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 settings

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.

Facilitating Metacognition in a First-Year Writing Course

By Dr. Gina Burkart, Clarke University

Metacognition and First-Year Students

The first year of college can be a difficult transition for students, as they often lack many of the basic skills to navigate the cognitive dissonance that happens that first year. Integrating tools, strategies, and assessments into first-year writing courses that foster self-reflection also offer students the opportunity to think about their own thinking. Students are often unable to “bridge the gap” of college because they don’t have the “meta-discourse” or “meta-awareness” to engage in the writing and discussions of the university (Gennrich & Dison, 2018, pp. 4-5). Essentially, it is important for first-year students to engage in what Flavell (1979) described as metacognition—thinking about what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are doing it, so they can make adjustments to accurately and effectively meet the needs of the situation, purpose, and audience (Victori, 1999).

This type of rhetorical analysis builds metacognitive practices integral to the first-year writing and can guide students in discovering their own voice and learning how to use it in different academic disciplines. Within the first-year writing course, portfolio conferences are especially helpful in leading students through this type of metacognitive practice (Gencel, 2017; Alexiou & Parakeva, 2010; 2013; Farahian & Avazamani, 2018). However, course curriculum should be thoughtfully created so that students are first introduced to metacognition in the beginning of the semester and led through it repeatedly throughout the semester (Schraw, 1999).

Designing a First-Year Writing Course that Facilitates Metacognition

While self-reflection has always been part of the first-year writing courses I have taught, this year I introduced metacognition in the beginning of the semester and reinforced it throughout the semester as students engaged with the course theme – Motivation. I embedded my college-success curriculum 16 Weeks to College Success: The Mindful Student, Kendall Hunt into the course, which provided tools and strategies for the students to use as they learned college writing practices.

This approach was particularly helpful in a writing class because the metacognitive reflective activities reinforced writing as a tool for learning. For example, during the first-week of the semester, students discussed the syllabus in groups and created learning plans for the course using a template. The template helped them pull out essential information and think through a personalized action plan to find success within the context of the course (see Learning Plan Template, Figure 1). For example, based on the course readings: How would they read? What strategies would they use? How much time would they devote to the reading? How often would they read? What resources would they use? Students turned in their learning plans for assigned points—and I read through the plans and made comments and suggestions. Students were told that they would update their plans over the course of the semester, which they would place in their portfolio to display growth over time.

Students also took two self-assessments, set goals based on their self-assessments, and created a time management and study plan to achieve their goals. Similar to the learning plans, these activities were also turned in for points and feedback and included in their final portfolios to demonstrate growth. One asked them to self-assess on a scale of 1-5 in key skills areas that impact success: Reading, Writing, Note-Taking, Time Management, Organization, Test-Taking, Oral Communication, Studying, and Motivation. This self-assessment also included questions in metacognitive reflection about the skills and how they relate to the course. The second self-assessment (included in the 16 Weeks textbook) was the LASSI —a nationally normed self-assessment on the key indicators of college success—provided quantitative data on a scale of 1-99. The LASSI dimensions were mapped to the skill areas for success to facilitate students’ goal setting using the goal setting chart (See Goal Setting Chart, Figure 2).

Throughout the semester, students completed skill and strategy activities from the 16 Weeks textbook supporting students’ goals and helping them complete course assignments. For example, when students were assigned their first reading assignments, the strategies for critical reading were also introduced and assigned. Students received points and feedback on their use of the reading strategies applied to the course readings, and demonstrated their application of the reading strategies through a reading journal. This reading journal was included in the portfolio (see Reading Journal template, Figure 3).

Students also were taught note-taking strategies so they could take more effective notes while watching assigned course videos on Growth Mindset, Grit and Emotional Courage. As a result, students were able to apply and learn new strategies while being exposed to key concepts related to identity, self-reflection, and metacognition. In fact, all of the course writing, speaking, and reading assignments also led the students to learn and think about topics that reinforce metacognition.

