Metacognition and Beyond: What Teachers Can Do to Help ... Practices Documents...• Generate a plan for helping students become self-regulated learners • Bonus: consider the role

Metacognition and Beyond: What Teachers Can Do to Help Students Become Better Learners

Dorothe BachAssociate Director Professor, General Faculty

Agenda

• Reflect on your own motivations, habits, skills and attitudes

• Explore strategies to enhance your students’ metacognitive and meta-affective skills

• Generate a plan for helping students become self-regulated learners

• Bonus: consider the role of joy, meaning and purpose for deep learning

Please respond to each question with a number between 0 and 7, with 0 being that this has no meaning or power for you and 7 being that this is deeply meaningful for you.

1. How valuable an experience do you plan to have in this workshop?

2. How participative do you plan to be?

3. How much risk do you plan to take?

4. How invested are you planning to be in the learning, well-being, and success of our learning community?

Discuss your answers with the person next to you:

• Did any of the questions surprise or intrigue you?

• Were any of the questions harder for you to answer than another?

• What may students learn by answering these questions?

What motivates you to do your best, most creative work, work that is deeply meaningful to you?

What knowledge, skills, habits and attitudes enable you to do this kind of work?

Theories of motivation

value expectancy motivationx

supportive environment


meta-affective

metacognitive


self-regulated learning

Metacognitive

The ability to…• think about one’s own thinking;• be consciously aware of oneself

as a problem solver;• monitor, plan, and control one’s

mental processing;• accurately judge one’s level of

learning

Meta-affective

The ability to…• reflect on one’s inclinations related to

emotions;• be consciously aware of and regulate

one’s own emotions in the moment;• accurately judge one’s level of

confidence, open-mindedness to challenging ideas, effort, etc.

Dimensions of self-regulated learning

• Developmental math course: 140 students, 6 sections

• Randomized control study (3 sections each)

• All had quizzes and same major exam and final exam

Treatment completed self-regulated learning activities:

• Received explanation on how errors offer learning opportunities

• Practiced error detection and strategy adaptation

• Shared all work and rated confidence in their ability to solve each problem

• Chance to earn back lost points by completing a self-reflection form for each

missed or incomplete; analysis and re-solving of similar problem

Zimmerman, Moylan, Hudesman, White,& Flugman (2011). Enhancing self-reflection and mathematics achievement of at-risk students at an urban technical college.

Course passed

• treatment group 68 %

• control group 49%

Gateway test passed

• treatment group 64 %

• control group 39%

Zimmerman, Moylan, Hudesman, White,& Flugman (2011). Enhancing self-reflection and mathematics achievement of at-risk students at an urban technical college.

Similar results in writing class!

Frontal integrative

cortex

Premotor and

motorSensory

and postsensory

Reflective observation

Abstracthypothesis

Activetesting

Concrete experience

Zull, James E. (2002). The Art of Changing the Brain. Stylus.

1

2

3

4

5

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.


meta-affective

metacognitive



How do your students currently learn the material in your course? How do they study?

Passive Study Behaviors

• I came to class

• I reviewed my notes

• I made index cards

• I re-read/highlighted the text

• I asked a classmate or tutor to explain a concept to me

• I looked up information Aaron Jacobs 2005

What is the difference between studying and learning?

How would you learn if you were asked to teach the material to someone else?

Active Learning Behaviors

• I wrote my own study questions (and answered them)

• I tried to figure out the answer before looking it up

• I closed my notes and tested how much I remembered

• I broke down complex processes step by step

• I asked myself “How does it work?” or “Why does it work that way?”

• I pretended I was teaching the material to someone else

Knowledge Probe

Knowledge Probe

Exam/Paper Wrapper

Dear students,

We are ready to send you our feedback on your essays. Before we do so, we would like you to take another look at your research reflection, now that you have gained some distance. With a dispassionate heart, write us a brief email reflecting on the quality of what you see by considering these questions:

How much time did you spend doing each of these?

___ Reading research articles

___ Writing a draft of your paper

___ Editing your paper

Exam/Paper Wrapper (continued)

Looking at the rubric, what are the strengths and weaknesses of your research reflections? How could the essay be improved?

