Teaching Metacognition - 78 views
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Step 1: Teach students that the ability to learn is not a fixed quantity The key to a student's ability to become a self-regulated (i.e., metacognitive) learner is understanding that one's ability to learn is a skill that develops over time rather than a fixed trait, inherited at birth.
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Sharin Tebo on 28 Jul 14Carol Dweck's book on having a Growth Mindset comes to mind here...
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Step 3: Give students opportunities to practice self-monitoring and adapting Accurate self-monitoring is quite difficult.
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In particular, students are encouraged to think about the key points of the lecture as they listen and take notes. At the end of the lecture, students write what they think the three most important ideas of the lecture were on an index card.
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Teaching Self-Monitoring Strategies Monitoring and adapting strategies can be taught as learning habits. A wrapper is one tool for teaching self-monitoring behavior. A wrapper is an activity that surrounds an existing assignment or activity and encourages metacognition. For example, wrappers can be used with lectures, homework assignments, or exams. Wrappers require just a few extra minutes of time, but can have a big impact.
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Example: homework wrappers Before beginning a homework assignment, students answer a brief set of self-assessment questions focusing on skills they should be monitoring. Students complete the homework as usual, and then answer a follow-up set of self-assessment questions.
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Example: exam wrappers When graded exams are returned (as soon as possible after the exam was given), students complete an exam reflection sheet. They describe their study strategies, analyze the mistakes they made, and plan their study strategies for the next exam.
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"Metacognition is a critically important, yet often overlooked component of learning. Effective learning involves planning and goal-setting, monitoring one's progress, and adapting as needed. All of these activities are metacognitive in nature. By teaching students these skills - all of which can be learned - we can improve student learning. There are three critical steps to teaching metacognition:"
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Really useful reminder of how we need to address very basic ideas about how to absorb new information and ask students to self-monitor and push themselves. I appreciated the information and plan to incorporate the wrappers!