Author: John Draeger

How a Metacognitive Card Game was Born

by John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

I have developed a variety of metacognitive exercises over the years, but I never thought I’d develop a card game. The nerd in me likes the fact that a metacognitive card game now exists. While I want to tell you about how the game came about, I am also writing because the story includes an important metacognitive moment.

Promoting metacognition in traditional educational settingsimage showing four example metacognition cards

Most of my metacognitive exercises have been designed for classroom settings where students are asked to become aware of their various learning processes (such as reading, writing, ethical reasoning) and their experience with their process (such as feeling stuck). If students can become aware of what’s working and what’s not, then they can better recognize where they need to make adjustments and find ways to improve.

As a small part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project, I developed metacognition exercises to support students doing course-based undergraduate research (EvaluateUR-CURE).[1] These efforts yielded a collection of twelve exercises that provide students with opportunities to build metacognitive habits as well as a guidebook for instructors (Metacognitive exercises and Guides). These exercises provide students with opportunities to practice metacognition in ways that support the broad elements of EvaluateUR-CURE (E-CURE for short).

Each metacognitive exercise helps students attend to various elements of their research process (such as reading for research, developing good research questions, managing projects, building resilience, and effectively communicating results). Once aware of their process, students can then decide whether they need to make adjustments to their process or perhaps seek out additional resources. The guidebook provides instructors and mentors with quick ways to integrate student metacognition into the conversations that they are already having in the classroom. While not specifically designed to support the version of the EvaluateUR method for students conducting independent research with a faculty mentor, the exercises developed for E-CURE can be very useful in a variety of settings.

Time for an adjustment?

My design challenge changed dramatically when working on another NSF funded project aimed at developing a variant of the method – called Evaluate-Compete – for students participating in engineering design competitions. The goal was to help students develop and become aware of academic and workforce skills through their involvement in these competitions. The NSF project initially focused on the MATE ROV competition where high school and college students build underwater vehicles to simulate solving various real-world marine challenges. Teams work all year on their vehicles and then compete in a series of regional competitions in hopes of qualifying for the World Championships. As with the course-based research projects, I was tasked with designing exercises to support metacognitive growth.

I quickly encountered a problem. Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are fun. I had the good fortune of attending the MATE ROV world championships in 2021 and 2022. It is easy to see why teams spend countless hours designing, testing, and tweaking their ROVs. It’s fun. Therein lies both secret to student engagement and flaw in my plan to use worksheets to promote metacognition.

Before, during, and after the competitions, the focus is on the vehicles, vehicle systems, and vehicle performance. The students creating these vehicles are learning all sort of things (and that’s ultimately the point), but it surely seems like it is all about the vehicles. In the previous NSF project, metacognitive exercises encouraged students to pause long enough to consider where they might need to make adjustments in their process and how they might take those lessons into the next learning context. Hands-on research was the secret to student engagement, but the classroom or the structured mentoring setting was the secret to students completing and discussing the metacognitive exercises.

Unlike those settings, students building ROVs were not always tied to formal classes and often work as part of a club, student organization, or a group of friends seeing if they were up to the challenge. The goal in designing the exercise was to promote skill building and reflection on their learning process as they design vehicles and solve problems. But why would anyone do metacognitive exercises when there is no grade attached, especially if you could be focusing on an ROV instead?

Why Cards?

It was time for me to take my own metacognitive medicine. Metacognition refers to an intentional awareness about a process. My process for designing metacognitive questions was going well enough and it worked in other settings, but my initial attempts to pitch worksheets to eager young engineers fell flat and it was quickly obvious that the strategy was never going to work.

Metacognition reminds us to make adjustments when a particular strategy isn’t working. My strategy was doomed. I needed an adjustment. If I could get students to pause and reflect on their process, then the prompts had a chance of helping them build better habits. But how to get them to pause long enough to engage the prompts? I needed a fun way to engage students in reflection about their learning that could be done anywhere, anytime, with any number of people. Because regular practice is important to habit formation, I further hoped that something fun could improve frequency of use and aid habit formation. I shifted strategies and designed a metacognitive card game.

Want to play?

The resulting metacognitive cards can be used at any time, in any order, or in any combination. They can be played by individuals or by a team. Each contains a series of “fun” prompts organized in three categories – problem-solving, persistence, and working with people. Ways to play can be found within each deck, including on planes, trains, at team meetings, and pizza parties. For example, the game can be played individually or in a group. When teams play, individuals can answer from the point of view of someone else in the group, pass a card to someone else for them to respond, or shift perspective by answering from the point of view of someone outside the group. Early feedback on the cards is positive and feedback collection is ongoing. I’ll have more to say future posts. For now, if YOU would like to play the Better upon reflection: building metacognitive habits ONE card at a time  card game, you can request a deck or print out your own deck. And if you play, I’d love to hear how it goes.

[1] Special thanks to the EvaluateUR-Method team – Jill Singer, Sean Fox, Daniel Weiler, Jill Zande, Emma Binder, Maureen Kahn, and Bridget Zimmerman.


Being humble with a little help from metacognition

By John Draeger, PhD  (SUNY Buffalo State)

As a political philosopher, I worry about our deeply divided world and the need to find the wherewithal to interact with those with whom we disagree. I am interested in the role humility plays in civil discourse. I argue that being humble, or being aware that we don’t have all the answers, can open the door to more respectful dealings with others and offer the prospect of more productive dialogue. Being humble isn’t easy, but metacognition can help us stay on track. It can, for example, encourage us to check-in on whether we’re actually listening to what others have to say or lapsing into dismissive name-calling.

Metacognition focuses attention on a process in hopes of evaluating what’s working, what’s not, and what needs adjusting. In this case, metacognition can help us check-in on the process of being humble. If humility involves understanding the ways we can be prone to bias, prejudice, and blind spots, then metacognition can help us identify those times when we lapse into those errors and make the appropriate adjustments. This post explores the relationship between metacognition and humility.

Humility

There’s a long tradition in philosophy on character traits, such as humility, that promote good living. However, I’ve recently become interested in the work of social psychologist Daryl Van Tongeren (2022). If you’ve come across the vast literature on problematic ways of thinking (such as bias, self-deception, and blind spots) and wondered how to avoid such things, then scholars like Van Tongeren are exploring humility as a potential answer.

Van Tongeren highlights the fact that humble people are open to what they don’t know. They learn to tolerate uncertainty and they are on the lookout for times when they are in the grips of illusory (or mistaken) forms of thinking. They also accepts their own strengths. Humility, as an approach to the world, prompts us to look inwards to assess what we might be missing instead of quickly concluding that someone else is wrong, foolish, or worse.

Without humility, relationships can degenerate into people selfishly putting their own needs over others, being insecure and distrustful, and being toxically defensive at the mere whiff of feedback. Humility, in contrast, invites a spirit of openness to change, to feedback, and to the perspectives of others. This offers the prospect of more authentic relationships and greater satisfaction.

An illustration: Road trip anyone?

Suppose you and I are going on a road trip. I happen to be driving and you happen to notice that we seem to be turned around. Humility would nudge me to at least consider that I’m driving in the wrong direction, especially when the GPS, the map, the road signs, and even the sun confirm that we are off course. If humble, then I might respond with a “yup, my bad. Where’s the best place to turn around?” If not, then I might get defensive by questioning the authority of the map, appealing to some “special shortcut” that only I know about, angrily changing the topic of conversation, and then silently (though stubbornly) driving on. If we find ourselves in this situation, then humility, as a process of openness towards the world, has broken down. Enter metacognition.

Metacognition can prompt me to check-in on my process (humility). Why am I behaving this way? Am I being defensive because I am embarrassed? Am I annoyed because I didn’t want to take the trip anyway? Am I flummoxed because I want the trip to go perfectly and I fear that I’ve messed things up? Or am I frustrated because my bad back is acting up and I am so uncomfortable that I can’t think straight or manage anything going wrong? Metacognition reminds me to check-in on whether I’m being open to evidence or being hijacked by some other factor. Once alerted, I can recommit to humility and adjust my course.

More generally, metacognition can prompt me to notice that I tend to be open to criticisms about my cooking (because my identity is not tied up with it) and those offered by my close friends (because I trust their judgment). However, feedback from certain family members and any feedback about my teaching has the tendency to put me on edge. In these cases, metacognition can alert me to those contexts where I’m more likely to be humble and those where I’m more likely to be closed.

Making the connection: Humility and metacognition

Neither humility nor metacognition can guarantee good thinking, good feeling, or good action (whatever that means). But humility reminds us to be open to our own foibles and open to the ways we often miss the mark. Metacognition encourages us to check-in on our humility and become aware of how we might get back on track.

Applied to civil discourse, neither humility nor metacognition can solve contentious disagreements in a polarized political environment, but they can help set the stage for progress. A willingness to check-in on why and how we think, feel, and act as we do can position us for dialogue with those with whom we deeply disagree (even those who question our most cherished beliefs about god or human rights). Humility, for example, encourages us to appreciate the points of view of those with whom we disagree and suspend judgment until the evidence is in. Van Tongeren argues that humble people recognize that it is not all about us. Other people know things that we don’t. Others bring experiences to the table that can be hard for us to imagine. Humility holds space for those possibilities. Metacognition reminds us to check-in on our presence in that space. If we’re not there, then an adjustment is in order.

References

Van Tongeren, D. (2022). Humble: Free yourself from the traps of a narcissistic world. The Experiment.


Using metacognition to move from talking the equity talk, to walking the equity walk

Conversations around equity, diversity, and inclusion are gaining traction on college campuses in the United States. In many cases, these conversations are overdue, so a willingness to even have the talk represents progress. But how can campuses move from talking equity talk to walking the equity walk? How can the buzz be transformed into a breakthrough? This post argues that taking a metacognitive approach is essential to taking steps in more equitable directions.

Becoming more equitable is a process. As with any process, metacognition encourages us to consider what’s working, what’s not, and how we might make adjustments to improve how we are living that process. If college campuses genuinely want to travel down more equitable roads, then they need to articulate their equity goals, map their route, and remove obstacles preventing them from reaching that destination. And if along the way, campuses find that their plans aren’t working, then metacognition can point the way towards a course correction.