Portfolio Assessment

As portfolio assessment has been shown to positively affect metacognition and writing instruction (Farahian & Avarzmani, 2018; Alexiou & Parakva, 2010; 2013; Gencel, 2017), it seemed an appropriate culminating assessment for the course. The course curriculum built toward the portfolio throughout the semester in that the course assignments included the four steps suggested by Schaw (1998): 1) introduced and reinforced an awareness of metacognition 2) supported course learning and use of strategies 2) encouraged regulated learning 3) offered a setting that was rich with metacognition. Additionally, the course curriculum and final portfolio assessment conference included the three suggested variables of metacognitive knowledge: person, task, and strategic.

Students created a cover letter for their portfolios describing their growth in achieving the goals they set over the course of the semester. Specifically, they described new strategies, tools and resources they used and applied in the course and their other courses that helped them grow in their goal areas. The portfolio included artifacts demonstrating the application and growth. Additionally, students included their self-assessments and adjusted learning plans. Students also took the LASSI assessment as a post test in week 14 and were asked to include the pre and post-test assessments in the portfolios to compare their quantitative results and discuss growth and continued growth as part of the final conference (See Portfolio Rubric, Figure 4).

When meeting with students, students read their cover letters and talked me through their portfolios, showing me how they used and applied strategies and grew in their goal areas over the course of the semester. Part of the conversation included how they would continue to apply and/or adjust strategies, tools, and resources to continue the growth.

To reinforce metacognition and self-reflection, I had students score themselves with the portfolio and cover letter rubrics. I then scored them, and we discussed the scores. In all instances, students either scored themselves lower or the same as I scored them. They also appreciated hearing me discuss how I arrived at the scores and appreciated feedback that I had regarding their work.

In summary, students enjoyed the portfolio conferences and shared that they wished more professors used portfolios as assessments. They also shared that they enjoyed looking at their growth and putting the portfolio together. All students expressed a deeper understanding of self and expectations of college writing, reading, and learning. They also demonstrated an understanding of strategies and tools to use moving forward and gratitude for being given tools and strategies. LASSI scores demonstrated greatest growth in the skill areas of: Anxiety, Selecting Main Ideas, Self-Testing (Fall semester); Time Management, Concentration, Information Processing/Self-Testing (Spring semester). While the results reinforce that students show different areas of growth, students in both classes demonstrated highest areas of growth in reading (Selecting Main Ideas or Information Processing). Additionally, these skill areas (Time Management, Concentration, and Self-Testing) demonstrate the ability to self-regulate—suggesting that regular reinforcement of metacognition throughout the writing course and the portfolio assignment may have had a positive effect on growth and the acquisition of metacognitive practices (Shraw, 1999; Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006).

References

Alexiou, A., & Paraskeva, F. (2010). Enhancing self-regulated learning skills through the implementation of an e-portfolio tool. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2, 3048–3054.

Burkart, G. (2023). 16 weeks to college success: The mindful student. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt.

Farahian M. & Avarzamanim, F.. (2018) The impact of portfolio on EFL learners’ metacognition and writing performance, Cogent Education, 5:1, 1450918, https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2018.1450918

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34, 906–911. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.34.10.906

Gencel, I.E. (2017). The effect of portfolio assessments on metacognitive skills and on attitudes toward a course. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 293-319.

Gennrich, T. & Dison, L. (2018). Voice matters: Students struggle to find voice. Reading & Writing, 9(1), 1-8.

Schraw, G. (1999). The effect of metacognitive knowledge on local and global monitoring. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 143-154.

Veenman, M. V., Van Hout-Wolters, B. H., & Afflerbach, P. (2006). Metacognition and learning: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Metacognition and learning, 1, 3-14.

Victori, M. (1999). An analysis of writing knowledge in EFL composing: A case study of two effective and two less effective writers. System, 27(4), 537-555.

