Author: James Rhem

Transparency and Metacognition

by James Rhem (Executive Editor, National Teaching and Learning Forum)

Some readers may know that The National Teaching and Learning FORUM has undertaken a series of residencies on campuses across the country looking at teaching and learning at a variety of institutions, and all the efforts to support and improve it. Currently I’m at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas where Mary-Ann Winkelmas is coordinator of instructional development and research.

One of the things Mary-Ann brought to Las Vegas from her previous work at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois is something called the Transparency Project, a project carried out in collaboration with AAC&U. To my mind this approach to increasing students’ connections with and understanding of the assignments they’re given in the courses they take seems to have a lot to do with metacognition. Perhaps it’s a homely version, I’m not sure, but I think it’s something those interested in improving student performance through metacognitive awareness ought to know about. So, that’s my post for the moment. Take a look at the impressive body of research the project has already amassed, and the equally impressive results in improved student performance, and see if you don’t agree there’s a relation to metacognitive approaches, something to take note of.

Here’s a link to a page of information on the project with even more links to the research:

http://www.unlv.edu/provost/teachingandlearning


Waves of Insight about Teaching and Learning

James Rhem, Executive Editor, The National Teaching & Learning FORUM

“When I began The National Teaching & Learning FORUM” over twenty years ago, almost everyone in faculty development had heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I hadn’t since I was new to this beat; so I went to the University of Wisconsin’s Memorial Library and looked for it. There on the shelf was what they were talking about, the taxonomy of cognition, but right beside it was something that interested me as much if not more, the taxonomy of affect. No one (or at least no one I knew) had heard of this taxonomy or the one on the psychomotor domain that followed the one on affect. I began quietly beating the drum for an awareness of affect back in 1995 (according to a search of my old email). That was the same year Daniel Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence” came out; so I suspected I’d stumbled onto what would become a cresting wave. That wave has grown, but it’s still heading toward a crest.

I go into all this because I think I can already see the waves of insight and meaningful rethinking of teaching and learning that will follow. Metacognition as a concept has been around for a long time, but coming to understand it and its place in learning (and thus is effective teaching) is a new thing. It’s something I’ve been increasingly covering in the FORUM and something I plan on continuing to cover. Indeed, NTLF created a series of small books with Stylus a few years back and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the titles in that series is about metacognition (Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy Edited by Matthew Kaplan ,  Naomi Silver ,  Danielle LaVaque-Manty ,  Deborah Meizlish Foreword by James Rhem   https://sty.presswarehouse.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=298776 ) 

I’ve linked two recent articles from the FORUM on metacognition. And I invite readers of this list who may have written (or plan to write) articles on metacognition and teaching and learning to submit material to me for wider distribution.  

1. Metacognitive Skills – why bother (and how)? by Carol Hostetter and Leah Savion at Indiana University

2. Metacognition and Disciplinary Thinking by Matt Fisher at Saint Vincent College

So what’s the next wave after metacognition?  The psychomotor domain. Count on it. 

James Rhem, Executive Editor, The National Teaching & Learning FORUM