Aaron S. Richmond
Metropolitan State University of Denver
How many times has a student come to you and said “I just don’t understand why I did so bad on the test?” or “I knew the correct answer but I thought the question was tricky.” or “I’ve read the chapter 5 times and I still don’t understand what you are talking about in class.”? What did you say or do for these students? Did it prompt you to wonder what you can do to improve your students’ metacognition? I know many of us at Improve with Metacognition (IwM), started pursuing research on metacognition because of these very experiences. As such, I have compiled a summary of some of the awesome resources IwM bloggers have posted (see below). These instructional strategies can be generally categorized into either self-contained lessons. That is a lesson that can teach some aspect of metacognition in one or two class sessions. Or metacognitive instructional strategies that require an entire semester to teach.
Self-Contained Instructional Strategies
In Stephen Chew’s Blog, Metacognition and Scaffolding Student Learning, he suggests that one way to improve metacognitive awareness is through well-designed review sessions (Chew, 2015). Chew suggests that students would metacogntively benefit by actively participate and incentivize participation in study review sessions. Second, Chew suggests that students should self-test before review so that it is truly a review. Third, have students predict their exam scores based on the review performance and have them reflect on their predictions after the exam.
Ed Nuhfer (2015) describes a way to increase metacognition through role-play. Ed suggests that we can use Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking hats method to train our students to increase their metacognitive literacy. In essence, using this method we can train our students to think in a factual way (white hat), be positive and advocate for specific positions (yellow hat), to be cautious (black hat), recognize all facets of our emotions (red hat), be provocative (green hat), and be reflective and introspective (blue hat). We can do this through several exercises where students get a turn to have different hats.
In David Westmoreland’s (2014) blog, he discusses a classroom exercise to improve metacognition. David created a “metacognitive lab that attempts to answer the question How do you know?” In the lab, he presents students in small groups a handful of “truth” statements (e.g., Eggs are fragile.). Then students must take the statement and justify (on the board) how it is true. Then the class eliminates the justifications if they know them not to be true. Then the students with one another about the process and why the statements were eliminated.
Course Long Instructional Strategies
Chris Was (2014) investigated whether “variable weight-variable difficulty tests” would improve students’ calibration (i.e., knowing when you know something and knowing when you don’t). Chris has his students take several quizzes. In each quiz, students can weight each question for varied amount of points (e.g., question 1 is easy so I will give it 5 points whereas question 4 is hard so I will only give it 2 points). Then students answer whether they believe they got the question correct or not. After each quiz is graded, a teaching assistant goes over the quiz and discusses with the students why they weighted the question the way they did and why the thought they would or would not get the question correct. Was found that this activity caused his students to become better at knowing when they knew or did not know something.
Similarly, Shumacher and Taraban (2015) discussed the use of the testing effect as a method to improve metacognition. They suggest there are mixed results of the testing method as an effective instructional method. That is, when students were repeatedly tested and were exposed to questions on multiple exams, only low achieving students metacognitively benefited.
John Draeger (2015) uses just-in-time teaching in attempt to improve metacognition. John asks students metacognitive prompting questions (e.g., What is the most challenging part of the reading?) prior to class and they submit their answers before coming to class. Although, he has not measured the efficacy of this method, students have responded positively to the process.
Parting Questions to Further this Important Conversation
There are many other instructional methods used to increase student metacognition described throughout IwM that are both self-contained and semester long. Please check them out!
But even considering all of what has been presented in this blog and available on IwM, I couldn’t help but leave you with some unanswered questions that I myself have:
- What other instructional strategies have you used to increase student metacognition?
- If you were to choose between a self-contained or semester long method, which one would you choose and why? Meaning, what factors would help you determine which method to use? Insructional goals? How closely related to course content? Time commitment? Level of student metacogntive knowledge? Level of course?
- Once you have chosen a self-contained or semester long method, how should implementation methods differ? That is, what are the best practices used when implementing a self-contained vs. semester long technique?
- Finally, often in the metacognition research in higher education, instructional strategies for improving metacognition are pulled from studies and experiments conducted in k-12 education. Are there any studies, which you can think of, that would be suitable for testing in higher education? If so, how and why?
References
Beziat, T. (2015). Goal monitoring in the classroom. Retrived from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/goal-monitoring-in-the-classroom/
Chew, S. (2015). Metacognition and scaffolding student learning. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-and-scaffolding-student-learning/
Draeger, J. (2015). Using Justin-in-Time assignments to promote metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/using-just-in-time-assignments-to-promote-metacognition/
Nilson, L. B. (2015). Metacognition and specifications grading: The odd couple? Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-and-specifications-grading-the-odd-couple/
Nuhfer, E. (2015). Developing metacognitive literacy through role play: Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/developing-metacognitive-literacy-through-role-play-edward-de-bonos-six-thinking-hats/
Shumbacher, J., & Traban, R. (2015). To test or not to test: That is the metacognitive question. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/to-test-or-not-to-test-that-is-the-metacognitive-question/
Was, C. (2014). Testing improves knowledge monitoring. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/testing-improves-knowledge-monitoring/
Westmoreland, D. (2014). Science and social controversy—A classroom exercise in metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/science-and-social-controversy-a-classroom-exercise-in-metacognition/