Weinstein, C., Palmer, D., & Acee, T. (2024). LASSI: Learning and study strategy inventory. https://www.collegelassi.com/lassi/index.html

Using Business Ethics Case Studies to Foster Metacognition and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Appreciation

by Dr. Charles Zola, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Catholic and Dominican Institute

The values of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have recently emerged as an area of concern in many areas of contemporary American life. Societal pressure and expectations have motivated many in the business community to examine how these values are promoted in contemporary American business practice. Similarly, accreditors for schools of business now require that these values be reflected in the curriculum and that students demonstrate an awareness of and appreciation for DEI. However, they have not been proscriptive in how this is to be accomplished. I suggest that using case studies can serve this learning outcome and by having students reflect upon their proposed resolutions to DEI-related moral dilemmas arising in business, they develop metacognitive skills which engenders a greater understanding of the implications of DEI in the workplace.

Case Studies and Metacognition

Case studies have long been used as part of business ethics pedagogy. Utilizing case studies promotes understanding of ethical theories that are usually unfamiliar to students and can gradually build student confidence in arguing a moral point of view with the aim of solving a moral dilemma. Beyond this, case study pedagogy can be employed to develop students’ metacognitive capacities. After applying ethical theories to navigate moral dilemmas and justify proposed solutions, students can be prompted to examine why they choose the moral theories that they do and why they apply them in the way they do. Additionally, students can be prompted to resolve the same case study employing a different moral theory, for example, substituting deontological or virtue ethics for a utilitarian approach. They then compare how their proposed resolutions align. In doing so, students not only gain fluency in applied ethical reasoning, but a greater awareness of how their own moral reasoning changes in each iteration. This practice challenges students to be more conscious and reflective about their thinking in terms of application of ethical principles to the same case study and if such application alters the resolution in any way. Inculcating this approach into course pedagogy strengthens students’ metacognitive activity.

If time allows, continued reflection can encourage students to consider the suitability of the application of moral principles among cases, revealing greater similarity and differences not only in the theories themselves but also in procedures and policies that regulate business. In assessing the effectiveness of their proposed solutions, students can be further prompted to re-examine their moral dialectics to ascertain if all aspects of a moral dilemma are adequately addressed and if the moral agents impacted find themselves in a better or worse situation.

One way that this can be encouraged is that for each case study, students could chart the application of each ethical theory where they identify the way/s that moral agents were impacted and how the potential outcomes varied. Each chart can then serve as a metacognitive tool that students use to reflect upon their own thinking processes. If case study analysis is done by teams of smaller groups within a class, then the charts can provide even more information for reflection. A comparison and review of the charts can result in discovering where some essential points were inadequately addressed or not addressed at all, or where potential outcomes were not foreseen. This may result in having students revisit and revise their earlier positions and think about how they reasoned through the moral dilemma. On the other hand, these charts can reveal how their moral reasoning resulted in optimal outcomes, thus affirming the important and practical role that business ethics has for business practice. These varied approaches encourage students to reflect upon their critical thinking and cultivate metacognitive awareness.

Case Studies and DEI

One of the most important topics of a business ethics course that relates to DEI is justice. Classically defined as “giving to each their due,” justice is an essential moral value that regulates how businesses are expected to operate both internally and within the wider community and, thus, is a core value of DEI. Addressing almost every area of business from workplace etiquette to graver considerations such global warming, case studies can be utilized to foster appreciation for the importance of justice. At minimum, businesses act justly in respecting civil law, especially in relation to Civil Rights. These laws seek to eradicate decades of inequality and injustice in terms of business activities related to hiring, promotion, discipline, and discharge of employees and this is closely aligned with the objectives of DEI initiatives. Extending beyond, corporate social responsibility challenges businesses to consider just actions in terms of paternalistic actions within the community that range from philanthropy to efforts to curb and reduce the exploitation of natural resources that often contributes disproportionate harm and inequalities for populations in developing economies.

Case studies drawn from the aforementioned topics can help students understand how justice and the values and goals of DEI are related to business in two distinct ways. First, the case studies themselves can illustrate challenges and opportunities for creating a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace, or how businesses can effectively support those values beyond the workplace through initiatives related to corporate social responsibility.