A guide and the need for collective metacognition

Equity Talk to Equity Walk; book

In From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education, Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcolm-Piqueux (2020) offer guidance to campuses wanting to do more than just talk. They argue, for example, that campuses need a shared understanding of equity and diversity. College mission statements are a start, but their lofty words define aspirations but not a path. Big words will never amount to more than talk unless a campus can figure out how to live into those big ideas. For example, it is one thing to pepper conversation with words, like ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘inclusion.’ It’s another thing altogether to develop a shared campus-wide understanding of these ideas and how those ideas need to practiced in the day-to-day life on campus. If institutional change requires shared understanding, then I argue that college campuses need collective metacognitive moments.

Metacognition urges us to establish goals and continually check-in on our progress towards them. Taking a metacognitive approach to institutional change will require that campuses articulate their equity goals with shared understanding of the underlying terms, map a plan to work towards those aspirations, monitor their progress, and make adjustments when appropriate.

  • What are the shared goals around equity? What might it mean to live into these goals in concrete terms?
  • Are these goals widely shared? If not, why not?
  • How can members of the campus community contribute and see themselves in their contribution?

Taking a metacognitive approach can also help locate the “pain points.”

  • Is the lack of progress owing to a lack of shared understanding, a lack of planning, or well-intentioned individuals working at cross-purposes?
  • What can be done to get efforts back on track?

As with any process, metacognitive check-ins around what’s working and what’s not working can point to areas for improvement. Metacognition, therefore, can keep a college campus heading down the equity path.

Progress requires being aware of barriers and working to remove them

Being concrete about the move from equity talk to walking the equity walk requires removing barriers to progress. According to McNair, Besimon, and Malcolm-Piqueux, barriers include individuals claiming not to see race or substituting class issues for race. Taking a metacognitive approach could encourage individuals to get curious about why they claim not to see race or feel more comfortable talking about economic issues. Why might someone be reluctant to consider the extent of their white privilege? Why might a campus be reluctant to acknowledge the reality of institutional racism and its implications?

Taking a metacognitive approach to such questions can honor the fact that talking about inequity can be awkward and uncomfortable. Yet, metacognition also encourages us to ask whether things are working and whether we might need to make adjustments. Walking the equity walk requires asking how white privilege and institutional racism might be inadvertently influencing campus policies and the delivery of instruction. Taking a metacognitive approach encourages campuses to look for ways to make adjustments. Awareness and adjustments are precisely what is needed in the move from equity talk to the equity walk.

By way of illustration,  McNair, Besimon, and Malcolm-Piqueux call on campuses to stop employing euphemisms, such as ‘underrepresented minorities.’ In their view, campus administration, individual departments, and instructors should disaggregate data instead. The thought is that equity issues can be addressed only if they are named. If, for example, the graduation rate of African-American males is lower than other groups, then walking the equity walk requires understanding why and looking for ways to help. If first-generation students are stopping out after their second semester (or their fourth), then campuses that are aware of this reality are positioned to make the necessary adjustments.

Administrators should look at institution-wide patterns to see if institutional protocols are impediments to student success. Individual departments should review student progress across programs and within particular courses to see how they might better support student learning. And individual instructors should take a careful look at when, where, and how students struggle with particular assignments, skills, and content. It may turn out that all students are equally successful across all areas. It might also be the case that patterns emerge which indicate that some groups of students could use more support in certain identifiable areas.

A metacognitive approach to institutional change requires that universities, academic departments, and individual instructors articulate their equity goals, track progress, and make adjustments where appropriate. Disaggregating data at all levels (institution-wide, by department, individual courses) can uncover inequities. Identifying those obstacles can be a step towards making the necessary adjustments. This can, in turn, help campuses walk the equity walk.

Improve with metacognition

Taking a metacognitive approach to process improvements encourages individuals (and institutions) to get curious about what works and where adjustments need to be made. It encourages them to continuously assess and use that assessment to make additional adjustments along the way. Colleges and universities have a long way to go if they are to address the realities of systemic inequities. But learning to walk the equity walk is a process. If we know anything about metacognition, we know that it provides us with the resources to offer process improvements. So, I argue, metacognition is essential to learning to move beyond equity talk and actually walking the equity walk.

 

 

 


How Metacognitive Instructors Can Use Their Learning Management System to Facilitate Student Learning

by John Draeger and Brooke Winckelmann

This essay explores ways instructors can be metacognitive about course design, including selecting tools in the Learning Management System (LMS) to support student learning. It offers strategies for being intentional about learning within the LMS and examples of online modules that can be directly incorporated into course instruction or can be self-contained, student-directed, and stand alone. These examples serve as a blueprint for creating predictable structures that offer guidance and opportunities for students to learn about their own learning. We also argue that purposeful use of LMS tools can provide opportunities for instructor to monitor student progress toward learning goals and make adjustments to their instructional method when appropriate.

Draeger, J., & Winckelmann, B. (2020). How Metacognitive Instructors Can Use Their Learning Management System to Facilitate Student Learning. Journal of Teaching and Learning With Technology, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.14434/jotlt.v9i1.29159

 


Metacognitively meeting students where they are

John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

The Teaching and Learning Center at SUNY Buffalo State hosts a regular breakfast conversation on Friday mornings. Faculty and staff gather around coffee, bagels, and a common reading. This fall we read Becoming a Student-Ready College: A new culture of leadership for success (McNair et al., 2016). The book chronicles recent changes in higher-education. More and more students are the first in their families to go to college. More come from communities of color. More work full-time and find it necessary to take care of family members while attending school. I love the underlying premise of the book. The question is NOT what students are doing to ready for us. Rather, the question is what WE are doing to get ready for THEM.

This post argues that promoting metacognition is necessary if we are going to meet the needs of our current students. Metacognition prompts us to be aware of what students need and points the way towards the necessary adjustments.

We can do better and we must do better. Students are stopping out at alarming rates. In some cases, this is simply because they didn’t successfully navigate obtuse institutional expectations. For example, how many times do we ask students to crisscross campus for this signature on that form only to be told they need to come back later? Come to think of it, how many institutional procedures actually make sense? Many policies kept alive by sheer institutional inertia. Those of us who have been around long enough may know how to navigate them, but this is profoundly unfair to students.

McNair et al. encourage each of us to ask the questions that pave the way for student success, even when (perhaps especially when) it is uncomfortable. They call on campuses to embrace a leadership model that is simultaneously bottom-up, top-down, and inside-out. Everyone must take it upon themselves to live into their role in creating a study-ready campus.

Senior leadership needs to articulate a vision of the campus needs to do to be ready for students.  Shared governance bodies need to hold the campus accountable. Offices across campus can, and should, reflect on the policies, procedures, attitudes, and behaviors that might inadvertently impede student success. While no one person can transform the campus, each person can clean up their own corner of it. How can departments align learning outcomes with the needs of current students? How can faculty explore whether and how their classroom methods facilitate student learning of all students? And how can everyone on campus be mindful of the many points of view represented by our diverse student bodies, and strive to overcome stereotypes and implicit bias to demonstrate a steadfast belief in students?

Each chapter of the book offers a series of guiding questions to frame campus discussions. They are, in essence, offering a metacognitive approach to culture change. It can happen. Jen McCabe and Justine Chasmar outline how Goucher College has been transformed through metacognition (McCabe & Chasmar, 2018). Of note, the Goucher initiative was kicked off by their president, Jose Antonio Bowen. While it takes a campus become student-ready, senior leadership can play an important role in framing the conversation. Regardless, the conversation needs to happen if campuses are to meet students where they are.

This site defines ‘metacognition” as “an intentional focusing of attention on a process in which one is personally engaged. It encourages awareness of one’s current state of accomplishment, along with the situational influences and strategy choices that are currently, or have previously, influence accomplishment of that process.” Becoming student ready requires that each and every person be personally engaged with student success. Individuals and offices across campus need to critically assess the current state of affairs. Is this a student ready campus? If not, then what are the situational influences keeping that from happening?

If change is necessary, then what strategy choices are mostly likely to influence that process? Progress should be monitored so that all involved are aware of the current state of accomplishment. If the current strategies are not resulting in a student-ready campus, then further thought should be put to how campuses will make the necessary adjustments. In short, metacognition is necessary if colleges and universities are to become student-ready.

References

McCabe, J. & Chasmar, J. (posted December 10, 2018). “Metacognition at Goucher I: Framework and Implementation.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-at-goucher-i-framework-and-implementation/.

McNair, T. B., Bensimon, E., Cooper, M. A., McDonald, N., & Major Jr, T. (2016). Becoming a student-ready college: A new culture of leadership for student success. John Wiley & Sons.

 

 


Taking regular thinking-about-thinking breaks

By John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

As the new semester gets underway, I am mindful of the importance of helping students learn critical thinking and metacognition alongside important content. I teach courses in philosophical ethics. My goal is to help students learn to reflect on basic questions of life by critically examining fundamental values. I want students to learn to uncover the underlying substructure of moral issues (Draeger 2014). I want them to see the real-life relevance of fundamental values (e.g., respect, fairness, and individual well-being) and how reflecting on those values inform how they interact with those around them. 

We began this semester with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” because the essay underscores the real-world relevance of philosophy. We move from discussions of King to conversations about #BlackLivesMatter, redlining, and concerns about the criminal justice system.  Students are eager to talk about these issues. The trick, however, is to help them learn to think about them in more philosophically nuanced ways. It is tempting to fall into familiar patterns of thinking without taking a hard look at the nature of those thoughts. It is also easy to appeal to authority. King was on the “right” side of history. There is national holiday in the United States dedicated to his memory and a monument on the national mall. But, more deeply, why is racial segregation unjust? Why think we have a moral duty to overturn it? What are the implications of King’s analysis to contemporary debates?

In an attempt to help students learn how to uncover additional layers of philosophical insight, I offer what I call the “philosophical method.” It is a recursive process where students identify the core values, ask critical questions (e.g., about meaning, assumptions), apply to concrete cases, formulate insights gleaned from those applications, and use them to refine their analysis.

At the start of each class, we identity the relevant values under discussion and how they are related to class readings. As we move through a class session, we take frequent “thinking-about-thinking breaks” to put a pause on the discussion to isolate elements of the process. This pause is sometimes even indicated by making a corny “T” gesture with my hands. The idea is that we want to be explicit about the thinking process (i.e. engage in metacognition) in order to understand how the various parts are related and how to engage in deeper reflections about values (critical thinking). 

