By Dr. Jennifer A. McCabe, Goucher College

I recently read James Lang’s (2016) book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, which is framed by the premise that incremental shifts in how teachers structure and deliver educational experiences can have a large pay-off in terms of student learning and engagement. Each recommendation is grounded in what we know works for learning from memory research, and each is implementable without significant additional resources, time, or grading. Though Lang does not explicitly frame his book around metacognition (in fact, the word is not mentioned!), much of it supports the development of teacher metacognition with regard to several core components: knowing about (students’) knowing, thinking about (students’) thinking, and learning about (students’) learning.

In this first post (Part I), I describe Small Teaching through a metacognitive lens to support the development of teachers’ metacognition about course design and implementation. In Part II, I will discuss my experience of incorporating this book into a senior seminar in Cognition, Teaching, and Learning.

The first section of Small Teaching, entitled Knowledge, presents the idea that students do not necessarily know what strategies support durable and flexible learning. This gives teachers the opportunity (and responsibility) to structure experiences that support learning, even though these may feel harder, slower, or show smaller gains in the short term (i.e., desirable difficulties; see Yan et al., 2017 for a recent review). The Retrieving chapter discusses the testing effect, and the many ways teachers can encourage students to practice effortful retrieval of information from long-term memory. Predicting presents the value of pre-testing and predictive opportunities, which boost curiosity and aide subsequent learning. Interleaving discusses the spaced (or distributed) study principle, and the related strategy of interleaving (i.e., mixing instead of, or in addition to, blocking); these strategies help rectify the common metacognitive pitfall of forgetting we (and our students) forget. Student’s ability to produce knowledge at one point in time does not necessarily predict their future ability to remember. Incorporating frequent retrieval practice and cumulative assessments are concrete ways to counter-act the natural process of forgetting.

The second section is focused on Understanding, or deep comprehension. In Connecting, Lang discusses strategies to link and expand knowledge, including the intentional activation and use of students’ prior knowledge, use of explicit frameworks (e.g., outlines, concept maps), and writing exercises that support students in the challenging task of creating new connections. Practicing stresses the metacognitive component of knowing about (students’) knowing; that is, intentionally assessing cognitive skills needed for a large assignment, then making space for practice of those skills to scaffold toward successful assignment completion. Self-Explaining describes the strategy of having students explain what they are thinking and doing during a task – another example of a desirable difficulty.

The third and final section of Small Teaching is framed around Inspiration. This includes Motivating, focusing on the role of emotions in learning. Even teachers who have metacognitive knowledge about the basics of learning from a cognitive perspective, may have low awareness of the impact motivation has on learning, and the ways in which we can intentionally utilize students’ emotion (e.g., cultivating positive rapport, showing enthusiasm, using story-telling and narratives, and supporting the development of self-transcendent purpose). Growing helps teachers understand the value of a growth mindset as connected to student success, and how to create classrooms that model and reward growth. Finally, Expanding offers a discussion about “big teaching” – new frontiers for major shifts in how college courses are structured and offered.

Ultimately, the take-away message from Small Teaching is that relatively minor changes can bring big rewards in our classrooms. As an added bonus, many techniques give teachers tangible feedback about how students are progressing toward course learning goals. Viewing this book from a metacognitive framework encourages teachers to examine their own beliefs about learning, which can lead to an enlightening appraisal of why we make the decisions we do. Metacognitive questions abound: What is the learning goal here? How does the structure of this assignment get students to the learning goal? What cognitive processes am I expecting students to engage in (and how do I know they know how to do them)? Does this assignment have an explicitly stated purpose? Do my assessments engage cognitive processes that support durable and flexible learning? Am I being transparent in communicating the rationale for my pedagogical choices to my students? How are my own learning beliefs and biases influencing my students’ experience?

These “small” principles provide great opportunity, but also potential hazards. Teachers need to consider the line between desirable and undesirable difficulties, ensuring that the work we assign for students is difficult in a way that encourages effort in support of learning, and not in a way that overwhelms or otherwise detracts from learning. That is, paying mindful attention to the cognitive processes involved in coursework, and the ability of students to engage in them, is critical. An effective assessment will be challenging in the manner of engaging processes such as retrieval or elaboration that we know support learning. An undesirably difficult assessment will be challenging in a non-productive way. For example, to make students work harder, teachers may give repetitive busy-work that requires time and energy, but does not aid learning. Or consider assessments so difficult that learners do not have the cognitive (or metacognitive) scaffolding in place to engage effectively, even with great effort. Overly difficult assessments can result in feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, and even anger – all of which are counter-productive to learning. Enter the value of teacher metacognition: A teacher skilled in thinking about how learning works, and what their students know (along with skills they bring to the course), will be better able to navigate their assessments to keep them on the side of desirable difficulties.

In sum, metacognitive awareness and self-regulation are both key components to effective translation of memory principles into effective educational design. Lessons from Small Teaching connect to “small” adjustments toward increased metacognitive awareness in teachers. In Part II I will explain and reflect on my, and my students’, experience with Small Teaching in my seminar course.