The other is by reframing the case studies themselves. Changing key characteristics of the moral agents can generate greater sensitivity to some of the moral aims of DEI. Switching the age, sex, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic identity of a moral agent invites students to view the case study and moral dilemma in a different light and from multiple perspectives. For example, would the moral dilemma and proposed solution be the same if the main character was no longer a Hispanic woman but a White woman who was diagnosed with cancer and recently divorced? Are the demands of justice to give to each their due reflected in the case study analysis and subsequent resolution? This reframing can challenge students to reconsider their own moral analysis and proposed resolutions from a more empathetic perspective, hopefully engendering a greater sensitivity to the goals of DEI.

In light of this, students can be encouraged to consider if they would remain committed to what they initially viewed as the moral dilemma, or would this alter the analysis? Similarly, would the proposed resolution of the moral conflict remain the same or would change as well? Further prompting encourages metacognition by challenging students to reflect upon how and why the reframing might have altered their thinking about the moral dimensions of the case study as well as its resolution.

Equally important in raising issues related to justice and DEI is a concern for rectifying societal inequalities of the past. Students can be prompted to review and reflect upon their analysis and proposed resolution of a moral dilemma to discern if it advances the interests of traditionally marginalized groups and affirms a more equitable society. Crafted in this way, case study analysis can raise students’ exploration of the meaning of corporate social responsibility and how it reflects a commitment to social justice.

Beyond this, students could be encouraged to reflect on how their own identities and circumstances may have shaped how they responded to the case study. In what way and to what extent might their own biographies have influenced their impressions about the situation that had been presented and how they reasoned to resolve it? Students can be prompted to examine if their moral reasoning betrayed a bias due to their own circumstances and if not, why not? Such an exercise can be doubly beneficial if students work in teams and share with fellow students their observations, yielding an even wider perspective about how a diversity of viewpoints may impact the resolution of a moral dilemma. Furthermore, doing so also models for students a respect for diversity and inclusion by giving each member of their team “their due” in being able to share their views and having them considered.

Using case studies in the ways described can help to advance one of the essential learning outcomes for schools of business, namely, that future business professionals aspire to ethical conduct in their professional lives and promote it in everyday business practice. Too often, case study pedagogy can remain a mere academic exercise completed unrelated to personal development and cultivating reassessment of personal moral codes. If so, such pedagogical practice is sterile. However, careful attention to case study pedagogy that encourages metacognitive reflection can gradually cultivate habits of moral thinking that translates into moral agency that eventually can be transformative of business practice as it relates to the goals of DEI.

Democratizing a Classroom: The Challenge of Student Engagement and Metacognition

by Dr. Sonya Abbye Taylor, Associate Professor of Education and Chair of Education Division

INTRODUCTION: DEMOCRATIZING A CLASSROOM AND CREATING A COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS

John Dewey in 1917, introduced the concept of student engagement. In creating classroom democracies, “communities … permeated throughout with the spirit of art, history, and science”— environments where students became self-directed, committed to service, and engaged in experiences reflective of society. Dewey believed in relevant curriculum, meaningful to students’ lives—in which students are thoroughly engaged with content, among a community of learners functioning as and in society. I believe that a community of learners relies upon student engagement and metacognition is intrinsically connected to being engaged. Student engagement provides the core of democratic classrooms, with the role of promoting and educating towards diversity, equity, and inclusion.

THE CHALLENGE OF METACOGNITION AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

I prepare teacher candidates to work with diverse populations, including students with special needs. I have rarely had complaints regarding grades. Students could predict grades because they had processed feedback and reflected on their work throughout the semester. Yet, last spring I received a complaint. Considering her grades averaged within the “A” range, a student questioned why she received an “A-.” She questioned if her grade was related to participation for which she received 35/75 points; she was correct. This experience required me to reflect on Dewey’s concepts of engagement in relation to class participation and to reflect on connections between learning and engagement. Aligning Dewey’s concept of “community of learners” with student engagement, I see how metacognition—the student’s and my own—underlies this pedagogical struggle. What was the student’s understanding of engagement and participation? How did her understanding equate with my own?

