an effective teacher, learning the content as a student, and learning to learn about teaching and learning. As a student and a teacher, my hope for the future of my teaching is that I learn how to implement metacognitive methods effectively and to be able to assess these methods and keep trying to improve on them.

Tanner, K.D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11, 113-120. [https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/promoting-student-metacognition/]


Using Metacognition to Support Graduating High School Seniors with a LD to Prepare and Transition Successfully to College (Part II)

by Mary L. Hebert, PhD
Campus Director, The Regional Center for Learning Disabilities,
Fairleigh Dickinson University

High school commencement ushers forth connotations of caps and gowns, goodbyes to four years of familiar teachers, friends, routine, challenges and successes. While the focus seems to be on completing a phase of one’s life, commencement actually means a beginning or a start. With high school now a chapter completed, the summer months will be spent preparing for the transition to college. ALL students entering college will have similar adjustments. Students with a history of a learning disability however, may benefit from a purposeful, strategic, or more metacognitive plan for the transition.

Transition and Related Feelings

Students who have had a 504 or Individualized Education Plan (IEP) during their k-12 years, may face concerns that are similar to other students, yet have a heightened sensitivity to things such as academic performance, managing the pace and independence of college life, leaving behind supports and resources that have been familiar and helpful, and wondering where and if resources at college will be available and/or helpful. They will have similar concerns about making new friends like any first year student, but this may be heightened in particular if a student has had social challenges that have accompanied their LD. Students with a history of LD will often express the challenge of finding balance of work, study, time to relax and be social. Findings by Hall and Webster (2008) indicate that college students with LD indicate self-doubt about being able to perform as well as their non-LD college peers. Encouraging an active preparation to foster self-awareness and building strategies of approach will enrich the metacognitive preparation.

In this post, I will continue my series on how we can use metacognitive practices to support LD students during this transition time (see also Part I). Here I will focus on three key areas including academics, social interactions, and finding balance. Prompts in the form of questions are suggested for each area. Metacognition encourages the enrichment of self-awareness through prompts and reflection to create high level critical thinking and concepts that one can apply to a situation and how one functions.

I propose that metacognition can be applied before day one at college and hopefully assist with a more metacognitive approach to the transition prior to stepping onto campus.

Academics:

Most students ponder how college will be different than high school. Students with learning disabilities frequently ponder this more so. College academics will be different. Typically students experience the differences in coursework to be in regard to the degree of independence in preparing and mastering the material and the pace. Students can be encouraged to converse and even better, to list their reflections to prompts which will increase self-awareness about the differences they anticipate and what strategies they might apply to prepare to respond to managing the differences (i.e. encourage metacognition). Prompts that parents, teachers, tutors, and others familiar with the student can consider may include;

  • How do you think classes will be different in college?
  • What strategies have you learned in high school that you will bring to college?
  • What areas do you still have a hard time with?
  • What resources will there be in college that can help you with these areas?
  • Have you looked on your college website or reached out for more information for resources you will reach out to for support?
  • Is there a program on your campus that specifically responds to the needs of students with LD and are do you intend to reach out to this resource?

Supporting a student in answering and reflecting on these prompts will promote a more metacognitive awareness and ultimately help create a plan for the academic tasks of college. It is the student who is least prepared about the differences between high school and college who may face the most difficulty during the transition. Preparation prevents perspiration and is key to the transition.

Social:

If there were one particular common denominator for transitioning first year students, it is the adjustment to their new social arena on campus. No matter who he or she has been friends with or how many or few, they will need to build a new social circle. Supporting an incoming Freshmen to think about and anticipate changes and choices they will have to make will help them adjust and ponder what is going to be important and a priority for them in the adjustment to their social life at college. In preparation to take on the tasks of social adjustment the goal is to enhance the awareness of what skills will be needed to connect with new friends,

For one’s anticipated social adjustment a person familiar and supportive to the student can prompt the student to respond to the following…

  • How have I been successful in my relationships with peers and authority figures in the past?
  • Where have I had challenges?
  • What two areas do I think need to change?
  • How will these improve how I manage socially?
  • What activities or interests do I have that may be areas I pursue in college clubs or organizations?
  • What resources does my new college have that I can use to help me in making social connections?

These and other prompts can channel past experience into helpful reflection, which will not only help a student organize and reflect on challenges in this arena, but also highlight successes and strengths so that these can become a part of a strategy or plan they can put in their college transition ‘toolbox.’

Balance:

Balance is key for us all and truly a never-ending endeavor; however during the first year it is particularly challenging to establish that balance. Students with LD often have a history of structured support in tackling academics, time management, sleep, recreation, etc. College life will usher in a new life of finding a balance more independently. Time management as well as being adequately organized are two of the most commonly discussed issues. They are key factors toward success as well as factors that interfere with it as well. Encourage your student to once again reflect on some prompts to encourage metacognitive reflection and promote a plan of approach. Consider the following:

  • What is your plan for keeping track of your course work and other commitments (social, clubs, appointments etc)? A traditional planner book? A digital planning system?
  • What efforts to stay organized have worked in the past? Why/why not?
  • What has not worked in the past? Why/why not?
  • How will you fit in sleep, wellness needs, recreation, and other commitments with school work?
  • What will be challenging in doing this?
  • What will be the red flags you are having a hard time finding a balance?
  • What will be your plan of action if you are having a hard time with the balance of college life?
  • What will be your go to resources on campus and off campus to support you in finding balance?

In conclusion, supportive prompts and reflection will promote awareness, critical thinking, and purposeful planning for these issues in the transition to college. Doing so prior to day one of college is helpful, but it can also be continued as the student enters college and embraces the new realities of college life.

Understanding how one approaches academics is particularly important for a student with a learning disability. This will be key for college wellness and help them navigate the transition. By applying metacognition, the student can be encouraged to not only think about their thinking about these concepts of academics, social development and finding balance but also to discern strategies to apply and increase the value of their perception of capacity to self-manage the challenges ahead. With these skills in hand, self-advocacy is heightened, which is a key element of success for college students with learning disabilities.