Recommended Reading

Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Yan, V. X., Clark, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2017). Memory and metamemory considerations in the instruction of human beings revisited: Implications for optimizing online learning. In J. C. Horvath, J. Lodge, & J. A. C. Hattie (Eds.), From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Translating the Learning Sciences for Teachers (pp. 61-78). New York: Routledge.

by Dr. Lauren Scharff, U. S. Air Force Academy*

This simple but somewhat of a tongue-twister question takes us to several challenging aspects of teaching and learning that link to both student and instructor metacognition:

1. How do students self-assess their understanding and abilities prior to assessments?
2. Are students able to accurately know what they are expected to be able to demonstrate for an assessment?
3. What can we as instructors reasonably do to be transparent regarding our learning expectations and to support student development of accurate self-assessment?

Generally speaking, humans ARE good at self-assessment, as long as the self-assessment activity/tool is well-aligned with the actual assessment activity/tool (e.g. see Nuhfer, 2015). However, there are many possible reasons why students may not accurately self-assess, and several of those are directly under our control as instructors.

Thus, I believe we should engage in metacognitive instruction by developing our awareness of common reasons that students may not accurately self-assess, what we might be doing that inadvertently leads to those pitfalls, and some means by which we can support more accurate student self-assessment. We should then intentionally use that awareness to adjust what we do. This combination of awareness and self-regulation provides the foundation for metacognitive instruction.

Based on my observations and discussions with colleagues across the years, here are three common reasons students might not accurately self-assess along with some strategies instructors might take to support better student self-assessment:

1. Lesson-to-Exam Misalignment – For example, classroom instruction and activities sometimes focus on basic concepts and definitions, while exams ask for evaluation and synthesis. Students may self-assess their competency based on what was presented in the lesson, but then feel surprised and perform poorly on the exam when they are asked to go beyond the lower level. Even if instructors “warn” students that they will need to engage in higher-level processing on the exams, if students haven’t been given the opportunity to experience what that means and practice it, those students may not accurately self-assess their preparedness for the exam. Instructors should analyze the levels and types of learning materials they present in class and require of students during formative learning activities (in-class activities, homework, quizzes). Then, they should align their exams to have similar levels of expectation. If they desire higher-level learning to be demonstrated on exams, they should redesign their learning activities to allow scaffolding, practice, and feedback with those higher-level expectations.
2. Confusing Questions – Students often claim that questions on exams are confusing, even if they don’t seem to be confusing from the instructor’s perspective. Thus, students might actually be accurate in their self-assessment of their understanding of a topic, but then fail to demonstrate it because they were confused by the question or simply misread it. Test anxiety can add additional cognitive load and make it more likely for students to misread questions. Thus, instructors should review their questions to find ways to more clearly indicate what they expect in a response. For example, if there are two parts to the question, rather than having a long question, break it into part (a) and part (b). This symbolism clearly communicates that a good response should have two parts. It often can be difficult for the person writing the question to assess the clarity of their question because they know what they mean, so it seems obvious. (Instructors can also fall into this trap when reviewing test banks questions and the correct answer is clearly indicated. Once the answer is known, it seems obvious.) Being aware of these pitfalls and taking the time to critically analyze one’s test questions is a good way to engage in metacognitive instruction. Having a colleague from a different area of expertise read through the questions before finalizing them can also help catch some instances where clarity could be improved.
3. Smooth Presentations – Instructors are experts, and they generally like to be perceived as such. Thus, it is far more common for instructors to present problem work-outs or other complex material in ways that make it look smooth and easy. That seems good, right? Actually, smooth presentations can mislead students into thinking that the material is easy and not prompt them to ask questions. Following a smooth presentation, students might then self-assess as understanding the material when really they would not be able to work out a problem on their own. Explicit step-by-step examples in textbooks also sometimes fool students into thinking they know how to workout problems if the assigned homework can be completed by following the examples. Instructors should consider verbalizing points of possible confusion that they know often catch students or sharing their own struggles as they learned the material in the past. As they work out problems in front of class, they could ask what worked, what didn’t, and what changes could be made in the problem-solving approach (or writing approach, or presentation of an argument, etc.). They should also emphasize to students that they will be better able to self-assess their preparation for an exam if they work out problems without the examples in front of them.

The above challenges for accurate student self-assessment and instructor strategies to address them are just a start to help us become metacognitive instructors and help students become more metacognitive learners. In my next post I will share with you my recent exploration into the use of Knowledge Surveys. This tool directly helps students develop more accurate self-assessment. Further, with direction and encouragement from the instructor, knowledge surveys can help students become metacognitive learners by using their awareness of their learning to guide their use of learning strategies.

There are many routes to becoming a metacognitive instructor, although all require intentionality in developing awareness of factors impacting student learning and using that awareness to self-regulate instructional efforts. It is a process with many options and possible strategies, where even small efforts can lead to big pay-offs in student learning and development.

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Nuhfer, E. (January 2015). Self-assessment and the Affective Quality of Metacognition: Part 2 of 2. Blog post on Improve with Metacognition, retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/self-assessment-and-the-affective-quality-of-metacognition-part-2-of-2/

* Disclaimer: The views expressed in this document are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U. S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U. S. Govt.