During this course, held synchronously, online, this student was invisible except for two presentations for which visibility was required. However, when reviewing videos, I found times she responded in chat and discussions: brief responses, one-word comments or a sentence, emanating from a black box on the screen.

My expectations for students in online environments are comparable to in-person classes. Classes include discussions that require sharing ideas, asking questions, analyzing, and deliberating. The 75 points allocated, places value on discussions. If a student is silent throughout a semester, they have not contributed to the community. Yet, this student perceived themselves to have been engaged, to have demonstrated engagement, and therefore eligible for full- credit.

As I thought about this contradiction the following questions emerged:

What do we learn when we:

learn in isolation?
interact with individuals within a learning community?
delve into content while engaging within a learning community?

Most importantly, what is the relationship between learning, engagement, and learning within the community, in preparing students to be teachers for the democratic society Dewey describes?

For teacher educators and teacher candidates, answers to these questions provide more fodder for thought. We can learn in isolation. We can memorize information alone, anywhere or engage with a text while reading thoughtfully, asking silent questions of the text and author. We can learn sitting silently in a classroom. We CAN learn in isolation, but WHAT do we learn? What opportunities are missed when we function in this manner?

A silent classroom has always been troublesome to me. Student engagement and class participation are synonymous to me. It is joyful to hear students discussing content, actively listening, asking questions, and sharing opinions based on their frame of reference.

Isn’t that the vision of democracy Dewey conveys?
Don’t these interactions provide practice communicating, and enable students to see another’s point of view, to understand perspectives and experiences of individuals from other cultures?
Aren’t these the interactions that enable us to understand and appreciate one another?

Students can learn content without opportunities and expectations for engagement with others. However, in vibrant learning communities, students ask questions and question themselves; they think and rethink concepts because of the various influences. They use metacognitive processes to evolve as learners.

I changed the student’s grade because she perceived her actions constituted participation. Though the student received an “A,” I did her no favor. Informed by Dewey, I believe the “A” she received was not as valuable as the “B’s,” “A-’s,” or “A’s,” earned by other students who demonstrated engagement. Those students were visible: the expressions on their faces illuminated their thoughts. Posing thoughtful questions and adding to discussions, those students enriched the experience for us all. They responded while they were processing. When their responses were askew, conversation ensued that brought the level of thought and understanding to higher levels. They demonstrated their commitment to learning and being part of a community were more important than having the “right” answer. They earned my respect and my confidence, knowing that their classrooms will be full of engaged learners, that they will encourage their students to think and will engage them in metacognitive practices.

CONCLUSION

I agonized over this grade, and by doing so, I know I served myself and my future students well. I will redouble my efforts to define and explain the value of engagement in relation to “community” and to create more activities, pose more questions and provide collaborative assignments that inspire engagement in efforts to make engagement palpable. I will do a better job of calling attention to student engagement. I will continue to honor askew responses because of the thought processes they illuminate. Metacognition has brought me to these conclusions, and will be the catalyst for changes that I’ll incorporate in my instruction and the emphasis I will place on my students to be self-directed.

In processing and metacognitively rethinking ideas for my classes and revisions for this paper, I reflected further on Dewey’s perception of engagement for a community of learners reflective of the society, and have come to this conclusion. We teach classes with diverse students therefore we have the opportunity and obligation to create environments in our classrooms where students can be productive members of the classroom society. We must create environments where students can function efficiently and develop the skills and behaviors desirable in a democratic society. In these environments students are respected and are comfortable to take risks; they listen to each other, communicate effectively, accept each other’s opinions, settle disagreements, celebrate each other’s successes, and support each other through difficult times. By creating these environments in teacher education classrooms perhaps there would be consensus as to the quality and value of engagement.