Hall, Cathy W. and Raymond E. Webster (2008). Metacognitive and Affective Factors of College Students With and Without Learning Disabilities. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability. 21 (1)


Metacognition supports HIP undergraduate research

by Dr. John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has identified a number of high-impact learning practices (e.g., undergraduate research, collaborative assignments, learning communities, service learning, study abroad, capstone seminars). Each of these learning practices involve a significant investment of student effort over time with multiple interactions between faculty and students about substantive matters as well as frequent,constructive feedback from faculty, and regular, structured processes for reflection and integration (Kuh 2008; Kilgo, Sheets & Pascarella 2015). This post offers some strategies for intentionally structuring undergraduate research experiences and building metacognition into the process. Subsequent posts will consider other high-impact practices (HIPs).

 Undergraduate research is a HIP because students ask the questions and set the research agenda. Inquiry-based projects, such as undergraduate research, promote student autonomy, self-direction, and teach students about the process (Healey & Jenkins 2009; Kilgo & Pascarella 2016). Without guidance, however, students can find themselves in a hot mess. After years of mentoring undergraduate research projects in philosophy, I’ve developed the following model to help keep students on track. Elements of this model may seem obvious and common practice. I don’t claim that it is novel, but I offer it as a distillation of some lessons that I’ve learned the hard way.

First, philosophers like to ask the big questions (and they should), but unless topics are reined in, student research can easily turn to sprawl and sloppy thinking. Thus, I talk with students about topic refinement early and often. I begin student meetings by asking them to give a one-minute “elevator pitch” for their topic. As the topic gets refined, the pitch becomes easier. En route to refining the topic and developing the elevator pitch, I ask a series of critical questions about the underlying conceptual issues. For example, if a student wants to consider what parents owe their children, I will push her to consider the nature of obligation (e.g., human rights, fairness, well-being, character, social roles) and concrete cases that may or may not fall within the scope of that obligation (e.g., providing food, a new bike, college tuition). Prodding them to consider the nature and scope of the obligation prompts them to consider the underlying philosophical substructure, which is what I believe philosophical inquiry is all about (Draeger 2014). However, once students begin making deep conceptual connections, it is easy for a topic to sprawl as students believe that each connected idea will need its own separate discussion. Metacognition encourages students to be aware of their own learning process (e.g., research) and make intentional adjustments based on that awareness. Encouraging students to be aware of the possibility topic sprawl can help them better evaluate whether their current thinking is moving away from the core issue or towards a better version of that core issue.

Second, all of us are standing on the shoulders of giants. It is good scholarship to acknowledge the original thinking efforts of others by using proper citation. However, the research experience should teach students more than to not plagiarize. Rather, undergraduate research allows students the opportunity to become co-inquirers within an existing scholarly conversation. Becoming familiar with the literature allows them to tap into long-standing debates and utilize conceptual distinctions developed by others. As students begin their research, each comes with their own background and dispositions. Some believe they need to read everything on a topic before they venture an opinion. Others are so eager to begin that they skip the literature review and soon find themselves lost without the resources found within the tradition. Metacognition can help students become aware of when they are reading too much or too little as well as point the way to adjustments in their process.

Third, many students struggle with how to find the relevant source material in philosophy. Even if they know how to use the library, they are often unfamiliar with idiosyncrasies of philosophy as a discipline. For this reason, I explicitly discuss how to go about doing library work (e.g., how to use library databases, how to conduct keyword searches, how to decide which articles seem promising), discuss reading strategies (e.g., how to read at different speeds to find articles most deserving attention, how to read identified articles more carefully, how to annotate a text with an eye towards research), and discuss note taking strategies (e.g., how to organize summaries, critical questions, conceptual applications, personal reflections). When undergraduate research is embedded in my course, we discuss these strategies in class. When undergraduate research takes the form of an independent project, I discuss these strategies one-on-one. In either case, I encourage students to practice becoming aware of what’s working, what’s not, and when they need to adjust their strategies.

Fourth, my undergraduate research students are required to keep a weekly journal. Students are asked to track pesky questions, troublesome counter-examples, and worrisome objections. Beyond their focus on content, however, students are also asked to focus on their own process, including a sketch of the library, reading, and writing strategies attempted as well as whether those strategies were successful. Journaling about these strategies is another way to encourage metacognitive awareness about the research process and locate opportunities for intentional self-regulation.

Undergraduate research can be a HIP (if implemented well) because it encourages students to learn about the research process on their own terms as well as producing their own research product. Metacognition helps monitor whether students are engaged in the sort of deep learning that makes undergraduate research a HIP.  Moreover, intentionally structuring metacognitive opportunities can encourage greater learner autonomy and help facilitate inquiry-based research long after undergraduate experiences have officially concluded. In this way, undergraduate research and metacognition can be highly-impactful because they support the skills necessary for lifelong learning.

References

Draeger, J. (posted July 11, 2014). Using metacognition to uncover the substructure of moral issues.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com.

Healey, M., & Jenkins, A. (2009). Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. York: HE Academy.

Kilgo, C. A., Sheets, J. K. E., & Pascarella, E. T. (2015). The link between high-impact practices and student learning: Some longitudinal evidence. Higher Education, 69(4), 509-525.

Kilgo, C. A., & Pascarella, E. T. (2016). Does independent research with a faculty member enhance four-year graduation and graduate/professional degree plans? Convergent results with different analytical methods. Higher Education, 71(4), 575-592.

Kuh, G. D. (2008). Excerpt from high-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Association of American Colleges and Universities.


How to Get the Most Out of Studying

Dr. Stephen Chew has put together a highly lauded series of short videos that share with students some powerful principles of effective learning, including metacognition. His goal was to create a resource that students can view whenever and as often as they want.