For example, King argues that segregation is unjust because it degrades human dignity, because it harms the human spirit, because policies were arbitrarily applied, and because not all people had a voice in policy creation. It is all too easy to look at this collection of arguments and say “yup, segregation is bad.” However, each of reason points to a different fundamental value. Degrading dignity is related to a duty to respect all people. Harming individuals is related to the importance of personal well-being. Concerns about arbitrary policy application is a worry about fairness. And concerns about voice in a process points to the value of democracy. These values are interrelated, but identifying their separateness is an important step towards exploring their interconnections. And this is precisely what reflecting carefully about basic value questions is all about.

In a previous post, I explored differences between two forms of thinking about thinking, namely critical thinking and metacognition (Draeger 2015). I’ve argued that “critical thinking involves an awareness of mode of thinking within a domain (e.g., question assumptions about gender, determine the appropriateness of a statistical method), while metacognition involves an awareness of the efficacy of particular strategies for completing that task.”  The philosophical method that I just described is an example critical thinking within a discipline. However, when I explicitly bring student awareness to their engagement in the critical thinking process we move to a more metacognitive domain. I would argue that these think-about-thinking breaks can be one way of practicing both skills. 

Thinking-about-thinking breaks focus on whether our strategies for disciplinary thinking are working. Being metacognitive about our critical thinking processes, for example, can help us see where misunderstandings arise and when we might need to pivot to a new way of approaching the interrelationships between important values. If students have trouble understanding the difference between respect, fairness, and well-being, then metacognitive awareness can suggest a shift in critical thinking strategy (e.g., application to dissimilar case, consider underlying assumptions, explore evidence of their importance, clarify meaning).

Because metacognition is a skill, thinking-about-thinking breaks give students an opportunity to practice in class with both instructor and peer support. These breaks are part of a broad effort on my part to promote metacognitive development alongside content and disciplinary thinking. I encourage metacognitive reading strategies (Draeger 2017) and use Just-in-Time teaching strategies to both encourage metacognition outside of class and inform discussion within class (Draeger 2016).  Taking class time to practice metacognitive strategies underscores its importance in the intellectual life of my students. I hope that making the connection between metacognition and critically thinking about fundamental values (e.g., respect, fairness, well-being) will underscore the ways that metacognition is essential to a deeper understanding of the basic questions of life.

References

Draeger, J. (posted July 11, 2014). Using metacognition to uncover the substructure of moral issues.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com. 

Draeger, J. (posted October 12, 2015). “Two forms of ‘thinking about thinking’: Metacognition and critical thinking.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com. 

Draeger, J. (posted November 17, 2016) “Promoting metacognitive reading through Just-in-Time Teaching.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/promoting-metacognitive-reading-just-time-teaching/ 

Draeger, J. (posted June 16, 2017). “Metacognitive Reading Boosts Philosophy Exam Scores.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/developing_student_metacognition_draeger/ 


On the Benefits of Metacognition: Seeking Justice by Overcoming Shallow Understanding

By John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. responds to the white moderates of Birmingham who believed his protests were ill-timed and unnecessary. He writes:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. (King, 295)

White moderates baffled King because he knew them to be people of good will. Why would they talk the equality talk without walking the walk? For example, they worried that King’s protests threatened to undermine the rule of law. Yet, King argued that respect for the law and for the human beings governed by those laws, demanded standing against injustice even when, perhaps especially when, it would be convenient for whites to do otherwise. Moreover, King’s respect for the system of law was underscored by the fact that the protests were nonviolent and the protestors were willing to accept the consequences of their lawbreaking. King’s letter challenged the white moderates of Birmingham to consider why they were so reluctant to side with those being treated unjustly. In short, King called on them (and us today) to be more metacognitive.

The Benefits of Metacognition

            Metacognition is the ongoing awareness of a process and a willingness to adjust when necessary. King’s letter argued that the white moderates needed to become aware of a broader set of issues and adjust their actions accordingly. For example, white moderates were concerned about the safety of their families and the fact that protests might turn violent. This seems reasonable until we consider the living conditions and often violent treatment of their black neighbors. King suggests that white moderates were emotionally disconnected from the lived experience of those affected by segregation and this disconnect helped explain their tepid endorsement of the civil rights movement. Willful ignorance can shield us from uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the world around us. It is often easier not to ask tough questions than to face unflattering answers. However, metacognition prompts us to consider the quality of our thought processes and then take action based on a new awareness of ourselves.

Raising awareness by purposefully engaging our reasons for action (or non-action) might prompt us to ask the following sorts of metacognitive prompting questions.

  • How well do I understand those around me?
  • When am I less likely to question what I am doing?
  • What are the forces that keep me from being connected to the suffering of others?
  • When am I less likely to see the harms done to others? Are the harms invisible (e.g., internal struggles that I could only see with careful listening)? Or would harms be visible to me if I were paying attention?
  • Why am I not paying attention to others?
  • Do I tend to avoid bad news because ignorance is psychologically easier?
  • Am I afraid of asking myself difficult questions because I doubt I can do anything about it anyway?
  • Am I afraid to rock the boat?
  • Am I afraid to ask questions that will paint me in a bad light?

The list of relevant questions could go on for pages and it will likely depend on the particular circumstances, but it is worth remembering that it was in inability of white moderates to ask such questions led King to write his letter. If we want to avoid similar pitfalls, then each of us must find the wherewithal to take a hard look in the mirror and adjust when necessary.

Looking forward

            I find King’s letter especially relevant at a time when many of us are coming to grips with how address issues raised by the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements as well as the worldwide conversation surrounding immigration. I believe that there are rich research opportunities at the intersection of metacognition and ethical reasoning. For example, how might metacognition help overcome implicit bias or microaggression? How might it support the development of respect for humankind? I hope to consider these issues in future posts.

References

King, M. L. (1963).  “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., ed. James Washington (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1986).


Metacognitive support for HIP student learning communities

by John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

In a previous post, I argued that metacognition can support undergraduate research because it encourages students to become aware of the inquiry process and it can help students make meaningful adjustments when things go off the rails (Draeger, 2018). Like undergraduate research, student learning communities are on the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) list of high-impact practices (HIP). They make the list because they require multiple interactions between faculty and students about substantive matters as well as frequent, constructive feedback from faculty, and regular, structured processes for reflection and integration (Kuh 2008; Kilgo, Sheets & Pascarella 2015). In a similar vein, this post argues that instructors and students can benefit from being more metacognitive about their involvement in learning communities. While learning communities can take various forms, they involve groups of students taking a common set of courses at the same time with the same instructors. Learning communities aim to integrate learning experiences across courses in the community.

Sample models of student learning communities

Some models of learning communities involve groups of students taking a collection of courses co-taught by the same instructors. The co-teaching model promotes coordination and communication between instructors about course design, instruction, and assessment. Because students and instructors are present for class sessions in each of the courses, there are plenty of opportunities to make cross-disciplinary observations. Students, for example, can watch as instructors approach a common reading from very different points of view. However, the co-teaching model is often not feasible at many institutions. Another model of learning community requires that a cohort of students take some of the same courses taught by the same instructors, but the courses are not co-taught. Because faculty are rarely in the same room at the same time, I would argue that it is all the more important that they take a metacognitive approach to their student learning community involvement.

Strategies for building metacognition into learning communities

At SUNY Buffalo State, we’ve developed a series of workshops and related materials to promote greater coordination and integration across student learning community courses. The following are just a few of those strategies. (Anyone interested in learning more about resource materials can contact me at draegejd@buffalostate.edu).

First, instructors can review the learning outcomes for each of the courses to look for points of similarity and departure. Points of convergence might be around content (e.g., themes that run through each of the courses) or around skills (e.g., reading, writing, critical thinking). Becoming aware of learning outcomes could, for example, lead to a conversation between instructors about how to reinforce what the other is doing. It could also alert them to places where they might inadvertently undermine the other’s efforts. Reviewing the learning goals emphasizes the importance of looking for opportunities to make explicit connections across each course. Awareness isn’t everything, but it can open space for the possibility of making meaningful adjustments.

Second, instructors can share the core ideas that are at the heart of their courses and that organize other course elements (Nosich, 2012). Identifying these fundamental ideas and being explicit about them with students is important because these ideas serve as anchor points, especially when students struggle. However, fundamental ideas can also serve as important landmarks across courses. Even if instructors cannot discuss another’s content with nuance, they can intentionally make connections to the big ideas. Better yet, instructors can take a “integration time-out” by asking students to relate the material in the current class to the fundamental concepts in each of the other courses. In this case, instructors are aware of the importance of integration and looking for opportunities to intentionally make connections with the key elements of another’s course.

Third, instructors can discuss how they approach giving feedback to students. It is no secret that frequent feedback promotes learning within a course, but students can also benefit from instructors being aware of what other instructors are doing. For example, instructors might use slightly different terminology to talk about similar things. Through conversation, they may decide to adopt a common lexicon. In this case, awareness promotes minor adjustments. In other cases, instructors might want to keep to their own way of doing things. However, they might be more explicit about how and why similar situations are being handled differently in different courses. The hope is that this will keep students from inadvertently going off the rails. It can also reinforce the notion that learning can be effective, albeit different, in differing contexts.

Fourth, instructors can explore why and how they promote student reflection. For example, some courses seek to exposure to new ideas, while others consider the complexity of a more focused set of ideas. Within a course, it is important to be explicit with students about the type of reflection between encouraged (e.g., deep, wide). It is also important to be explicit about structured reflections (e.g., deep, wide) across the learning community courses. Is the goal to keep a running list of the various ways the content and skills in each course are similar and different? This approach speaks to the breadth of knowledge across fields of study and captures the sense that individual students can make meaningful connections in a wide variety of ways. Or is the goal to focus on the finding the important connections between the fundamental concepts in each course? This approach speaks to the importance of sustained conversation about a narrow set of issues from multiple points of view. Both forms of reflection can be valuable, but instructors need to be intentional and explicit about structuring those experiences within and across their courses.

HIP student learning communities

If implemented well, learning communities can be HIP because they encourage students to consider the learning connections between their courses. I argue that metacognition can help instructors intentionally design and explicitly structure integrative learning opportunities. Metacognition can also help students become increasingly aware of similarities and differences across academic disciplines. In this way, metacognition and learning communities offer students the opportunity to learn how to make connections within and across fields of inquiry. Because the ability to make such connections is a hallmark of a lifelong learner, promoting metacognition through learning communities has the potential to be highly impactful in a student’s life for years to come.