Works Cited

Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. Simon and Brown, 2012

Practical Magic: Using Metacognition to Connect DEI Work and the Writing Center

by Gina Evers, M.F.A., Director of the Writing Center and First-Year Experience Coordinator

Metacognition as Recursion

One of my refrains as a writing teacher is “everything is connected, and it’s your job to figure out how.” Of course, the process of identifying connections between seemingly disparate ideas is a metacognitive one: writers must cultivate an awareness of how they think about a particular concept in order to think about it differently. And through this reconsideration, this intellectual quest to discover parallels, translations, or evolutions among ideas, new meanings are made and beautiful thesis statements are born!

While the process of birthing knowledge from chaos may seem magical, composition scholars have articulated it in many articles defining the writing process as recursive rather than linear. My favorite definition of recursion, because it is both practical and magical, comes from the work of Sondra Perl (1980/2008). In order to write recursively, Perl advises us to engage in three tasks. The first she terms “retrospective structuring,” or a looking back to what a writer has already written while reconciling it with their present thoughts and compositions (p. 145). Perl names the second task “projective structuring,” or a looking forward to predict the responses and questions of readers (p. 146). Again, writers use those anticipations to inform how they compose in the present. And here comes the magic: “felt sense,” a term (Perl attributes to philosopher Eugene Gendlin) and uses to describe a writer’s intuition about what feels right to them (p. 142). Perl argues that engaging in felt sense is crucial for both effective retrospective and projective structuring.

I argue metacognition is at the heart of felt sense; metacognition is the practical key needed to unlock the magic of that writerly intuition. And because that writerly intuition is crucial for recursive writing and thinking, engaging in metacognition is a recursive process while, likewise, writing recursively is inherently metacognitive. These theoretical connections became clear to me throughout my Writing Center work in the Spring 2022 semester, when I focused my tutor training program on anti-racist tutoring practices.

Connecting the Writing Center to DEI Work: A Beginning

To open our first staff meeting that focused on anti-racist tutoring, I asked my undergraduate writing tutors to compose and share a six-word memoir describing the first time they became aware of race. Here is mine:

I wanted braids; Mom said no.

And here are two from my team:

Middle school history class.
No one else looked like me.

The first and third memoir show personal confrontations with difference, while the second shows a more removed interaction, where difference is explained in an academic setting. This diversity is relevant as we consider how we think about our roles as educators with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Each student brings with them distinct personal and academic histories of race and racism, and those histories take up space in our classrooms — even if we do not see or acknowledge them.

Examining this writing activity through the lens of a recursive metacognition / a metacognitive recursion, we see that in the present moment of the staff meeting, tutors were asked to look back to their earliest memories of learning race (retrospective structuring). For me as the educator, learning about the background knowledge of my students allowed me to look forward and tailor the forthcoming activities and lessons to the needs of my specific audience (projective structuring). The felt sense – what I argue is actually recursive metacognition / metacognitive recursion – then emerged through our sharing and discussion. In conversation, we reconciled those early learnings of race with what we know now.

Seeing the Metacognitive Recursion in my Own Process

The six-word memoir activity came from “Talking Justice: The Role of Antiracism in the Writing Center” (2019) – a piece of scholarship authored by peer writing consultants at Oklahoma State University. In it, the authors describe the six-word memoir as a part of the anti-racist training they created for writing center staff at OSU. The authors articulate three goals of their training:

Cultivate a “willingness to be disturbed,” to disrupt our own individual ways of thinking and being that have continued systemic racism, which demands “a tireless investment in reflection, openness, and hope for a better, more fulfilling future for us all” (Diab et al. 20).
Create (brave) spaces where people are able to discuss issues and concerns surrounding race and racism with a willingness to be wrong, to call out with compassion, and to seek mutual understanding.
Enact mindful inclusion practices that support diverse writers and resist the writing center’s historical role in gatekeeping and assimilating for academic institutions. (Coenen et al., 2019, p. 14)

Looking Back

These goals – then and now – strike me as particularly metacognitive. The intentional awareness that engaging in anti-racist training will cause disturbance demonstrates a tutor’s willingness to take risks in their thinking and learning. Similarly, creating space for conversation within this plane of disturbance and “mindfully … resist[ing] the writing center’s historical role [of] assimilating” students into the academy both demonstrate contemplation about the ways of knowing we have all participated in.