They include

  • Video 1: Beliefs That Make You Fail…Or Succeed
  • Video 2: What Students Should Understand About How People Learn
  • Video 3: Cognitive Principles for Optimizing Learning
  • Video 4: Putting the Principles for Optimizing Learning into Practice
  • Video 5: I Blew the Exam, Now What?

Links to the videos can be found here:

https://www.samford.edu/departments/academic-success-center/how-to-study

Dr. Chew also provides an overview handout that summarizes the purposes of the videos, gives guidance on how to use them, and outlines the main points within the videos:

https://www.samford.edu/departments/files/Academic_Success_Center/How-to-Study-Teaching_Resources.pdf


Where Should I Start With Metacognition?

by Patrick Cunningham, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Have you ever had a student say something like this to you? “I know the material, I just couldn’t show you on the exam.” How do you respond?

I have heard such comments from students and I think it exemplifies two significant deficiencies.

First, students are over-reliant on rehearsal learning strategies. Rehearsal is drill-and-practice or repetitive practice aimed at memorization and pattern matching. Such practices lead to surface learning and shallow processing. Students know facts and can reproduce solutions to familiar problems, but struggle when the problem looks different. Further, when faced with real-world situations they are often not even able to identify the need for the material let alone apply it. Only knowing material by rote is insufficient for fluency with it. For example, I can memorize German vocabulary and grammar rules, but engaging someone from Germany in a real conversation requires much more than just knowing words and grammar.

Second, students are inaccurate in their self-assessments of their learning, which can lead to false confidence and poor learning choices (Ehrlinger & Shain 2014). Related to this, I have developed a response to our hypothetical student. I ask, “How do you know you know the material?” In reply, students commonly point to looking over notes, looking over homework, reworking examples or homework problems, or working old exams – rehearsal strategies. I often follow up by asking how they assessed their ability to apply the material in new situations. This often brings a mixture of surprise and confusion. I then try to help them discover that while they are familiar with the concepts, they are not fluent with them. Students commonly confuse familiarity with understanding. Marilla Svinicki (2004) calls this the Illusion of Comprehension, and others have called it the illusion of fluency. Continuing the language example, I could more accurately test my knowledge of German by attempting and practicing conversations in German rather than just doing flashcards on vocabulary and grammar rules. Unless we employ concrete, demonstrable, and objective measures of our understanding, we are prone to inaccurate self-assessment and overconfidence. And, yes, we and our students are susceptible to these maladies. We can learn about and improve ourselves as we help our students.

Addressing these two deficiencies can be a good place to start with metacognition. Metacognition is the knowledge and regulation of our thinking processes. Our knowledge of strategies for building deeper understanding and our awareness of being susceptible to the illusion of comprehension are components of metacognitive knowledge. Our ability to regulate our thinking (learning) and apply appropriate learning strategies is critically dependent on accurate self-assessment of our level of understanding and our learning processes, specifically, in metacognitive monitoring and evaluation. So how can we support our students’ metacognitive development in these areas?

To help our students know about and use a broader range of learning strategies, we can introduce them to new strategies and give them opportunities to practice them. To learn more deeply, we need to help students move beyond rehearsal strategies. Deeper learning requires expanding and connecting the things we know, and is facilitated by elaborative and organizational learning strategies. Elaboration strategies aid the integration of knowledge into our knowledge frameworks by adding detail, summarizing, and creating examples and analogies. Organizational strategies impose structure on material and help us describe relationships among its elements (Dembo & Seli 2013).

We can help our students elaborate their knowledge by asking them to: 1) explain their solutions or mistakes they find in a provided solution; 2) generate and solve “what-if” scenarios based on example problems (such as, “what if it changed from rolling without slipping to rolling with slipping”); and 3) create and solve problems involving specific course concepts. We can help our students discover the structure of material by asking them to: 1) create concept maps or mind maps (though you may first need to help them learn what these are and practice creating them); 2) annotate their notes from a prior day or earlier in the period; and 3) reorganize and summarize their notes. Using these strategies in class builds students’ familiarity with them and improves the likelihood of students employing them on their own. Such strategies help students achieve deeper learning, knowing material better and making it more accessible and useable in different situations (i.e., more transferable). For example, a student who achieved deeper learning in a system dynamics course will be more likely to recognize the applicability of a specific dynamic model to understand and design a viscosity experiment in an experiment design class.

To help our students engage in more accurate self-assessment we can aid their discovery of being susceptible to inaccurate self-perceptions and give them opportunities to practice strategies that provide concrete, demonstrable, and objective measures of learning. We can be creative in helping students recognize their propensity for inaccuracy. I use a story about an awkward conversation I had about the location of a youth hostel while travelling in Germany as an undergraduate student. I spent several minutes with my pocket dictionary figuring out how to ask the question, “Wissen Sie wo die Jugendherberge ist?” When the kind stranger responded, I discovered I was nowhere near fluent in German. It takes more than vocabulary and grammar to be conversant in the German language!

We can help our students practice more accurate self-assessment by asking them to: 1) engage in brief recall and review sessions (checking completeness and correctness of their recalled lists); 2) self-testing without supports (tracking the time elapsed and correctness of solution); 3) explaining solutions (noticing the coherence, correctness, and fluency of their responses); and 4) creating and solving problems based on specific concepts (again, noting correctness of their solution and the time elapsed). Each of these strategies creates observable and objective measures (examples noted in parentheses) capable of indicating level of understanding. When I have students do brief (1-2 minute) recall exercises in class, I have them note omissions and incorrect statements as they review their notes and compare with peers. These indicate concepts they do not know as well.

Our students are over-reliant on rehearsal learning strategies and struggle to accurately assess their learning. We can help our students transform their learning by engaging them with a broader suite of learning strategies and concrete and objective measures of learning. By starting here, we are helping our students develop transferable metacognitive skills and knowledge, capable of improving their learning now, in our class, and throughout their lives.