References

Draeger, J. (2018). Metacognition supports HIP undergraduate research. Improve with Metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-supports-hip-undergraduate-research/

Healey, M., & Jenkins, A. (2009). Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. York: HE Academy.

Kilgo, C. A., Sheets, J. K. E., & Pascarella, E. T. (2015). The link between high-impact practices and student learning: Some longitudinal evidence. Higher Education, 69(4), 509-525.

Kilgo, C. A., & Pascarella, E. T. (2016). Does independent research with a faculty member enhance four-year graduation and graduate/professional degree plans? Convergent results with different analytical methods. Higher Education, 71(4), 575-592.

Kuh, G. D. (2008). Excerpt from high-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Nosich, G. (2012) Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the disciplines. Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

 


Metacognition is essential to ethical teaching

by John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

In his most recent post, Aaron Richmond considers the possibility that promoting metacognition might be unethical (Richmond, 2018). According to Richmond, ethical teaching requires promoting student autonomy by providing students with choices between learning strategies and promoting student welfare by safeguarding against harm. Richmond believes that activities promoting student metacognition may pose a potential threat to both student welfare and student autonomy. Thus, Richmond cautiously concludes that promoting student metacognition can be unethical.

Richmond illustrates his worry by considering the use of a metacognitive strategy that he has shared on our site (Richmond, 2017), namely Immediate Feedback Assessment Techniques (IF-AT). He worries that IF-AT can cause students undue anxiety, especially if they aren’t given the option of alternative assignments. In his view, the presence of anxiety threatens welfare and the lack of options threatens autonomy. To avoid these pitfalls, Richmond recommends that instructors tell their students why and how particular teaching strategies will be used. He also recommends that instructors be on the lookout for the possibility that a particular strategy could cause unintended anxiety. And he advises that instructors should be prepared to pre-warn students about the possibility of difficulty and be prepared to debrief students afterwards if difficulties occur. These safeguards are important because they protect student welfare and autonomy. I agree, though I argue below that metacognition is key to getting there. Richmond ends by posing three questions for us to think about. He asks, “Do you believe that some IwM practices have the potential to be unethical? If so, how do you ameliorate this issue? How do I become both an ethical and metacognitive teacher?” (Richmond, 2018). I will take each question in turn.

  1. Do I believe that some metacognitive practices have the potential to be unethical?

In short, no. It is possible that a metacognitive assessment, such as IF-AT, could inadvertently cause serious harm to a particular student. For example, a student facing serious psychological distress outside the classroom might find an assignment, any assignment, more than she can take. But the fact that a learning strategy could inadvertently harm a particular student does not show a strategy to be unethical. By analogy, there are many medical procedures that have been studied, approved, and shown to be effective. It is always possible that one those procedures could inadvertently cause a particular patient serious harm. Doctors ought to be aware of the possibility and monitor the situation. They should be ready with remedies. But the fact that someone could be inadvertently harmed neither shows that doctors are unethical nor that the procedure should be discontinued. Likewise, if a learning strategy has been tested and shown to be effective, then it seems reasonable to try. Instructors should be aware of the possibility that some students might have an adverse reaction. But the fact that a particular student can be inadvertently harmed neither shows that instructors are unethical nor that use of the learning technique should be discontinued.

It is also possible that a well-intentioned instructor could try a teaching innovation (e.g., IF-AT) in hopes that student learning will improve only to find that it doesn’t meet that objective. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about ineffective instruction, but being unethical is far more than being ineffective, suboptimal, or even a cause for concern. On the analogy with medicine, a particular medical procedure may not help a particular patient or even a group of patients, but it is hard to see how doctors can be unethical for trying something that they believe could work. In both cases, we hope that teachers and doctors will become aware of the problems and look to make meaningful adjustments (i.e. become more metacognitive about their practices). In contrast, it is possible that instructors could be intentionally undermining student learning efforts. Such instruction could be unethical. But I doubt this applies to instructors taking the time to design activities that promote student metacognition in hopes of enhancing student learning.

Richmond’s concern about instruction implementing metacognitive learning strategies centers on whether they harm student welfare and undermine student autonomy. Returning to his illustration, Richmond worries that students may feel coerced into doing IF-AT (thus undermining choice) and the uniqueness of the activity may cause undue anxiety (thus undermining welfare). I don’t doubt that there are plenty of assignments and activities that students don’t want to do and these may stress them out. At some level, however, students have voluntarily opted into an educational system that will make demands on their time and energy, require hard work and dedication, and push their boundaries in order to facilitate their growth. Instructors should be mindful not to make unreasonable demands, but it is unclear how providing students with immediate feedback on their performance (IF-AT) constitutes coercion or any other unethical behavior. Moreover, I have argued that instructors should promote constructive discomfort in an attempt to nudge students towards learning growth (Draeger, 2014). More specifically in regards to IF-AT, it might be that a student feels anxiety associated with students learning that they don’t know as much as they thought they knew, but I suspect that these negative feelings will be offset by the positive feelings associated with improved performance.

In short, well-meaning learning strategies, including metacognitive ones, can be ineffective and in some cases can even inadvertently cause serious harm to specific students. But I see no reason to think this shows that instruction promoting student metacognition can be unethical.

  1. If so, how do you ameliorate this issue?

Though I don’t think that incorporating metacognition into one’s course is unethical, I do believe that it is the key to ameliorating the sorts of concerns Richmond is worried about. For example, Richmond hopes to raise awareness about the possible unintended consequences of well-meaning pedagogical best-practices. He rightly points out that we should not assume that good-intentions will carry the day. He argues for the importance of procedural safeguards when implementing assignments, such as being explicit about the purpose of an assignment, pre-warning students about pitfalls, and debriefing students afterwards. These safeguards could help promote student welfare. He argues for the value of giving students the choice between a variety of assignments. Offering multiple entry points into content both could improve student learning and increase student autonomy. This is good advice because it is a hallmark of good teaching.

I would venture to say that Richmond’s advice is a hallmark of good teaching because it is an example of metacognitive teaching. For example, if instructors should be mindful of student anxiety and discomfort, and use that awareness to guide their pedagogical choices, then promoting metacognition is how we get there. In this case, a metacognitive instructor would become aware of a student need (e.g., reduction of anxiety) and self-regulate by making the necessary adjustments (e.g., offering alternative assignments in order to reduce that anxiety). In my view, therefore, metacognition itself is the way to ameliorate Richmond’s concerns.

  1. How do I become both an ethical and metacognitive teacher?

Metacognition is not a magic wand that guarantees student success. Metacognitive instruction does, however, ask instructors to become increasingly aware of what works (and what doesn’t work) with an eye towards making adjustments that are likely to improve student learning. Metacognitive instructors can monitor roadblocks to learning and help students find ways to overcome them. It is possible that an assignment, such as IF-AT, might not help a particular group of students get where they need to go. If so, then a metacognitive instructor will monitor student progress, recognize that it is not working, and intentionally make a change. The instructor might decide that the assignment should be discontinued. In this case, however, the assignment would be discontinued because it was ineffective and not because it was unethical. In my view, it is metacognitive instruction that identifies the problem and proposes a solution.

In short, if the goal is to of promote awareness of student learning needs and promote the importance of making meaningful adjustments so that student needs are met, then it seems that metacognition is the key to both student welfare and student autonomy. And if, as Richmond argues, being ethical requires promoting welfare and autonomy, then metacognition is essential to the ethical teaching.

References

Draeger, J. (2014). “Cultivating the habit of constructive discomfort.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/cultivating-a-habit-of-constructive-discomfort/

Richmond, A. (2018). “Can metacognitive instruction be unethical?” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/can-metacognitive-instruction-be-unethical/

Richmond, A. (2017). “Scratch and win or scratch and lose? Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/scratch-win-scratch-lose-immediate-feedback-assessment-technique/


Metacognition supports HIP undergraduate research

by Dr. John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has identified a number of high-impact learning practices (e.g., undergraduate research, collaborative assignments, learning communities, service learning, study abroad, capstone seminars). Each of these learning practices involve a significant investment of student effort over time with multiple interactions between faculty and students about substantive matters as well as frequent,constructive feedback from faculty, and regular, structured processes for reflection and integration (Kuh 2008; Kilgo, Sheets & Pascarella 2015). This post offers some strategies for intentionally structuring undergraduate research experiences and building metacognition into the process. Subsequent posts will consider other high-impact practices (HIPs).

 Undergraduate research is a HIP because students ask the questions and set the research agenda. Inquiry-based projects, such as undergraduate research, promote student autonomy, self-direction, and teach students about the process (Healey & Jenkins 2009; Kilgo & Pascarella 2016). Without guidance, however, students can find themselves in a hot mess. After years of mentoring undergraduate research projects in philosophy, I’ve developed the following model to help keep students on track. Elements of this model may seem obvious and common practice. I don’t claim that it is novel, but I offer it as a distillation of some lessons that I’ve learned the hard way.

First, philosophers like to ask the big questions (and they should), but unless topics are reined in, student research can easily turn to sprawl and sloppy thinking. Thus, I talk with students about topic refinement early and often. I begin student meetings by asking them to give a one-minute “elevator pitch” for their topic. As the topic gets refined, the pitch becomes easier. En route to refining the topic and developing the elevator pitch, I ask a series of critical questions about the underlying conceptual issues. For example, if a student wants to consider what parents owe their children, I will push her to consider the nature of obligation (e.g., human rights, fairness, well-being, character, social roles) and concrete cases that may or may not fall within the scope of that obligation (e.g., providing food, a new bike, college tuition). Prodding them to consider the nature and scope of the obligation prompts them to consider the underlying philosophical substructure, which is what I believe philosophical inquiry is all about (Draeger 2014). However, once students begin making deep conceptual connections, it is easy for a topic to sprawl as students believe that each connected idea will need its own separate discussion. Metacognition encourages students to be aware of their own learning process (e.g., research) and make intentional adjustments based on that awareness. Encouraging students to be aware of the possibility topic sprawl can help them better evaluate whether their current thinking is moving away from the core issue or towards a better version of that core issue.

Second, all of us are standing on the shoulders of giants. It is good scholarship to acknowledge the original thinking efforts of others by using proper citation. However, the research experience should teach students more than to not plagiarize. Rather, undergraduate research allows students the opportunity to become co-inquirers within an existing scholarly conversation. Becoming familiar with the literature allows them to tap into long-standing debates and utilize conceptual distinctions developed by others. As students begin their research, each comes with their own background and dispositions. Some believe they need to read everything on a topic before they venture an opinion. Others are so eager to begin that they skip the literature review and soon find themselves lost without the resources found within the tradition. Metacognition can help students become aware of when they are reading too much or too little as well as point the way to adjustments in their process.

