by Tara Beziat at Auburn University at Montgomery 

As enrollment in online programs and online courses continues to increase (Merriman & Bierema, 2014), institutions have recognized the importance of building quality learning experiences for their students. To accomplish this goal, colleges and universities provide professional development, access to instructional designers and videos to help faculty build these courses. The focus is on how to put the content in an online setting. What I think is lacking in this process is the “in the moment” discussions about managing learning. Students often do not get to “hear” how other students are tackling the material for the course and how they are preparing for the assignments. Activities that foster metacognition are not built into the instructional design process.

In the research on learning and metacognition, there is a focus on undergraduates (possibly because they are an easily accessible population for college researchers) and p-12 students. The literature does not discuss helping graduate students hone their metacognitive strategies. Knowing the importance of metacognition and its relationship to learning, I have incorporated activities that focus on metacognition into my online graduate courses.

Though graduate students are less likely to procrastinate than undergraduate students (Cao, 2012), learning online requires the use of self-regulation strategies (Dunn & Rakes, 2015). One argument many students have for liking distance courses is that they can do the work at their own pace and at a time that works with their schedule. What they often to do not take into account is that they need to build time into their schedule for their course work. Dunn and Rakes (2015) found that online graduate students are not always prepared to be “effective learners” but can improve their self-regulation skills in an online course. Graduate students in an online course need to use effective metacognitive strategies, like planning, self- monitoring and self-evaluation.

In addition to managing their time, which may now include family and work responsibilities, their course work may present its own set of new challenges. Graduate work asks students to engage in complex cognitive processes often in an online setting.

To help graduate students with their learning process I have built in metacognitive questions in to our discussion posts. For each module of learning, students are asked to answer a metacognitive question related to the planning, monitoring or evaluation of their learning. They are also asked to answer a content question. I have found their answers to the metacognitive questions surprising, enlightening and helpful. Additionally, these discussions have provided insights into how to preparing for the class, various resources for this course on their own classrooms and managing time, juggling “life.”

Early in the semester I ask, “How are you going to actively monitor your learning in this course?” Often students respond that they will check their grades on Blackboard (our course management system), specifically they will check to see how they did on assignments. I raise a concern with these ways of monitoring. Students need to be doing some form of self-evaluation before turning in their work. If they are waiting until they get the “grade” to know how well they are doing it may be too late. Other students have a better sense of how to monitor their knowledge during a course. Below are some examples:

• “setting my goals with each unit and reflecting back after each reading to be sure my goals and understanding are met.”
• “I intend on reading the required text and being able to ask myself the following questions ‘how well did I understand this’ or ‘can I explain this information to a classmate if asked to do so.’”
• “comparing my knowledge with the course objectives”
• “checking my work to make sure the guideline set by the rubric are being followed.”

These are posted in the discussions and their fellow classmates can see the strategies that they are using to manage and monitor their learning. In their responses they will note they had not thought about doing x but they plan to try it. By embedding a metacognitive prompt in each of the 8 modules and giving students a chance share how they monitor their learning I hope to build a better understanding of the importance of metacognition in the learning process and give them ways to foster metacognition in their own classrooms.

Later on in the class I ask the students about how things are going with their studying. Yes, this is a graduate level class. But this may be the students’ first graduate level course or this may be their first online course. Or this could be their last class in a fully online program but we can always improving our learning. Below are some example of students responses to: What confusions have you gotten clarified? What changes have you made to your study habits or learning strategies?

• “The only changes to the study habits or strategies that I have used is to try the some of the little tips or strategies that come up in the modules or discussions.”
• “I allow myself more time to study.”
• “I have reduced the amount of notes I take.  Now, my focus is more on summarizing text and/or writing a “gist” for each heading.”
• “I continue to use graphic organizers to assist me with learning and understanding new information.  This is a tactic that is working well for me.”

As educators, we need to make sure we are addressing metacognition with our graduate students and that we are providing opportunities for them to practice metacognition in an online setting. Additionally, I would be interested in conducting future research that examines online graduate students awareness of metacognitive strategies, their use of these strategies in an online learning environment and ways to improve their metacognitive strategies. If you would be interested in collaborating on a project about online graduate students metacognitive skills send me an email.

 References

Cao, L. (2012). Differences in procrastination and motivation between undergraduate and graduate students. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 12(2), 39-64.

Dunn, K.E. & Rakes, G.C. (2015). Exploring online graduate students’ responses to online self-regulation training. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 13(4), 1-21.

Merriam, S.B., & Bierema, L.L. (2014). Adult learning: Linking theory and practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.