References

Ehrlinger, J., & Shain, E. A. (2014). How Accuracy in Students’ Self Perceptions Relates to Success in Learning. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.). Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

Svinicki, M. (2004). Learning and motivation in the postsecondary classroom. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Dembo, M. & Seli, H. (2013). Motivation and learning strategies for college success: A focus on self-regulated learning (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.


Contemplating Contemplative Pedagogy

by Alison Staudinger, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin – Green Bay

Like many trained in the academy, I am skeptical of “woo”– practices with trappings of scientific import, but lacking empirical evidence. This is despite my recognition that science has always been suffused by power and social hierarchy in the very framing of its questions. In my pedagogical life, this means it has taken me a long time to warm up to “mindfulness,” a powerful, relatively recent trend in education. Mindfulness is sometimes touted as the solution to many serious problems— lack of emotional constraint, student stress and even faculty burnout. Some might wonder if its popularity doesn’t merely adjust us to the difficulties of life in late capitalism, which in the classroom often appear through long days of emotional labor. But, of course, there are branches of mindfulness associated with nearly every culture and major religion on the globe, many with complex histories and practices that have clearly been important for humans long before our fears of robot overlords emerged. Still, I tend towards asking many of my students to come into more contact with the world, not less, as I feared that meditation or the like might do. Contemplation might be good for self-care, I thought— or working through one’s own “shadow self,” just like therapy, but the justice-oriented classroom requires the tools of critique and conflict. Or does it?

My above assumptions were powerfully challenged at the The Center for Contemplative Mind’s Summer Session on Contemplative Learning in August of 2017, where I spent a week exploring the “tree” of contemplative pedagogy and practice, and did more coloring and dancing than at any other academic experience to date. I want to share three important concepts that might be useful for integrating a mindful approach to metacognition into your life or classroom. Ed Nufer has already written on the focus on the “present” that mindfulness brings, and Chris Was asked us to reconsider the relationship between mindfulness and metacognition. It is my hope that these three concepts are a tiny contribution to that reconsideration, and counter the idea that mindfulness practitioners seek to move beyond the self, rather than reflect on their learning.

First, presenter Kakali Bhattacharya shared how mindfulness helps her flourish in the often hostile institutional spaces of academia. Bhattacharya uses the image of a cup overflowing, saying that you must give to others from the overflow and thus must keep your cup full. For her, mindfulness as a method of self-care was coupled with a commitment to “post-oppositional” thinking and politics. Post-oppositionality requires rejecting existing narratives that frame struggles as Machichean battles between good and evil, a move that is difficult in our partisan times. However, this ability to recognize non-absolutes in a political sense may bear dividends in an intellectual one. Drawing on this, I replaced an assignment that had students debate two contrasting positions with one where they tried to reimagine the problem, offer a variety of solutions, or response from a position of intellectual humility about their own stance. While our in-class process was messy, their ultimate papers on the topic were creative and veered away from the same two arguments I’m used to reading.

The second concept, closely related to post-oppositionality, is “negative capability,” an idea taken from John Keats’ correspondence but now popular in psychology and business. Negative capacity names the ability to tolerate uncertainty, or, as Keats says, to be “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reach after fact and reason……”. (Cite Research). This might seem initially a strange concept to link to metacognition— it seems initially to involve not thinking about thinking, or, rather, willingly allowing yourself to think two contradictory things or to dwell in a lack of knowledge or understanding. For Keats, this is a process of imagination preferable to that of thinking, in the technical sense. Keats, as a Romantic, is generally understood as a critic of reason and fan of feeling. His poetic practice involves inhabiting the minds of his characters and even objects; he wrote that he could imagine a billiard ball enjoying “its own roundness, smoothness, volubility and the rapidity of its motion.” Cultivating these spaces of flow, or negative capability, might increase our ability to also reflect on our own learning and thinking, even as we, in those moments, refrain from committing to them or even to our own identity. Certainly an exercise to explore this idea would be easy to devise— although actually inhabiting an object is harder to do. In a class on ecology, imagining oneself as a plant and perhaps writing from that perspective might open up new vistas but also encourage negative capacity as a tendency of mind.

My mindfulness experience also left me wondering about the costs of integrating some of these practices into student learning shorn of their embeddedness into spiritual or cultural traditions, which brings me to the third concept— of avoiding treating mindfulness as a mere means to an end. Meditation is central to buddhism, but also to a variety of indigenous spiritual practices, and I wondered if they would work without this framework. Were they turned into, as one presenter worried, “McMindfulness” practices? One person I met was passionate about the notion that in meditation there is “No path, no wisdom, no gain” — a radical de-instrumentalization of the practice. To fully understand this saying would take a great deal of meditation, but I began to recognize throughout the week that the focus on the inward development that can occur in mindful practice was, paradoxically, likely to bear more fruit if not linked to specific goals or learning objectives from the outside. This realization was very hard to think about integrating in my classrooms— as each day is driven by specific goals linked to broader course objectives. My challenge for this year is to develop the negative capacity I need in order to engage in some of these practices with my students non-instrumentally while also recognizing the benefits research has shown for improving learning, happiness and health. And, I may need a commitment to post-oppositionality to navigate barriers to “woo” in some academic cultures.


Tackling your “Laundry” List through Metacognitive Goal Setting

by Tara Beziat at Auburn University at Montgomery

On almost every to-do list I make these days is the word “Laundry.” With two kiddos and a husband who is an avid exerciser, our laundry quickly piles up. Recently, when I told my husband I had everything washed, I paused and thought about my goal of getting the laundry done. I can never actually get it all done. The goal is too broad and it is not time bound. I paused again and thought here I go again being metacognitive: I have goals; I am monitoring them and seeing if I meet them; I realized I needed to make adjustments. In going through this metacognitive process at home, I realized there were applications in my classroom too. I needed to help my students reframe their goals of “reading the textbook or “studying” and build better plans to reach them.

