By John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

In two previous posts, I’ve argued that instructors can improve metacognition through Just-in-Time teaching (JiTT) assignments (Draeger, 2014; Draeger, 2015). Just-in-Time assignments require that students complete short assignments prior to class and instructors review those assignments before class begins (Novak, 1999). Students in my philosophy classes, for example, are required to answer several questions about the reading and submit those answers electronically the night before our class meets. I read their answers prior to the class session and use their responses to tailor class discussion. JiTT assignments have many benefits, including improving the likelihood that students will do the reading. For the last five semesters, I’ve been experimenting with ways to use JiTT assignments to help students improve their metacognition.

In my early attempts to incorporate metacognition into JiTT assignments, I asked asked a variety of questions: What is your reading strategy? Was the current reading more challenging than the last? How would you know if your strategy as effective? Student answers were often informative, but they tended to focus on the content of the reading. For example, students would report that they found certain sections of the reading to be especially confusing or they found that an author’s view rested on a spurious assumption. While helpful in adjusting class time to hone-in on the parts of the material most in need of discussion, these questions did not always prompt students to reflect on their individual learning process. Consequently, I have continued to tweak my JiTT questions in an attempt to focus student attention more explicitly on aspects of the learning process. As I work to fine-tune my JiTT assignments, I often think about my own attempts to become more aware of my teaching practice and then I can see parallels to the kind of metacognition that I seek to encourage in my students. (Scharff & Draeger, 2015). I have come to believe that building questions on metacognition into JiTT assignments have at least three broad benefits.

First, metacognitive questions serve as an easy conversation starter about the aims of learning. For example, I have asked students: What are your goals in this course? What are your goals for the week? How does last night’s reading fit into one of your goals for the week? Most students respond that they hope to understand the readings, remember the relevant information for the exam, and get good grades. These answers are unsurprising. However, such pedestrian responses give me an opportunity to revisit my goals for the course, namely my desire to help students learn to uncover philosophical substructure (Draeger, 2014). They also provide me with an opportunity to encourage them to think more carefully about what they hope to achieve. I encourage them to think about their own motivations (or lack of) and their reasons for engaging in course content. While I wouldn’t need their JiTT responses to talk about various learning goals, students seem to be more responsive to those conversations when I am responding to their own answers to pre-class assignments.  Such conversations have led me to ask new JiTT questions: How does this course fit into your degree program? What would you tell a parent about why this course is worth taking? How might this course might be relevant to your life 30 years from now? Students often report that my courses are irrelevant to their degree programs because my courses satisfy a general education requirement. This has led to fruitful conversations about the connection between their general education courses and their program of study, as well as how philosophy might figure into a student’s quest for employability and my desire to help them become lifelong learners.

Second, metacognitive questions prompt students to think about their learning processes. For example, I have asked students: What skills do you hope to develop this semester? How have your reading practices evolved as the semester has progressed? Are your annotation strategies effective? What is your strategy for revising papers? What is one thing you learned about the last round of revisions that you hope to carry through to the next round? Even though some student responses are less than illuminating and even when we don’t discuss their answers in class, students are still being prompted to think about their learning process multiple times a week. I have to believe that it reminds students that they need multiple learning strategies and they need to monitor their effectiveness. I have also seen student answers become more nuanced as the semester progresses. For example, students who reported being “confused by the reading” at the beginning of the semester often reported being “confused by” some particular feature of the reading (e.g., examples within the text, references to views not previously discussed) later in the semester.

Third, regular metacognitive questions help me (as the instructor) develop a learning profile of my students both individually and collectively. For example, I have asked students: What type of learning is required in this course? What are their personal characteristics that help or hinder their learning? Interestingly, students rarely point to personal characteristics that helped their learning.  Further, many of the “hinder” answers tend to be predictable (e.g., I procrastinate, I have a busy schedule). However, other answers paint a picture of the individual learners in the seats in front of me. For example, some students report some version of “I am not a big reader outside of class and so long readings intimidate me” and quite a few talk about difficulties taking notes in a discussion class. These are not surprising observations, but it helps knowing which students are having which troubles (e.g., if someone asked me “choose the students that don’t like to read,” I would not always be able to correctly identify them). Likewise, some students offer some version of “I need entertaining examples because I get bored easily” while others report some version of “I am intellectually curious about most everything and I get distracted easily.” It is not surprising that students would be distracted, but the JiTT metacognition responses allow me to understand a little more about why particular students are struggling. This emerging profile helps me make course adjustments before, during, and after class.

There are many ways to encourage student metacognition. I am not suggesting that you adopt Just-in-Time techniques simply because they can encourage students to reflect on their learning process and facilitate conversation. I am doing JiTT assignments anyway. Fine-tuning my questions has been a way of using an existing teaching strategy to promote metacognition. Rather, I encourage you to think about how you might tweak your current teaching strategies to promote student metacognition. In my case, because students complete JiTT assignments multiple times a week and because I now include questions on metacognition within every JiTT assignment, students have many opportunities to reflect on their learning and to practice metacognition. The emerging picture of my students has also encouraged me (as the instructor) to be more metacognitive about my teaching process. While I need to continue fine-tuning my assignments, I am becoming ever more convinced that regular incorporation of activities that promote reflection on learning are a means by which to improve with metacognition.

References

Draeger, J. (2014a). “Just-in-Time for Metacognition.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/just-in-time-for-metacognition.

Draeger, J. (2014b), “Using metacognition to uncover the substructure of moral issues.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/using-metacognition-to-uncover-the-substructure-of-moral-issues

Draeger, J. (2015). “Using Just-in-Time assignments to promote metacognition.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/using-just-in-time-assignments-to-promote-metacognition.

Novak, G., Patterson, E., Gavrin, A., & Christian, W. (1999). Just-in-time teaching: Blending active learning with web technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Scharff, L. and Draeger, J. (2015). “Thinking about metacognitive instruction” National Teaching and Learning Forum 24 (5), 4-6.