Third, many students struggle with how to find the relevant source material in philosophy. Even if they know how to use the library, they are often unfamiliar with idiosyncrasies of philosophy as a discipline. For this reason, I explicitly discuss how to go about doing library work (e.g., how to use library databases, how to conduct keyword searches, how to decide which articles seem promising), discuss reading strategies (e.g., how to read at different speeds to find articles most deserving attention, how to read identified articles more carefully, how to annotate a text with an eye towards research), and discuss note taking strategies (e.g., how to organize summaries, critical questions, conceptual applications, personal reflections). When undergraduate research is embedded in my course, we discuss these strategies in class. When undergraduate research takes the form of an independent project, I discuss these strategies one-on-one. In either case, I encourage students to practice becoming aware of what’s working, what’s not, and when they need to adjust their strategies.

Fourth, my undergraduate research students are required to keep a weekly journal. Students are asked to track pesky questions, troublesome counter-examples, and worrisome objections. Beyond their focus on content, however, students are also asked to focus on their own process, including a sketch of the library, reading, and writing strategies attempted as well as whether those strategies were successful. Journaling about these strategies is another way to encourage metacognitive awareness about the research process and locate opportunities for intentional self-regulation.

Undergraduate research can be a HIP (if implemented well) because it encourages students to learn about the research process on their own terms as well as producing their own research product. Metacognition helps monitor whether students are engaged in the sort of deep learning that makes undergraduate research a HIP.  Moreover, intentionally structuring metacognitive opportunities can encourage greater learner autonomy and help facilitate inquiry-based research long after undergraduate experiences have officially concluded. In this way, undergraduate research and metacognition can be highly-impactful because they support the skills necessary for lifelong learning.

References

Draeger, J. (posted July 11, 2014). Using metacognition to uncover the substructure of moral issues.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com.

Healey, M., & Jenkins, A. (2009). Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. York: HE Academy.

Kilgo, C. A., Sheets, J. K. E., & Pascarella, E. T. (2015). The link between high-impact practices and student learning: Some longitudinal evidence. Higher Education, 69(4), 509-525.

Kilgo, C. A., & Pascarella, E. T. (2016). Does independent research with a faculty member enhance four-year graduation and graduate/professional degree plans? Convergent results with different analytical methods. Higher Education, 71(4), 575-592.

Kuh, G. D. (2008). Excerpt from high-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Association of American Colleges and Universities.


Fundamental concepts and bottlenecks as guides to metacognitive instruction

by John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

In an earlier post, Lauren Scharff and I argued that metacognition can help instructors select and apply appropriate teaching strategies (Draeger & Scharff, 2016). More specifically, we argued that metacognition encourages instructors to consider the particulars of each learning environment (e.g., student background, learning goals, classroom culture) and we offered a series of question prompts to guide the conversation (e.g., what are you doing to check-in with students? What strategy adjustments might you make?). This post extends that work by offering two additional conceptual anchors to ground discussion, namely fundamental concepts and bottlenecks.

First, fundamental concepts can serve as a conceptual anchor for metacognitive instruction. Gerald Nosich describes fundamental and powerful concepts as those “core ideas used to organize other ideas and unlock important questions, insights, and discoveries” (Nosich, 2012). When designing a course, fundamental concepts guide my decisions regarding how much to cover and how much time to devote to a particular topic. As I am making choices, I ask myself “how does this material help students better understand the fundamental concept of the course?” In assessment, I want my assignments to align with the most important aspects of the course and fundamental concepts articulate those important features. And in class instruction, fundamental concepts guide class conversation and provide a mechanism for refocusing peripheral lines of questioning. Therefore, if metacognitive instruction encourages me to be intentional about my learning objectives and student progress towards achieving them, then fundamental concepts serve as a constant reminder to me (and my students) of what is most important.

By way of illustration, the concept of justice is fundamental concept to my upper division course in philosophy of law. The course readings are roughly subdivided into theoretical discussions that articulate particular philosophical conceptions of justice (e.g., procedural, moral) and applications in the law (e.g., landmark United States Supreme court cases). The theories illuminate elements in the court cases and the cases provide illustrations of the theoretical features. Without explicit reference to a fundamental concept, the course can seem like an endless list of court cases with each case, and each detail of each case, seeming as important as all the others. Through an explicit focus on the fundamental concept, however, the course is organized around a conceptual web with justice at the center and theories and cases emanating out in order of importance (e.g., theories can articulate conceptions of justice and cases can be organized according to those conceptions). As someone aspiring to practice metacognitive instruction, I regularly check-in with students and make adjustments based on class discussion. When students seem to be “in the weeds,” I can use the concept of justice (and our various conceptions of it) as a way to refocus the conversation on what is most important to the course. We can then build back the details of the theories and the cases. Further, some students relish the details of cases, but they are less inclined to consider how the cases illustrate the theories that we’ve been reading. Again, the concept of justice allows me to reframe class conversation and build back the structural details of the course (e.g., theories of justice, court cases). Finally, I make adjustments in my preparation between class sessions based on my informal assessment of student understanding in relation to the fundamental concept. In this way, fundamental concepts work in conjunction with my efforts to be a metacognitive instructor.

A second type of conceptual anchor for metacognitive instruction can be found by considering the bottlenecks of a given course. Middendorf and Pace (2004) describe course bottlenecks as aspects of the course (concepts/skills) that are both essential to the course and places where students consistently struggle. Students in my philosophy of law courses, for example, often confuse descriptive claims (how things are) with normative claims (how things should be). This confusion can cause students to be frustrated by class discussion and flummoxed by written assignments. For example, students in the grips of this confusion tend to focus on the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court reached a decision by a 5-4 margin without considering that it can (or perhaps even should have been otherwise). They reason that if the court ruled this way, then that’s the end of the story (descriptive claim about how the law is). These students tend not to consider whether the court might have been mistaken in their ruling (a normative question). Even if these students memorize court rulings and the rationale for those decisions, they have not yet engaged with the normative underpinnings of the course (e.g., whether a particular ruling is just). As someone trying to practice metacognitive instruction, I need to monitor student progress and make necessary adjustments. Bottlenecks (e.g., student struggles with normative questions) give me a predictable place to check-in and refocus student attention.

Moreover, given that the fact I can anticipate that students are likely to struggle with normative questions (the bottleneck of the course), I am more intentional about course design, instruction, and feedback on assessment. For example, I intentionally begin the course with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” because King’s argument makes it clear that there is such a thing as an unjust law. We then follow up by considering a number of landmark cases early in the semester, such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. In the former, the court supported the “separate but equal” doctrine. In the latter, they rejected it. We talk about what made the Plessy unjust and why Brown readdresses that injustice. This launches into more theoretical discussions about the types of reasoning offered in those decisions and how they are related to the fundamental concept of justice. By considering these cases, students have early illustrations of a just and unjust law (normative claims). This exercise becomes a touchstone for later in the semester when students struggle with the descriptive and normative distinction. Because metacognitive instruction demands that I regularly check-in, I am tuned into the fact that students are often stuck in the normative bottleneck . When this happens, we can revisit our conversations about King, Plessy and Brown. Moreover, if this teaching strategy doesn’t work, then I know that I need to choose another strategy. Student understanding will be stymied unless I can help them overcome predictable confusions. Clearing the bottleneck, therefore, can open up learning opportunities, but clearing the bottleneck only happens if I am aware of student difficulties and willing to make changes (i.e. metacognitive instruction).

This post has built on the thought that metacognitive instruction can help instructors choose appropriate instructional strategies. In particular, fundamental concepts can help instructors be intentional and explicit about what is most important about their courses. Likewise, locating consistent sources of student difficulty can help frame where and how instructional energies can be best spent. In short, both fundamental concepts and bottlenecks ground metacognitive instruction by providing anchor points and guiding instructors towards promising teaching strategies.

References

Draeger, J. & Scharff, L. (2016). “Using Metacognition to select and apply appropriate teaching strategies.”Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/using-metacognition-select-apply-appropriate-teaching-strategies/

Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New directions for teaching and learning, 2004(98), 1-12.

Nosich, G. (2012) Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the disciplines. Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.


Keep Calm and Improve with Metacognition: reflecting on three years of reflecting

John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

As Lauren and Aaron have recently noted, Improve with Metacognition (IwM) is now three years old. The site has become a space for collaboration and conversation around a range of issues loosely coming under the heading of ‘metacognition.’ My thinking about the nature of metacognition has shifted since we launched the site. I began thinking about thinking and reflecting on reflecting, but because of conversations on the site, I have come to use the term ‘metacognition’ to refer to awareness of a process (self-monitoring) and the use of that awareness to make changes in behavior (self-regulation). I’d like to take a moment to reflect on how IwM has helped me improve in three areas of my life with greater self-monitoring and self-regulation.

First, I like to think that I’ve always been the sort of teacher that encourages his students to think about their thinking. I confess, however, that my involvement with IwM has made me aware of my shortcomings with respect to developing my students’ metacognition. While I had been pretty good at nudging students to think carefully about content, I had also consistently missed opportunities to invite students to explicitly reflect on the efficacy of these strategies. For example, I took time in class to help students learn to annotate their reading, but I did not often teach them how to monitor whether these strategies were working and find alternatives when they did not. My efforts to adapt my Just-in-Time teaching strategies to be more metacognitive (Draeger, 2014, 2015, 2016) represent one of my attempts to make meaningful adjustments based on a growing awareness of my teaching practice.

Second, I am an everyday writer. I am up early most mornings working on one project or another. From that point of view, writing a blog post of 500-1000 words should have been a piece of cake. As I started blogging, however, I quickly became aware of the need to think about audience, style, and accessibility in ways that I had not thought about these considerations before. I have learned some lessons in the last three years and I am still making adjustments as I work to find “blog-sized” topics and refine my “blog voice.” I have grown as a writer because blogging for IwM has forced me to think more carefully about my craft. Further, I have found joy in writing in this short format. Much like taking a day trip to recharge your batteries, my excursions into the blogging space take me off my normal beat and path in ways that rejuvenate my other scholarly endeavors and bring fresh perspective.