Backwards Planning

The first thing we need to do with goal setting is to build better plans to reach those goals, which research suggests could involve working backwards from the end state of those goals, (Jooyoung, Lu & Hedgock; 2017). It seems that when we have distant goals that involve many tasks, like a comprehensive exam, mid-term project or final presentation, a variety of issues come into play. Inadvertently, obstacles or “speed bumps” slow down our momentum towards the end goal and leave us discouraged. By starting with the end goal (e.g. comprehensive exam) and working backwards to the present time, we often anticipate these potential hurdles. This type planning also leads to the creation of sub-goals. The relatively immediacy of these sub-goals and then the completion of them leads to greater motivation in meeting the final goal.

What this means in my course is that I need to help students develop a timeline, so they see all of the tasks and activities they need to do to reach their end goals. As we develop this timeline, we will work backwards. As we chart out the plan for success, we can acknowledge potential hurdles that may require them to take more time with one task or even shift their preparation. If a large project is due the Monday after the Iron Bowl, a significant event here in Alabama, they may need to consider when they can work on the project prior to that game. By forecasting these “speed bumps,” and planning out the steps in reverse to reach their ultimate goals.

Set Specific Goals

Schunk (1990) identified specificity as one of the keys in goal setting. When we set specific goals, we can better gauge the amount of time and effort it will take to complete this goal. Specificity also allows for better monitoring, a key component in being metacognitive, and can lead to increased self-efficacy as one meets these goals. So students’ goals of “doing well in the course” or “studying harder” are not specific enough and need to be adjusted. To do well in the course, students need to consider what does this actually mean and what sub-tasks are involved to reach this goal. For example, they need to consider what they need to get on the various quizzes and assignments in the course if they want to have an A. This leads to a discussion about preparing for class, allocating study time and allocating time to assignments for the course. All of these can go on this timeline where we work backwards.

Time-Bound Goals

The proximity of the goal plays a key factor in our motivation (Schunk, 1990). Goals that are proximal are more motivating than distal goals. This again goes back to why it is important to plan backwards. It allows us to set up intermediate proximal goals during the semester so we can reach the distal goals. Students (and even professors) often say they are going to study in the afternoons or they are going to read over the weekend. Invariably, “speed bumps” occur and the studying and reading are pushed aside. By blocking out time in your schedule, just like you block out time to attend class, with start times and end times you are more likely to devoted your undivided attention to the task. Dr. Paul Pacheco-Vega provides great advice about planning and how to set up your calendar to get your tasks done. He even shows how to adjust your schedule for when those speed bumps occur. The key is to set aside time in your calendar but also to be aware of that life may just throw you a curve.

By helping my students reframe their goals and build a backwards timeline of how to accomplish their goals, I increase the chances of my students not only being successful in my course but also in their future courses. I am also helping them become more metacognitive. They are learning metacognitive strategies related to setting goals and monitoring and evaluating their progress toward this goal. As an added benefit this approach may lead to higher self-efficacy and increased learning.

Metacognitive strategies are not just for the classroom or academic environment, they have helped me improve my laundry process too! I have set better goals for my chore of doing laundry. I start with the end goal, to have all of the laundry washed and put away by Monday morning. The “laundry” is limited to the clothes in the hampers on Friday. I then set out to complete one load of laundry on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then I put it away on Monday. This plans leaves lots of room for the numerous unforeseen hurdles in rearing two children under two.

Jooyoung, P., Lu, F., Hedgcock, W. (2017). Forward and Backward Planning and Goal Pursuit. Psychological Science. DOI:10.1177/0956797617715510

Schunk, D. H. (1990). Goal Setting and Self-Efficacy During Self-Regulated Learning. Educational Psychologist, 25(1), 71-86


Metacognition and Teacher-Student-Curriculum Relationships

by Steven Fleisher, Ph.D., California State University Channel Islands

I have heard many express that teacher-student relationships have nothing in common with families. But while teacher-student relationships are best described as collegial, at least within higher-education, this author believes that much can be learned from family theories and research. In particular, family research provides insights into how to support the development of trust in this context rather than relationships based principally on compliance. In other words, a classroom “is” a family, whether it’s a good one or a bad one. In this posting, we will explore metacognitive processes involved in building and maintaining stable relationships between students and the curriculum, teachers and the curriculum, and between teachers and students.

Family systems theory (Kerr & Bowen, 1988), though originally developed for clinical practice, offers crucial insights into not only teacher-student relationships but teaching and learning as well (Harrison, 2011). While there are many interlocking principles within family systems theory, we will concentrate on emotional stability, differentiation of self, and triangles.

The above triangle provides a representation for the following relationships: students-curriculum, teacher-curriculum, and teacher-students. Although any effective pedagogy would work for this discussion, we will focus specifically on the usefulness of knowledge surveys in this context (http://elixr.merlot.org/assessment-evaluation/knowledge-surveys/knowledge-surveys2) and their role in building metacognitive self-assessment skills.[1] Thus, what are some of the metacognitive processes involved in the relationships on each leg of our triangle? And, what are some of the metacognitive processes that would support those relationships in becoming increasingly stable?

Student-Curriculum Relationships

Along one leg of the triangle, students would increase the stability of their relationships with the curriculum as a function of becoming ever more aware of their learning processes. Regarding the use of knowledge surveys, students would self-assess their confidence to respond to given challenges, compare those responses with their developed competencies, and follow with reflective exercises to discover and understand any gaps between the two. As their self-assessment accuracy improves, their self-regulation skills would improve as well, i.e., adjusting, modifying, or deepening learning strategies or efforts as needed. So, the more students are aware of competencies in the curriculum and the more aware they are of their progress towards those competencies, the better off students will be.

As part of a course, instructors can also guide students in exploring how the material is useful to them personally. Activities can be designed to support exploration and discovery of ways in which course material relates, for example, to career interests, personal growth, interdisciplinary objectives, fostering of purpose, etc. In so doing, the relationships students have with the material can gain greater stability. Ertmer and Newby (1996) noted that expertise in learning involves becoming “strategic, self-regulated, and reflective”, and by bringing these types of exercises into the course, students are supported in the development of all these competencies.

