What Was I Thinking?: Facilitating Metacognition

and Mindfulness in My Classroom

Leslie G. FatumHWP 2010

Questions 

What strategies can I employ to get my students to write about their own thinking, every day?

 How do I explicitly teach metacognition?

 What can I do to develop mindfulness in my students through looking closely, exploring possibilities and perspectives, and introducing

ambiguity? 

The nature of science is inquiry. However, as a teacher of science during the past two years, the state and district standards and curriculum mandates have stressed “mastery” of abstract and arbitrary knowledge bytes that are conceptually and contextually disconnected from my students’ prior science education, as well as having little or no relevance to their day-to-day experiences.

Problem

After months of asking my students to “think” about the concepts, rather than just memorizing trivial minutiae or benchmark practice exam answers, I finally came to the realization that they not only did not know what they were thinking -- they literally were not thinking about what we were discussing.

From this realization, I began my quest to uncover strategies and routines that would lead them to this disposition of mindfulness. A first step is to practice “visible thinking” (metacognition) through activities that require the students to not only actively think about what is occurring, but to identify and describe their thoughts about it.

Realizations

Metacognition requires that students have knowledge about, awareness of, and control over their learning (Baird and White, 1996; Koba and Tweed, 2009).

Conceptual change requires that teachers elicit various student explanations for the teacher and the student to consider. Students need to reflect on and discuss their understandings, compare and contrast explanations, consider arguments to support or contradict explanations, and choose possible explanations based on the evidence they have gathered (Hewson 1996; Hipkins et al., 2002; Koba and Tweed, 2009).

Thinking is invisible, but there are ways that teachers can make it visible to their students, helping them to become more metacognitive and to see high school as more about exploring ideas than memorizing content (Koba and Tweed, 2009).

Rationales

  Concept cartoons about evolution from San

Diego State University (developed by Dianne Anderson and Kathleen Fisher, 2002 www.biologylessons.sdsu.edu/cartoons/concepts.html)

Paper and pen/pencil

Materials

They were created by Brenda Keogh and Stuart Naylor in 1991 They feature cartoon-style drawings showing different

characters arguing about an everyday situation They are designed to intrigue, to provoke discussion and to

stimulate scientific thinking They may not have a single "right answer" Concept cartoons stimulate students to discuss their ideas,

including those that are normally reluctant to do so. This gives teachers access to those ideas. It also gives students access to each other's ideas, which may prompt them to reconsider their own.

The visual cartoons and minimal written text provide a valid assessment strategy for students with poor literacy skills, reluctant learners, and ESOL students.

Concept cartoons appear to reduce the risk of fear of giving a "wrong" response.

Concept Cartoons: What are they, and how are they used?

Example of a Concept Cartoon

1. Practice developing your own thinking log +/- concept cartoon.

2. Using pre-crafted cartoons on evolution, record your first thoughts about a statement by the character that you feel best expresses your own views on the meaning of the concept.

3. Share responses in your group. 4. Revise your responses if your thinking

changes. 5. Share out with the class.

Protocol

Practice Question: What is (or will be) the most significant impact of the Gulf oil spill?

Use bullets, not sentences Go with your gut reaction Write a brief rationale for your thinking Share your thoughts with your group After you are done, you can add different

thoughts from a new perspective (up to five total)

If you want to, draw a concept cartoons with your characters expressing their thought in ONE simple sentence

Selected students will share with class

Jot down your FIRST thoughts

Use/Disuse

Competition

CompetitionIn biology, competition is one of

the many symbiotic relationships occurring in nature. Same or different members of species

compete for resources, especially for limited natural resources.

Adaptation

AdaptationThe adjustment or changes in

behavior, physiology, and structure of a population of organisms to

become more suited to an environment over time.

Dominance

Dominance(Of, or pertaining to) An allele or a

gene that is expressed in an organism’s phenotype, masking the effect of the recessive allele

or gene when present. Phenotype: The expression of a

particular trait, for example, skin color, height, behavior, etc.,

according to the individual’s genetic makeup and environment.

Evolution

EvolutionIn order for evolution to occur, there must be

genetic variation. Genetic variation brings about evolution. Without it there will be no evolution.

There are two major mechanisms that drive evolution. First is natural selection. Individuals with

advantageous traits are more likely to reproduce successfully, passing these traits to the next generation. This kind of evolution driven by

natural selection is called adaptive evolution. Another mechanism involves genetic drift, which

produces random changes in the frequency of traits in a population. Evolution that arises from

genetic drift is called neutral evolution.

Fitness

FitnessIn biology, Darwinian fitness or simply

fitness of a biological trait describes how successful an organism has been

at passing on its genes. The more likely that an individual is able to

survive and live longer to reproduce, the higher is the fitness of that

individual.

Selection

SelectionIt is the process by which heritable traits that increase an organism’s chances of

survival and reproduction are more favoured than less beneficial traits.

Originally proposed by Charles Darwin, natural selection is the process that

results in the evolution of organism.