Third, I had not initially thought through the role of blog space editor prior to IwM, but I’ve been delighted by regular interactions with metacognitive bloggers from around the United States (and indeed the world). Lauren, Aaron, and I regularly offer feedback to site contributors. I enjoy the opportunity to kick around ideas each week. This is, in part, because I am a nerd and relish indulging in new ideas. It is, in part, because I enjoy the writing process and this role gives me a front row seat as I watch scholars mold their ideas. It is, in part, because I enjoy the back and forth of intellectual banter. And it is, in part, because I like knowing that I am part of a growing community of metacognitive scholars. I find that my work with the IwM community crops up in all sorts of places and informs my interactions with others, both professionally and personally.

As I reflect on the last three years, I believe there will always be room for me to grow as a teacher, writer, and scholar. But I want to thank the IwM community for prompting me to think more carefully about these areas of my life. Improved awareness has led me to make subtle changes and these changes have led to improved performance. As we move into our fourth year together as an IwM community, I am coming to trust that I can keep calm, carry on, and improve with metacognition.

 

References

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

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.

Draeger, J. (2016). “Fine-tuning Just-in-Time assignments to encourage metacognition.” Retrieved from  https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/fine-tuning-just-time-assignments-encourage-metacognition/

 


Promoting academic rigor with metacognition

By John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)

A few weeks ago, I visited Lenoir-Rhyne University to talk about promoting academic rigor and I was reminded of the importance of metacognition. College faculty often worry that students are arriving in their courses increasingly underprepared and they often find it difficult to maintain the appropriate level of academic rigor. Faced with this challenge, some colleagues and I developed a model for promoting academic rigor. According to this model, promoting academic rigor requires actively engaging students in meaningful content with higher-order thinking at the appropriate level of expectation for a given context (Draeger, del Prado Hill, Hunter, and Mahler, 2013). The model (see FIGURE ONE) can be useful insofar as it can prompt reflection and frame conversation.  In particular, faculty members can explore how to improve student engagement, how to uncover a course’s most meaningful elements, how to determine the forms of higher-order thinking most appropriate for a course, and how to modulate expectations for different student groups (e.g., majors, non-majors, general education, honors). There is nothing particularly magical about this model. It is one of many ways that college instructors might become more intentional about various aspect of course design, instruction, and assessment. However, I argue that promoting academic rigor in these way requires metacognition.

In a previous post, Lauren Scharff and I argued that metacognition can be used to select the appropriate teaching and learning strategy for a given context (Draeger & Scharff, 2016). More specifically, metacognition can help instructors “check in” with students and make meaningful “in the moment” adjustments. Similarly, engaging students in each of the components of the rigor model can take effort, especially because students often need explicit redirection. If instructors are monitoring student learning and using that awareness to make intentional adjustments, then they are more likely to encourage students to actively engage meaningful content with higher-order thinking at the appropriate level of expectation.

Consider, for example, a course in fashion merchandising. Students are often drawn to such a course because they like to shop for clothes. This may help with enrollment, but the goal of the course is to give students insight into industry thinking. In particular, students need to shift from a consumer mentality to the ability to apply consumer behavior theory in ways that sell merchandise. What would it mean to teach such a course with rigor? The model of academic rigor sketched above recognizes that each of the components can occur independently and not lead to academic rigor. For example, students can be actively engaged in content that is less than meaningful to the course (e.g., regaling others with shopping stories) and students can be learning meaningful content without being actively engaged (e.g., rote learning of consumer behavior theory). Likewise, students can be actively and meaningfully engaged with or without higher-order thinking. The goal, however, is to have multiple components of the model occur together, i.e. to actively engage students in meaningful content with higher-order thinking at the appropriate level of expectations. In the case of fashion merchandising, a professor might send students to the mall to have them use consumer behavior theory to justify why a particular rack of clothes occupies a particular place on the shop floor. If they can complete this assignment, then they are actively engaged (at the mall) in meaningful content (consumer behavior theory) with higher-order-thinking (applying theory to a rack of clothes). Metacognition requires that instructors monitor student learning and use that awareness to make intentional adjustments. If a fashion merchandising instructor finds students lapsing into stories about their latest shopping adventures, then the instructor might redirect the discussion towards higher-order-thinking with meaningful content by asking the students to use consumer behavior theory to question their assumptions about their shopping behaviors.

Or consider a course in introductory astronomy (Brogt & Draeger, 2015). Students often choose such a course to satisfy their general education requirements because they think it has something to do with star gazing and it is preferable to other courses, like physics. Much to their surprise, however, students quickly learn that astronomy is physics by another name. Astronomy instructors struggle because students in introductory astronomy often lack the necessary background in math and science. The trick, therefore, is to make the course rigorous when students lack the usual tools. One solution could be to use electromagnetic radiation (a.k.a. light) as the touchstone concept for the course. After all, light is the most salient evidence we have for occurrences far away. As such, it can figure into conversations about the scientific method, including scientific skepticism about various astronomical findings. Moreover, even if students cannot do precise calculations, it might be enough that they be able to estimate the order-of-magnitude of distant stars. Astronomy instructors have lots of great tools for actively engaging students in order-of-magnitude guesstimates. These can be used to scaffold students into understanding how answers to order-of-magnitude estimates involving light can provide evidence about distant objects. If so, then students are actively engaging meaningful content with higher-order thinking at a level appropriate to an introductory course satisfying a general education requirement. Again, metacognition can help instructors make intentional adjustments based on “in the moment” observations about student performance. If, for example, an instructor finds that students “check out” once mathematical symbols go up on the board, the instructor can redouble efforts to highlight the importance of understanding order-of-magnitude and can make explicit the connection between previous guesstimate exercises and the symbols on the board.

If tools for reflection (e.g., a model of academic rigor) help instructors map out the most salient aspects of a course, then metacognition is the mechanism by which instructors navigate that map. If so, then I suggest that promoting academic rigor requires metacognition. It is important to understand how we can help students actively engage in meaningful course content with higher-order-thinking at the appropriate level of expectation for a given course. However, consistently shepherding students to the intersection of those elements requires  metacognitive awareness and self-regulation on behalf of the instructor.

References

Brogt, E. & Draeger, J. (2015). “Academic Rigor in General Education, Introductory Astronomy Courses for Nonscience Majors.” The Journal of General Education, 64 (1), 14-29.

Draeger, J. (2015). “Exploring the relationship between awareness, self-regulation, and metacognition.”  Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/exploring-the-relationship-between-awareness-self-regulation-and-metacognition/

Draeger, J., del Prado Hill, P., Hunter, L. R., Mahler, R. (2013). “The Anatomy of Academic Rigor: One Institutional Journey.” Innovative Higher Education 38 (4), 267-279.

Draeger, J. & Scharff, L. (2016). “Using Metacognition to select and apply appropriate teaching strategies.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/using-metacognition-select-apply-appropriate-teaching-strategies/


Promoting metacognitive reading through Just-in-Time Teaching

by  John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

In a series of previous posts, I have discussed some of the ways that Just-in-Time Teaching techniques can promote metacognition (Draeger, 2014, 2015, 2016). Just-in-Time assignments require that students complete short assignments prior to class and instructors review those assignments before class begins so that they can tailor their lesson based on those responses (Novak, 1999). My introductory philosophy courses typically have 40 students and my Just-in-Time assignments each involve three short essay questions prior to each class session. The questions have a predictable structure — one asks students to explicate a central idea in the reading, one asks them to engage in critical thinking about the reading (e.g., how might the author respond to an issue raised earlier in the semester), and one encourages metacognition (e.g., whether their reading strategy was effective). This post shares my attempts to promote metacognition through Just-in-Time techniques to a larger section of introductory ethics (175 students), and, it further explores how Just-in-Time assignments can promote metacognitive reading.

All of the students in my larger introductory ethics course are required to answer the Just-in-Time questions prior to each class via my institution’s learning management system. Because of the large number of students and short turn-around time, I have adapted the format of these assignments. I typically ask two multiple-choice questions related to the central ideas in the reading. I ask one short essay question encouraging critical thinking about the reading (e.g., how is the current reading related to the previous one?). I also ask one Likert-style question to gauge how confident they are in their understanding of the reading, and one short answer question to encourage them to be metacognitive about their learning process (e.g., what was your reading strategy for this reading?, what was your annotation strategy?, or what was your strategy for relating the current reading to the previous?).

Before each class, I review a computer generated summary of the multiple-choice questions to gauge broad understanding of the material and look for trends. For example, their responses to the Likert-style question gauging their confidence in their understanding of the material often overestimate their actual understanding as determined by the multiple-choice questions, critical thinking essay, and overall course performance. However, this difference can serve as a conversation starter about their performance in the course. In some cases, I also ask Likert-style questions related to the author’s central thesis. So, for example, when we read an essay on sexual harassment, I asked them how often they believed sexual harassment occurred, with response options of daily, weekly, monthly, annually, and never. This Likert question became the opening move in our conversation during the next lesson. I shared that 87% reported that sexual harassment occurs at least daily or weekly. This led to an open-ended discussion about the sorts of behaviors that counted as harassment. In this way, Just-in-Time assignments can both inform and facilitate class conversation about the material.

Just-in-time assignments can also inform and facilitate conversations about how to become more metacognitive about learning; in this class I focus on their reading skills. For example, I recently asked students a Likert-style question about whether they have changed their reading practices since the beginning of the semester and a follow-up short answer question regarding how their practices have changed. 74% of students reported that their reading practices have changed. A number of interesting themes emerged in their description of those changes. First, many students reported moving to the “next stage” of their reading practice. Students moved (a) from not doing the reading to at least skimming, (b) from skimming until they got bored to finishing the reading, (c) from reading to re-reading, and (d) from re-reading to re-reading with an aim to synthesize the large themes. These responses also highlight to me the fact that not all students are in the same place with respect to their learning practices, so I should not make generalized assumptions, nor assume that one recommendation from me will accurately match all students’ developmental needs. Second, students reported changes in their annotation strategies. They moved from no highlighting to highlighting and from highlighting to more intentional annotation strategies (e.g., outlining in the margins, summarizing important thesis, adding critical questions in the margins). Third, students reported using strategies that we’d previously discussed in class (e.g., reading with different speeds, developing intentional annotations, reading the conclusion first and then reconstructing how the author gets there). Fourth, some students transformed their view of what reading philosophy is really about (e.g., they moved from reading for “information” to looking for the conceptual connections between big ideas). Finally, students reflected on the importance of time-management (e.g., devoting more time to the reading task, finding better physical reading environments, finding times in the day when they are more like to be able to process philosophy). Responses from the 26% of students who had not changed their reading practices were similarly illuminating. For example, most reported that they recognized a change was in order even if they had not yet managed to change. They also identified problems with their current reading practices. For example, they said that they waited until the last minute and rushed through Just-in-Time assignments. They recognized the value of intentional annotation and expressed the hope that they would eventually adopt those practices. And some students were able to diagnose why they were struggling (e.g., they quickly lose patience with authors who do not share their point of view). In short, Just-in-Time assignments can promote metacognitive reading by encouraging students to intentionally consider and evaluate their reading techniques as well as facilitate conversations about alternative reading strategies.