Teacher-Curriculum Relationships

These relationships involve teachers becoming more aware of their practices, their student’s learning, and the connection between their practices and their student’s learning. In other words, the teacher is trying to ensure fit between student understanding and curriculum. Regarding knowledge surveys, teachers would know they are providing a pedagogical tool that supports learning and offers needed visibility for students.

In addition, once teachers have laid out course content in their knowledge surveys, they can look ahead and anticipate which learning strategies would be the best match for upcoming material. Realizing ahead of time the benefits of, let’s say, using structured group work for a particular learning module, teachers could prepare themselves and their students for that type of activity.

Teacher-Student Relationships

These relationships involve the potential for the development of trust. When trust develops in a classroom, students not only know what the expectations involve but are set more at ease to explore creatively their understanding and ways of understanding the material. For instance, students may well become aware of the genuine and honest help being provided by chosen learning strategies. Knowledge surveys are particularly useful in this regard as students have a roadmap for the course and a tool structured to facilitate the improvement of their learning skills.

Teachers also have an interpersonal role in supporting the development of student trust. Family systems theory (Bowen & Kerr, 1988) holds that we all vary in our levels of self-differentiation, which involves how much we, literally, realize that we are separate from others, especially during emotional conflict. In other words, people vary in their abilities to manage emotional reactivity (founded in anxiety) with being able to use one’s intellect to compose chosen and valued responses. Harrison (2011), in applying these principles in a classroom, noted that when teachers are aware of becoming emotionally reactivity (i.e., defensive), but are also aware of using their intellect, as best as possible, to manage the situation (i.e., remaining thoughtful and unbiased in their interactions with students), they are supporting emotional stability and trust.

Kerr and Bowen (1988) also reported that self-differentiation involves distinguishing between thoughts and feelings. This principle gives us another metacognitive tool. When we are aware, for example, that others do not “make” us feel a certain way (i.e., frustrated), but that it involves also our thinking (i.e., students are just being lazy), this affects our ability to manage reactivity. If we are aware of becoming reactive, and aware of distinguishing thoughts and feelings, we can notice and reframe our thoughts (i.e., students are just doing what they need to do), and validate and own our emotions (i.e., okay I’m frustrated), then we are better positioned to respond in ways that attune to our needs as well as those of our students. In this way, we would increase our level of self-differentiation by moving toward less blaming and more autonomy.

Final Note

Kerr and Bowen (1988) also said that supporting stability along all the relationships represented by our triangle not only increases the emotional stability of the system, but provides a cushion for the naturally arising instabilities along individual legs of the triangle. This presence of this stability also serves to further enhance the impact of effective pedagogies. So, when teachers are aware of maintaining the efficacy of their learning strategies, and are aware of applying the above principles of self-differentiation, i.e. engaging in metacognitive instruction, they are better positioned to be responsive and attuned to the needs of their students, thus supporting stability, trust, and improved learning.

References

Ertmer, P. A. & Newby, T. J. (1996). The expert learner: Strategic, self-regulated, and reflective. Instructional Science, 24(1), 1-24. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/journal/11251

Harrison, V. A. (2011). Live learning: Differentiation of self as the basis for learning. In O.C. Bregman & C. M. White (Eds.), Bringing systems thinking to life: Expanding the horizons for Bowen family systems theory (pp. 75-87). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kerr, M. E. & Bowen, M. (1988). Family evaluation: An approach based on Bowen theory. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

Image from: https://www.slideshare.net/heatherpanda/essay-2-for-teaching-course-4

[1] Knowledge surveys are comprised of a detailed listing of all learning outcomes for a course (perhaps 150-250 items). Each item begins with an affective root (“I can…”) followed by a cognitive or ability challenge expressed in measurable terms (“…describe at least three functions of the pituitary gland.”). These surveys provide students with a roadmap for the course and a tool structured for building their confidence and accuracy in learning skills.


Developing Mindfulness as a Metacognitive Skill

by Ed Nuhfer Retired Professor of Geology and Director of Faculty Development and Director of Educational Assessment, enuhfer@earthlink.net, 208-241-5029

A simple concept for enhancing learning is to engage more of the brain in more of the students. “Interactive-engagement,” “collaborative/cooperative learning,” “problem-based learning” and an entire series of active learning pedagogies use the concept to optimize learning. Research shows that active learning works. While frequently espoused as “student-centered learning,” advocates frequently use the active learning terms to promote particular kinds of pedagogy as “student-centered.”

However, active learning is neither the only way to enhance learning nor is it usually as student-centered as advocates claim. Whether the design occurs by the course instructor or with an involvement of a more recent profession of “learning designers,” the fact is that the emphasis is on pedagogy and on student learning. As such, they are more focused on student learning than were older traditional methods of content delivery, but the reach to proclaim most learning-centered pedagogies as student-centered leaves a bit of a gap. Metacognition is the factor missing to help close the gap needed to make learning-centered practices more student-centered.

While pedagogy focuses on teaching, mindfulness focuses on knowing of one’s present state of engagement. Mindfulness develops by the learner from within, and this makes it different from the learning developed through a process designed from without. Metacognition is very student centered, and mindfulness could be the most student-centered metacognitive skill of all.

Because mindfulness involves being aware in the present moment, it can engage more of the brain needed for awareness by enlisting the parts of the brain concurrently distracted by our usual “default mode.” Operating in default mode includes thinking of imagined conversations, playing music inside of one’s head, unproductive absorption in activities in which one is not presently engaged, or thinking of responses to a conversation while not attending fully to hearing it.