Looking Forward

In order to honor Coenen et al’s goals in my own tutor training, I concluded my first staff meeting that focused on anti-racist tutoring by asking tutors to anonymously contribute to a staff Padlet. On it, they described ways a writing center – any writing center – could participate in, support, or condone racism. After doing this work, my tutors then contributed to a working document that listed ways our Mount Saint Mary College Writing Center could combat racism and resist complicity with racism.

Recursive Metacognition and Anti-racist Tutor Training

But what of Perl’s magical ingredient? Where does felt sense – recursive metacognition – appear in my facilitation of this first anti-racist tutor training? I knew my tutors needed a structure, so I adapted the six-word memoir activity. I knew my tutors needed to feel empowered with agency to create change, so I chose an article authored by their contemporaries: other peer tutors. I knew my tutors needed to understand how a writing center could contribute to institutional racism without blaming or shaming their tutoring practices, so I created an anonymous Padlet as a forum for this conversation. I knew my tutors needed to be included in creating solutions to correcting racial injustice on campus, so I allowed them to generate a list of action steps we could take as a Writing Center and helped us achieve them.

This knowing I am describing is more than an intuition, a “felt sense”: it is metacognitive awareness I have cultivated as an educator. And put into recursive practice, metacognition becomes a mighty pedagogical tool that can unlock thinking and writing processes for students and educators alike.

References

Coenen, H., Folarin, F., Tinsley, N., & Wright, L. (2019). Talking justice: The role of antiracism in the writing center. Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 16(2), 12-19.

Perl, S. (2008). Understanding composing. In T. R. Johnson (Ed.), Teaching Composition: Background Readings (pp.140-148). Bedford/St. Martin’s. (Reprinted from “Understanding composing,” 1980, College Composition and Communication, 31[4], 363-369, https://doi.org/10.2307/356586).

Engendering Empathy through Literature with Metacognition

by Dr. Marie-Therese C. Sulit, Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program

“Literature is no one’s private ground. It is common ground.”–Virginia Woolf

“Doce me veritatem”/“Teach Me Truth”—Motto of Mount Saint Mary College

INTRODUCTION: CONSIDERING DISPUTATIO A FORM OF METACOGNITION

As a multicultural practitioner of literature, I draw upon both a contemplative-informed pedagogy to create safe and brave spaces, especially for young adults. Given the common ground that literature provides, it is important that participants feel safe so they can be brave and share with the class. I connect literacy with literature through the reading process as follows:

Basic Literacy, or Reading the Lines: discerning the basic plot of a story on your terms (based on our personal experiences and responses) and articulating the “who, what, when, and where” of that story in our speech and prose
Critical Literacy, or Critically Reading between the Lines: discerning the deeper meaning of the story on its terms and articulating the “how and why” of that story through the background of the story itself and our present historical, literary, and political moment
Multicultural Literacy, or Reading Critically against the Lines: discerning the gaps and omissions of that story on its and our own terms and articulating ways of filling in these gaps and omissions by posing alternative readings

At any stage of the reading process, a student’s engagement with the narrative text can move between emotional reactions and intellectual responses. In an essay, “Reflection Matters: Using Metacognition to Track a Moving Target,” I highlight contemplative pedagogy, which creates a space between one’s emotional reactions and one’s intellectual responses. These reactions and responses inform students’ engagement with literature—may it be a series of spoken or written remarks, difficult and challenging topics, or an emergent potentially controversial set of themes—that, through metacognition, can shift triggers (emotional reactions) into glimmers (intellectual responses) in classroom discussions.