It should come as no surprise that teaching introductory ethics to a section of 175 students differs from teaching to a section of 40 students. However, it is clear that the Just-in-Time teaching technique is not only viable in a large class, but it can promote metacognition about learning as well as inform me about their level of content understanding. Indeed, teaching a larger section has led me to better ways of encouraging conversations with students about their learning process.

 References

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

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.

Draeger, J. (2016). “Fine-tuning Just-in-Time assignments to encourage metacognition.” Retrieved from  https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/fine-tuning-just-time-assignments-encourage-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.


Fine-tuning Just-in-Time assignments to encourage metacognition

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.


Metacognition in Academic and Business Environments

by Dr. John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

I gave two workshops on metacognition this week — one to a group of business professionaIMG_20160107_103443740_HDRls associated with the Organizational Development Network of Western New York and the other to faculty at Genesee Community College. Both workshops began with the uncontroversial claim that being effective (e.g., in business, learning, teaching) requires finding the right strategy for the task at hand. The conversation centered around how metacognition can help make that happen. For example, metacognition encourages us to be explicit and intentional about our planning, to monitor our progress, to make adjustments along the way, and to evaluate our performance afterwards. While not a “magic elixir,” metacognition can help us become more aware of where, when, why, and how we are or are not effective.


As I prepared for these two workshops, I decided to include one of my favorite metacognition resources as a key part of the workshop. Kimberly Tanner (2012) offers a series of questions that prompt metacognitive planning, monitoring, and evaluation. By way of illustration, I adapted Tanner’s questions to a familiar academic task, namely reading. Not all students are as metacognitive as we would like them to be. When asked to complete a reading assignment, for example, some students will interpret the task as turning a certain number of pages (e.g., read pages 8-19). They read the words, flip the page, and the task is complete when they reach the end. Savvy students realize that turning pages is not much of a reading strategy. They will reflect upon their professor’s instructions and course objectives. These reflections can help them intentionally adopt an appropriate reading strategy. In short, these savvy students are engaging in metacognition. They are guided by Tanner-style questions in table below.  

 

Table: Using metacognition to read more effectively (Adapted from Tanner, 2012)

Task Planning Monitoring Evaluating
Reading What do I already know about this topic?

How much time do I need to complete the task?

What strategies do I intend to use?

 What questions are arising?

Are my strategies working?

What is most confusing?

Am I struggling with motivation or content?

What other are strategies are available?

 To what extent did I successfully complete the task?

To what extent did I use the resources available to me?

What confusions do I have that still need to be clarified?

What worked well?
Big picture Why is it important to learn this material?

How does this reading align with course objectives?

 To what extent has completing this reading helped me with other learning goals? What have I learned in this course that I could use in the future?

 

After considering the table with reference to student reading, I asked the business group how the table might be adapted to a business context. They pointed out that middle managers are often flummoxed by company initiatives that either lack specificity or fail to align with the company’s mission and valIMG_3929ues. This is reminiscent of students who are paralyzed by what they take to be an ill-defined assignment (e.g., “write a reflection paper on what you just read”). Like the student scrambling to write the paper the night before, business organizations can be reactionary. Like the student who tends to do what they’ve done before in there other classes (e.g., put some quotations in a reflection paper to make it sound fancy), businesses are often carried along by organizational culture and past practice. W hen facing adversity, for example, organizational structure often suggests that doing something now (anything! Just do it!) is preferable to doing nothing at all. Like savvy students, however, savvy managers recognize the importance of explicitly considering and intentionally adapting response strategies most likely to further organizational goals. This requires metacognition and adapting the Tanner-style table is a place to start.

When I discussed the Tanner-style table with the faculty at Genesee Community College, they offered a wide-variety of suggestions concerning how the table might be adapted for use in their courses. For example, some suggested that my reading example presupposed that students actually complete their rIMG_3939eading assignments. They offered suggestions concerning how metacognitive prompts could be incorporated early in the course to bring out the importance of the reading to mastery of course material. Others suggested that metacognitive questions could be used to supplement prepackaged online course materials. Another offered that the he sometimes “translates” historical texts into more accessible English, but he is not always certain whether this is good for students. In response, someone pointed out that metacognitive prompts could help the faculty member more explicitly formulate the learning goals for the class and then consider whether the “translated” texts align with those goals.

In both business and academic contexts, I stressed that there is nothing “magical” about metacognition. It is not a quick fix or a cure-all. However, it does prompt us to ask difficult and often uncomfortable questions about our own efficacy. For example, participants in both workshops reported a tendency that all of us have to want to do things “our own way” even when this is not most effective. Metacognition puts us on the road towards better planning, better monitoring, better acting, and better alignment with our overall goals.

 

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References

Tanner, K. D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11(2), 113-120.


Teaching a new course requires metacognition

by John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

One of the joys of being an academic philosopher is the freedom to explore new ideas. For example, the recent retirement of a colleague left a gap in my department’s usual offerings. I agreed to take over a course on the philosophy of love and sex. While I have written scholarly articles on related topics, I confess that teaching this new material had me feeling the sort of constructive discomfort that I seek to foster in my students (Draeger 2014). As a result, I experienced a heightened sense of awareness concerning what I was doing and why. In particular, I came to believe that teaching a new course requires metacognition.

As I sat down to construct the course, I was guided by the thought that philosophy can help students learn to have careful conversations about ideas that matter. With respect to this new course, I wanted students to learn to ask tough questions. Can we really promise to love someone forever? Can sex ever be meaningless? Is becoming emotionally attached to someone other than your partner worse than sleeping around? Is it possible to love more than one person at the same time or does romantic love require some form of exclusivity? Such questions prompt students to consider whether commonly held beliefs are actually justified. If these views withstand scrutiny, then students have the conceptual resources to offer a proper defense. If not, then students can begin searching for ideas worth having. Such questions can also open up a larger conversation about related concepts (e.g., trust, intimacy, respect, jealousy, loyalty).  Because much of the course material was new to me, I had not always thought through the various permutations and implications of each philosophical position. I often found myself learning “on the fly” along with my students as I reflected on my own assumptions and preconceived ideas in “real time” while the discussion unfolded in front of me.

In an earlier post (Draeger 2015), I argued that “critical thinking involves an awareness of mode of thinking within a domain (e.g., question assumptions about gender, determine the appropriateness of a statistical method), while metacognition involves an awareness of the efficacy of particular strategies for completing that task.” As I reflect on my philosophy of love and sex course, I realize that my heightened awareness contained elements of both critical thinking and metacognition. Because the material was largely new to me, I was more aware of my own critical thinking processes as I engaged in them and more “tuned into” what my students were grappling with (e.g., assumptions about love and sex, related concepts, implications of the view we are considering). I also found myself metacognitively evaluating whether my students were critically engaged and whether my choices were moving the conversation in philosophically fruitful directions. I like to think that this sort of monitoring happens in all of my classes, but I was acutely aware of its importance given that the material was unfamiliar and my discussion prompts were untested. Moreover, I like to think that I never resort to autopilot and that I am always keenly aware of fluid learning environments. However, because the material was so fresh, I could not help but engage in self-regulation. I did not have a reliable stock of examples and responses at my fingertips. Even more than usual, I found myself making intentional changes to my approach based on “in-the-moment” feedback from students (Scharff 2015).

Teaching a new course always rejuvenates me because it reminds me how much I love to learn. As the teacher, however, I was responsible for more than my own learning. Effective teaching requires thinking about the critical thinking processes of all the learners in the room, including my own. It also requires monitoring fluid learning environment and making intentional changes (often in-the-moment changes) if students are to have careful conversations about ideas that matter (e.g., love, sex). While teaching with metacognition is generally a good idea, this semester taught me that teaching a new course requires metacognition.

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References

Draeger, John (2015). “Two forms of ‘thinking about thinking’: metacognition and critical thinking.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/two-forms-of-thinking-about-thinking-metacognition-and-critical-thinking

Draeger, John (2014). “Cultivating a habit of constructive discomfort.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/cultivating-a-habit-of-constructive-discomfort
Scharff, Lauren (2015). “What do we mean by ‘metacognitive instruction?” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/what-do-we-mean-by-metacognitive-instruction/


Two forms of ‘thinking about thinking’: metacognition and critical thinking

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)

In previous posts, I have explored the conceptual nature of metacognition and shared my attempts to integrate metacognitive practices into my philosophy courses. I am also involved in a campuswide initiative that seeks to infuse critical thinking throughout undergraduate curricula. In my work on both metacognition and critical thinking, I often find myself using ‘thinking about thinking’ as a quick shorthand for both. And yet, I believe metacognition and critical thinking are distinct notions. This post will begin to sort out some differences.

My general view is that the phrase ‘thinking about thinking’ can be the opening move in a conversation about either metacognition or critical thinking. Lauren Scharff and I, for example, took this tack when we explored ways of unpacking what we mean by ‘metacognition’ (Scharff & Draeger, 2014). We considered forms of awareness, intentionality, and the importance of understanding of various processes. More specifically, metacognition encourages us to monitor the efficacy of our learning strategies (e.g., self-monitoring) and prompts us to use that understanding to guide our subsequent practice (e.g., self-regulation). It is a form of thinking about thinking. We need to think about how we think about our learning strategies and how to use our thinking about their efficacy to think through how we should proceed. In later posts, we have continued to refine a more robust conception of metacognition (e.g., Scharff 2015, Draeger 2015), but ‘thinking about thinking’ was a good place to start.