Mindfulness receives frequent mention as a method of stress management, particularly when it enlists the parts of the brain that would otherwise be engaging in worrying or in preparing an unneeded flight-or-fight reaction. The need to manage stress by today’s college students seems greater than before. However, its value to student success extends beyond managing stress to enhancing cognitive learning through improving concentration and increasing the ability to focus and to improve interpersonal communication by enhancing ability to listen.

Mindfulness has its roots in Zen meditation, which laypersons easily perceive as something esoteric, mystical, or even bordering on religion. In reality, mindfulness is none of these. It is simply the beneficial outcome of practice to develop metacognitive skill. It is simple to learn, and measurable improvements can occur in as little as six weeks.

For blog readers, an opportunity to develop mindfulness is fast approaching on September 19, 2016, when Australia’s Monash University again offers its free massive open online course (MOOC) in mindfulness. Rather than gurus dressed in costumes, the instructors are psychology professors Drs Craig Hassed and Richard Chambers, who occasionally appear in ties and sportcoats. The course is immensely practical, and the two professors are also authors of a highly rated book, Mindful Learning, which is likely of interest to all members of this particular metacognitive blogosphere. Perhaps we’ll see each other online in Australia!

**This blog contribution is a short derivation from “Mindfulness as a Metacognitive Skill: Educating in Fractal Patterns XLVII” by the author and forthcoming in National Teaching and Learning Forum V25 N5.


Hypercorrection: Overcoming overconfidence with metacognition

by Jason Lodge, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne

Confidence is generally seen as a positive attribute to have in 21st Century Western society. Confidence contributes to higher self-esteem, self-reported happiness. It apparently makes someone more attractive and leads to better career outcomes. With such strong evidence suggesting the benefits of confidence, it is no wonder that building confidence has become a major focus within many sectors, particularly in professional development and education.

Despite the evidence for the benefits of confidence, it has a dark side that is overconfidence. There are many occasions where it is problematic to overinflate our skills or abilities. Learning is one of the most obvious examples. According to the (in)famous Dunning-Kruger effect, unskilled learners are often unaware that they are in fact unskilled. The issue here is that those who are low in knowledge of an area are often ignorant to how much they don’t know about the area.

Overconfidence is particularly problematic for students when considering how important it is to make relatively accurate estimates about how they are progressing. For example, if a student is overconfident about their progress, they may decide to stop reviewing or revising a topic prematurely. If students have a difficulty in accurately self-evaluating their learning it can lead them to being underprepared to use the knowledge, for example in an exam or when they need it in practice.

Being wrong can be good

One of the main problems with overconfidence is that students can fail to correct misconceptions or realise that they are wrong. Being wrong or failing has been long seen as negative educational outcomes.

Recent research on productive failure (e.g. Kapur, 2015) has shown, however, that being wrong and coming to realise it is a powerful learning experience. As opposed to more traditional notions of error-free learning, researchers are now starting to understand how important it is for learners to make mistakes. One of the necessary conditions for errors to be effective learning experiences though is that students need to realise they are making them. This is a problem when students are overconfident because they fail to see themselves failing.

There is a silver lining to overconfidence when it comes to making mistakes though. Research on a process called hypercorrection demonstrates that when learners are highly confident but wrong, if the misconception can be corrected, they have a much more effective learning experience (Butterfield & Metcalfe, 2001). In other words, overconfident students who realise that they are wrong about something tend to be surprised and that surprise means they are more likely to learn from the experience.

How metacognition helps with overconfidence

While hypercorrection has potential for helping students overcome misconceptions and achieve conceptual change, it doesn’t happen automatically. One of the main prerequisites is that students need to have enough awareness to realise that they are wrong. The balance between confidence and overconfidence is therefore precarious. It is helpful for students to feel confident that they can manage to learn new concepts, particularly complex and difficult concepts. Confidence helps students to persist when learning becomes difficult and challenging. However, students can have this confidence without necessarily engaging in careful reflective processing. In other words, confidence is not necessarily related to students being able to accurately monitoring their progress.

On the other hand though, it can be easy for students to feel confident in their knowledge of certain misconceptions. This is particularly so if the misconceptions are intuitive and based on real world experience. It is common to have misconceptions about physics and psychology for example because students have vast experience in the physical and social world. This experience gives them intuitive conceptions about the world that are reinforced over time. Some of these conceptions are wrong but their experience gives students high levels of confidence that they are right. Often careful observation or deliberate instructional design is required to shift students’ thinking about these conceptions.

Metacognition is critical in allowing students to monitor and detect when they are making errors or have incorrect conceptions. With misconceptions in particular, students can continue to believe false information if they don’t address the process at which they arrive at a conclusion. Often, overcoming a misconception requires dealing with the cognitive disequilibrium that comes from attempting to overwrite an intuitive conception of the world with a more sophisticated scientific conception.

For example, intuitively a heavy object like a bowling ball and light object like a feather will fall at different rates but, when observing both being dropped simultaneously, they fall at the same rate. The observation causes disequilibrium between the intuitive notion and the more sophisticated understanding of force and gravity encapsulated by Newton’s second law. Generally, overcoming this kind of disequilibrium requires students to shift strategies or approaches to understanding the concept to redress the faulty logic they relied on to arrive at the initial misconception. So in this example, they need to develop a higher-level conception of gravity that requires shifting from intuitive notions. Recognising the need for this shift only comes through metacognitive monitoring and effective error detection.

So metacognition is often necessary for correcting misconceptions and is particularly effective when students are confident about what they think they know and have the realisation that they are wrong. Overconfidence can therefore be managed through enhanced metacognition.

The research on confidence and hypercorrection suggests that it is good for students to be confident about what they think they know as long as they are prepared to recognise when they are wrong. This requires an ability to be able to detect errors and, more broadly, calibrate their perceived progress against their actual progress. While teachers can help with this to a degree through feedback and scaffolding, it is vital that students develop metacognition so that they can monitor when they are wrong or when they are not progressing as they should be. If they can, then there is every chance that the learning experience can be more powerful as a result.