Describe your research and writing process, including the steps you took, what strategies you followed, what problems you encountered, and how you did or didn’t overcome them. Reflecting on your process, how could you improve it?

Lecture/video/podcast wrappers• recall checks• reflection on surprises,

connections or conflicts with prior knowledge, beliefs etc.

• concept maps

Course wrappers• how did I do so well in this

course?• reflection on course material• knowledge probe

Homework• think aloud• self-checks

Exam wrappers• test autopsy• reflective questions

©Alice Franklin, studio art


meta-affective

metacognitive



1

Those of you who solved the puzzle: way to go!

If you didn’t, that’s o.k. Not everyone is good at spatial orientation puzzles.

2

This was a challenging task. If you weren’t able to solve it, you probably need more practice. Let’s talk about strategies for solving these types of puzzles and then try again.

Feedback

Think about:• What was your immediate response to

the statement? • How likely would you be to try another

puzzle?

1

Those of you who solved the puzzle: way to go!

If you didn’t, that’s o.k. Not everyone is good at spatial orientation puzzles.

2

This was a challenging task. If you weren’t able to solve it, you probably need more practice. Let’s talk about strategies for solving these types of puzzles and then try again.

Feedback

MindsetFixed Growth

• Those of you who solved the puzzle: way to go! If you didn’t, that’s o.k. Not everyone is good at spatial orientation puzzles.

• This was a challenging task. If you weren’t able to solve it, you probably need more practice. Let’s talk about strategies for solving these types of puzzles and then try again.

How to Encourage Students

Not everyone is good at math. Just do your best.

That’s ok. Maybe art just isn’t one of your strengths.

Don’t worry. You’ll get it if you keep trying. *

*If students are using the wrong strategies, their efforts might not work. Plus, they may feel particularly inept if their efforts are fruitless.

Great effort! You tried your best! *

* Don’t accept less than optimal performance from your students.

Fixed mindset (what NOT to say):

If you catch yourself thinking “I’m not a chemisty person,” just add the word, “yet.”

The point isn’t to get it all right away. The point is to build your understanding step by step. What can you try next?

When you learn how to do a new kind of problem, it builds new connections in your brain.

Yes, writing is hard, but it’s working through the challenges that helps you get better at it.

Growth mindset (what to say):

power napping (body scan)

College Survival Skills

breathing

self-compassion

What will you do to help your students cultivate a growth mindset?

Let’s take a breath


meta-affective

metacognitive



Transparency

Jerralne, foggy window

Transparency in teaching and learning

is the act of explicitly attending to and

articulating to students the whys and

hows of their learning experiences.

Assignment DescriptionsAssignment Descriptions

Purpose• What knowledge, skill, or attitudes will

students gain?

Task• What will students do? How will they do it?

Criteria for success• What does excellence look like?

TILT Higher Ed, Mary-Ann Winkelmes, 2014

Other learning-focused qualities• How will you help motivate and support

your students learning?

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Less Transparent N=246




Amount of Transparency

(ES=.80)

Employee-valued Skills

(ES=.58)

Sense of Belonging

(ES=.64)

Academic Confidence

(ES=.50)

More Transparent N=188




4-p

oin

t sc

ale

5-p

oin

t sc

ale

All Disciplines/All Students, End of Term

Winkelmes, M. –A., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Harriss Weavil, K. (2016).A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success. Peer Review, Winter/Spring.

x

purpose task

criteriafor success



The Science of Transparency

Cultivating self-regulated learners

• Encourage goal setting and self-reflection (studying vs. learning, Bloom’s taxonomy, knowledge probe, “wrappers”)

• Foster a growth mindset (high expectations, view mistakes as learning opportunities, specific praise for effort and process)

• Create transparent assignments (purpose, task, criteria)

• Co-create learning experiences with students

• Nurture joy, purpose and meaning

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is to running.

- Simone Weil

David Hilgart

https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/Spritual_Journeys_To_Be/

Bain, K. (2012). What the best

college students do. Harvard University

Press.

Nilson, L. (2013). Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students? self-awareness and learning skills. Stylus.

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

Zull, J. E. (2012). From brain to mind: Using neuroscience to guide change in education. Stylus.