Likewise, the phrase ‘thinking about thinking’ can be the opening move in conversations about critical thinking. Given the wide range of program offerings on my campus, defining ‘critical thinking’ has been a challenge. Critical thinking is a collection of skills that can vary across academic settings and how these skills are utilized often requires disciplinary knowledge. For example, students capable of analyzing how factors such as gender, race, and sexuality influence governmental policy may have difficulty analyzing a theatrical performance or understanding the appropriateness of a statistical sampling method. Moreover, it isn’t obvious how the skills learned in one course will translate to the course down the hall. Consequently, students need to develop a variety of critical thinking skills in a variety of learning environments. As we began to consider how to infuse critical thinking across the curriculum, the phrase ‘thinking about thinking’ was something that most everyone on my campus could agree upon. It has been a place to start as we move on to discuss what critical thinking looks like in various domains of inquiry (e.g., what it means to think like an artist, biologist, chemist, dancer, engineer, historian, or psychologist).

‘Thinking about thinking’ captures the idea students need to think about the kind of thinking skills that they are trying to master, and teachers need to be explicit about those skills that if their students will have any hope of learning them. This applies to both metacognition and critical thinking. For example, many students are able to solve complex problems, craft meaningful prose, and create beautiful works of art without understanding precisely how they did it. Such students might be excellent thinkers, but unless they are aware of how they did what they did, it is also possible that they got just lucky. Both critical thinking and metacognition help ensure that students can reliably achieve desired learning outcomes. Both require practice and both require the explicit awareness of the relevant processes. More specifically, however, critical thinkers are aware of what they are trying to do (e.g., what it means to think like an artist, biologist, chemist, dancer, engineer, historian, psychologist), while metacognitive thinkers are aware of whether their particular strategies are effective (e.g., whether someone is an effective artist, biologist, chemist, dancer, engineer, historian, psychologist). Critical thinking and metacognition, therefore, differ in the object of awareness. Critical thinking involves an awareness of mode of thinking within a domain (e.g., question assumptions about gender, determine the appropriateness of a statistical method), while metacognition involves an awareness of the efficacy of particular strategies for completing that task.

‘Thinking about thinking’ is a good way to spark conversation with our colleagues and our students about a number of important skills, including metacognition and critical thinking. In particular, it is worth asking ourselves (and relaying to our students) what it might mean for someone to think like an artist or a zoologist (critical thinking) and how we would know whether that artist or zoologist was thinking effectively (metacognition). As these conversations move forward, we should also think through the implications for our courses and programs of study. How might this ongoing conversation change course design or methods of instruction? What might it tell us about the connections between courses across our campuses? ‘Thinking about thinking’ is a great place to start such conversations, but we must remember that it is only the beginning.

References

Draeger, John (2015). “Exploring the relationship between awareness, self-regulation, and metacognition.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/exploring-the-relationship-between-awareness-self-regulation-and-metacognition/

Scharff, Lauren & Draeger, John (2014). “What do we mean when we say “Improve with metacognition”? (Part One) Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/what-do-mean-when-we-say-improve-with-metacognition/

Scharff, Lauren (2015). “What do we mean by ‘metacognitive instruction?” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/what-do-we-mean-by-metacognitive-instruction/Thinking about two forms of thinking about thinking: Metacognition and critical thinking Share on X


An Aristotelian conception of metacognition (part two)

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)aristotle

In my last post, entitled An Aristotelian conception of metacognition (part one), I described how my thoughts on teaching Aristotle next semester converged with
my thinking about metacognition.  By analogy with physical health, I argued that learning is a
holistic endeavor requiring the cultivation of a variety of intellectual and emotional habits. Part one offered a general framework. Part two will consider a few of those traits, especially those likely to promote metacognition.

An Aristotelian approach to learning suggests that learning well requires more than performing a series of actions (e.g., going to class, completing assignments), but also requires developing particular traits that will facilitate learning excellence. For example, voracious learners are curious about the world. Curiosity fuels the learning process.  It prompts learners to ask the next question, read the next book, and design the next experiment. Even with curiosity, learners can be stymied without the courage to face their learning fears and the patience to see things through. Courage requires facing those fears that keep us from moving forward without being so foolhardy as to believe that we are ready to climb every intellectual mountain.  In practical terms, it means not letting the “I cannot do math” thought prevent students from pursuing an interest in science or engineering. Students should face their fears and diligently work to gain the relevant skills. Curious individuals with the courage to face appropriately uncomfortable learning situations must cultivate the patience to persist until the task is complete. These traits are interrelated and support each other. Curiosity can give us the courage to ask the tough questions and asking the tough question can reveal exciting new lines of inquiry. Patience can “buy time” until fear is managed or curiosity is reignited. Like all habits, we learn by doing, even if that includes making mistakes, and by continuously re-committing to doing what it takes to do it better next time.

The traits just described apply to many learning situations and there are many others that we might consider. I want to spend the rest of this post discussing two traits that seem particularly important to metacognition (e.g., self-monitoring, self-regulation). The first is honest self-scrutiny.  Research on self-monitoring reminds us that learners are more effective when they track their progress towards particular learning goals and they are mindful of which learning strategies helped them achieve those aims. However, it is easy to kid ourselves into thinking that a learning strategy works better than it actually does. It can be difficult to take an honest look in the mirror and realize that we need to change how we do things. Honest self-scrutiny requires developing the wherewithal to formulate holistic appraisals that both acknowledge weakness and appreciate strength. It keeps us from self-deception (e.g., thinking that old habits are good habits) and from spending our time “freaking out” about our poor performance.

A second trait requires developing a discerning vision for what is most important within a particular learning context. Discerning vision helps learners identify the appropriate time and place for each learning strategy and encourages learners to use this understanding to guide learning behavior. For example, learners should be able to engage in close and careful reading. However, it is not always necessary to read everything with a fine-tooth comb. In the early stages of a literature review, a cursory reading of many things can alert the learner to which articles are most deserving of a closer look. Without discerning vision, a learner can be too concerned with the details and miss the big picture. Cultivating a discerning sense of what is most important will help learners best utilize their time and energies by providing a set of nested priorities given the particular learning context and these priorities will guide a learner’s choice of learning strategy.

Metacognitive techniques (e.g., self-monitoring, self-regulation) keep learners from blindly going through the motions and haphazardly achieving learning goals by encouraging them to be mindful of the complexity of each learning situation and using that understanding guide behavior. These techniques are vital to learning well, but they should not be seen in isolation. An Aristotelian approach reminds us learning well is a holistic endeavor that also requires cultivating various interlocking intellectual and emotional traits, such as curiosity, courage, and patience. Moreover, a holistic conception of metacognition suggests that learners must cultivate honest self-scrutiny and discerning vision alongside their efforts to improve self-monitoring and self-regulation.

Learning well requires curiosity, courage, patience, self-scrutiny, and discerning vision. Share on X


An Aristotelian conception of metacognition (Part One)

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)

As I prepare for my philosophy courses this fall, I find aristotlemyself thinking about both Aristotle and metacognition. Aristotle’s theory of virtue figures prominently in my course on the history of ethics. Metacognition is one of the skills that I am trying to cultivate in all my courses, including the history of ethics. In previous posts, I have discussed how and why I have tried to promote metacognition. In the post, I want to consider what Aristotle might say about that endeavor.

According Aristotle, living well requires pursuing excellence. It requires cultivating various intellectual and emotional traits that reliably lead to sought after outcomes (e.g., health, happiness). Aristotle asks us to consider whether those outcomes are things we ought to want as well as how best to achieve them. For convenience, we can refer to this collection of traits as practical wisdom. By ‘practical,’ Aristotle has in mind both the fact that this sort of wisdom is useful (e.g., it serves a practical purpose) and the fact that developing wisdom requires practice. Likewise, learning well requires pursuing excellence. It requires cultivating various intellectual and emotional traits that reliably lead to sought after learning outcomes. Metacognitive practices encourage us to explicitly articulate our goals, monitor our progress, and make changes when necessary (e.g., self-regulation).

Suppose, for example, that my doctor tells me that I need to watch my diet. She has identified a desired outcome (e.g., lower cholesterol) and she is encouraging me to develop the wherewithal to achieve that end. In some ways, she wants me to be more metacognitive about my diet. I need to engage in self-monitoring (e.g., becoming aware of whether a food choice will help or hurt my cholesterol levels) and self-regulation (e.g., make choices that help my cholesterol levels). Aristotle would add that this is holistic endeavor.

Understanding Aristotelian practical wisdom requires distinguishing between a list of actions  that reliably lead to a desired outcome (e.g., what I  should do in a particular circumstance) and a more holistic conception of living well (e.g., what sort of person I am trying to become). The first approach tells me what I should do is to eat right and exercise. This is surely good advice.  The second approach, however, encourages me to make holistic changes in my daily activities as well as holistic changes in how I conceive of food consumption. I need to be vigilant about my food choices. Keeping a food journal might make me more aware of my eating patterns, but I might also need to examine the how my emotions and my environment influence those patterns. I might even need to develop auxiliary skills (e.g., the tact to politely turn down dessert at a dinner party and the fortitude to resist that third glass of red wine). It will take time and effort across a spectrum of personal behaviors and attitudes to develop better eating habits, but, if I use a holistic approach, the hope is that I will see progress through time.

Like my doctor setting a goal that will promote my physical health, teachers and students can set various learning goals that will promote intellectual health (e.g., reading, writing, critical thinking). Achieving these goals requires being clear about the goal, monitoring progress, and making the necessary adjustments. Recent work on metacognition provides us with empirically tested techniques for achieving those ends. Aristotle, however, would remind us that promoting both intellectual and physical health is a holistic endeavor.

Identifying techniques that reliably lead to desired outcomes (e.g., self-testing, peer tutoring, scaffolding) can contribute to learning excellence, especially if learners are actively monitoring the effectiveness of these strategies and regulating their behavior accordingly. These techniques are most welcome. However, Aristotle would remind us that even if learners master these techniques in isolation, they will not yet have achieved learning excellence. The ultimate goal, he would argue, is to transform the various intellectual and emotional traits that combine to form a person’s conception of herself as a learner. Of course, I doubt that many scholars of metacognition would deny that learning is a holistic enterprise. Scholars choose to isolate techniques in order to test their efficacy. Aristotle would welcome both the methods and the findings. But it is worth remembering that excellent intellectual and physical health requires attending to many interlocking components.

In my next post, I will discuss how this Aristotelian conception of metacognition might offer practical advice to students and teachers in their effort to achieve learning excellence.

John Draeger offers an Aristotelian conception of metacognition. Share on X