References

Butterfield, B., & Metcalfe, J. (2001). Errors committed with high confidence are hypercorrected. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(6), 1491–1494. DOI: 10.1037/0278-7393.27.6.1491

Kapur, M. (2015). Learning from productive failure. Learning: Research and Practice, 1(1), 51–65. DOI: 10.1080/23735082.2015.1002195


Meaningful Reflections for Improving Student Learning

by Ashley Welsh, Postdoctoral Teaching & Learning Fellow, Vantage College

I am a course coordinator and instructor for a science communication course (SCIE 113) for first-year science students. SCIE 113 focuses on writing, argumentation and communication in science and is part of the curriculum for an enriched, first-year experience program for international, English Language Learners. Throughout the term, students provide feedback on their peers’ writing in both face-to-face and online environments. The process of providing and receiving feedback is an important skill for students, however many students do not receive explicit instruction on how to provide or use constructive feedback (Mulder, Pearce, & Baik, 2014). In order to better understand my students’ experience with peer review, I conducted a research project to explore how their use and perceptions of peer review in their writing developed over the course of the term.

Many of the data collection methods I used to assess students’ perceptions and use of peer review in SCIE 113 this past term incorporated acts of reflection. These included in-class peer review worksheets and written reflections, small and large group discussions, an end-of-term survey about peer review, and my own researcher reflections. Periodically throughout the semester, I paired up the students and they engaged in peer review of one another’s writing. They each had a worksheet that asked them to comment on what their partner did well and how that person could improve their writing. During this activity, my teaching assistant and I interacted with the pairs and answered any potential questions. Afterwards, students independently completed written reflections about the usefulness of the peer review activity and their concerns about giving and receiving feedback. Before the class finished, we discussed students’ responses and concerns as a whole group. Students’ worksheets and written reflections, as well as classroom observations, offered insight into how my pedagogy mapped to their use of and reflections about peer review.

As of late, I have been more deliberate with designing pedagogy and activities that offer students the time and space to reflect and record their strengths and weaknesses as learners. The term reflection, is often used when discussing metacognition. As Weinert (1987) describes, metacognition involves second-order cognitions such as thoughts about thoughts or the reflections of one’s actions. With respect to metacognitive regulation, Zohar and Barzilai (2013) highlight that an individual can heighten their awareness of their strengths/weaknesses and evaluate their progress via reflection. This reflection process also plays a key role in metacognition-focused data collection as most methods require students to reflect upon how their knowledge and skills influence their learning. Providing survey responses, answering interview questions, and writing in a journal require a student to appraise their personal development and experience as a learner through reflection (Kalman, 2007; Aktruk & Sahin, 2011).

While the act of reflection is an important component of metacognition and metacognitive research, its use in the classroom also presents its own set of challenges. As educators and researchers, we must be wary of not overusing the term so that it remains meaningful to students. We must also be cautious with how often we ask students to reflect. An extensive case study by Baird and Mitchell (1987) revealed that students become fatigued if they are asked to reflect upon their learning experiences too often. Furthermore, we hope these acts of reflection will help students to meaningfully evaluate their learning, but there is no guarantee that students will move beyond simplistic or surface responses. To address these challenges in my own classroom, I attempted to design activities and assessments that favoured “not only student participation and autonomy, but also their taking responsibility for their own learning” (Planas Lladó et al., p. 593).

While I am still in the midst of analyzing my data, I noticed over the course of the semester that students became increasingly willing to complete the reflections about peer review and their writing. At the beginning of the term, students wrote rather simplistic and short responses, but by the end of the term, students’ responses contained more depth and clarity. I was surprised that students were not fatigued by or reluctant to complete the weekly reflections and discussions about peer review and that this process became part of the norm of the classroom. Students also became faster with completing their written responses, which was promising given that they were all English Language Learners. As per John Draeger (personal communication, April 27, 2016), students’ practice with these activities appears to have helped them build the stamina and muscles required for successful and meaningful outcomes. It was rewarding to observe that within class discussions and their reflections, students became better aware of their strengths and weaknesses as reviewers and writers (self-monitoring) and often talked or wrote about how they could improve their skills (self-regulation).

Based on my preliminary analysis, it seems that tying the reflection questions explicitly to the peer review process allowed for increasingly meaningful and metacognitive student responses. The inclusion of this research project within my class served as an impetus for me to carefully consider and question how my pedagogy was linked to students’ perceptions and ability to reflect upon their learning experience. I am also curious as to how I can assist students with realizing that this process of reflection can improve their skills not only in my course, but also in their education (and dare I say life). This research project has served as an impetus for me to continue to explore how I can better support students to become more metacognitive about their learning in higher education.

References

Akturk, A. O., & Sahin, I. (2011). Literature review on metacognition and its measurement. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15, 3731-3736.

Baird, J. R., & Mitchell, I. J. (1987). Improving the quality of teaching and learning. Melbourne, Victoria: Monash University Press.

Kalman, C. S. (2007). Successful science and engineering teaching in colleges and universities. Bolton, Massachusetts: Anker Publishing Company, Inc.

Mulder, R.A., Pearce, J.M., & Baik, C. (2014). Peer review in higher education: Student perceptions before and after participation. Active Learning in Higher Education, 15(2), 157-171.

Planas Lladó, A., Feliu Soley, L., Fraguell Sansbelló, R.M., Arbat Pujolras, G., Pujol Planella, J., Roura-Pascual, N., Suñol Martínez, J.J., & Montoro Moreno, L. (2014). Student perceptions of peer assessment: An interdisciplinary study. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(5), 592-610.

Weinert, F. E. (1987). Introduction and overview: Metacognition and motivation as determinants of effective learning and understanding. In F. E. Weinert & R. H. Kluwe (Eds.), Metacognition, motivation, and understanding (pp. 1-16). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Zohar, A., & Barzilai, S. (2013). A review of research on metacognition in science education: Current and future directions. Studies in Science Education, 49(2), 121-169.