In another essay, “Identity Matters: Creating Brave Spaces through Disputatio and Discernment,” I discuss disputatio, a contemplative practice of rigorous argumentation particular to Dominican colleges and universities, as “[a] method that seeks to resolve difficult questions and controverted issues by finding the truth in each.” The practice of disputatio requires discernment as a means by which multiple and/or disparate perspectives can be brought to light even as it addresses “urgent questions of justice and peace.” At the Mount, pedagogical practices across disciplines are being called upon to explore and investigate so-called “controversial” issues that run the gamut of the “-isms,” e.g. racism and sexism and other forms of oppression. As a teacher of literature, the discernment intrinsic to disputatio, I believe, is a form of metacognition that can be utilized in the classroom in order to gauge students’ connection to a narrative text and peers as well as themselves. There is no better time than the present to engender empathy, the understanding of another perspective, with metacognition to address these opportunities for change in the classroom. Thus, the engenderment of empathy cannot happen without metacognition.

ENGENDERING EMPATHY THROUGH LITERATURE WITH METACOGNITION

The study and analysis of literature not only brings self-examination for all involved as we move through stories, characters, conflicts, and resolutions but also an examination of history, culture and society. In Literature for Young Adults, for example, the relatability of a narrative text opens up the opportunity for young adults to engage in this process of self-examination through the examination of a piece of literature. In providing the common ground to engender empathy, its challenge lies in its inherent predication that another’s experience of pain, even trauma, cannot be our own, and this challenge can happen within a student, among the students in the class, as well as through the characters. In applying these challenges to literature, I draw upon Lou Agosta (2020) who problematizes one’s ability to be open to another, be it a student with another student and/or a student with a character:

RECEPTIVITY, an emotional contagion, happening through an appropriation of one’s experience;
INTERPRETATION, as projecting one’s experience onto another, be it a character or a peer can happen;
RESPONSE, as becoming lost in translation, where gossiping, talking about, or changing the subject can happen;
UNDERSTANDING, where the labelling or categorizing one’s experience can happen.

With Agosta’s four points, the stages of the reading process are akin to listening: students react and respond accordingly, gauging their reactions and responses. He emphasizes that it is one’s ability to truly listen where empathy can either break down and/or break through. Agosta delineates how empathy works:

EMPATHIC RECEPTIVITY: a gracious and generous listening
EMPATHIC INTERPRETATION: the view from “over there”
EMPATHIC RESPONSIVENESS: the “film” of one’s life—be it a character, a peer, and/or one’s self
EMPATHIC UNDERSTANDING: a break-through, rather than a break-down, to possibility—be it literary, personal, and/or communal

In this course, the students and I discussed a student-selected contemporary novel, Girl in Pieces (2016) written by Kathleen Glasgow. In this controversial novel, the protagonist is a young woman, Charlie, homeless and a self-harmer, who, through her fraught relationships with family and friends, journeys towards self-development and self-discovery. Charlie served as a surrogate for the students who, to varying degrees, identify and dis-identify with aspects of this protagonist. I find myself most successful in engendering empathy and having the students develop their metacognition through low-stakes writing assignments—e.g. paragraph experiments for practice in writing effective paragraphs and online discussion forums that allow for reflection in responding to topics raised in the classroom. Examples include Charlie’s struggle to not self-harm, her choice in lovers, and her decision to move from place to place. High-stakes writing assignments, like short response papers, allow for deeper reflection on topics initially expressed in the paragraph experiments and online discussion forums. Examples include discussing aspects of a toxic relationship, the role of art in her coping strategies and healing practices, the plight of homeless teenagers. Students are compelled to choose between an approach to their literary studies that emphasizes participation, which can be challenging yet rewarding when students are still learning how they learn best and why they seek to learn. All of this cannot happen without the development of their metacognition through these classroom discussions and writing exercises.

Working through this novel with the students necessitated metacognitive exercises in exploring the creative, emotional, and intellectual that enabled some students to turn triggers into glimmers and other students to engender empathy for the characters and their peers who felt safe and brave enough to share their vulnerabilities. By studying and analyzing Charlie, her choices, her outcome, we became a rich and enriched community.

CONCLUSION

Through literature, I find that diversifying the course content and ensuring an inclusive pedagogy presents the opportunity for instilling students with a sense of curiosity through the process of exploration and discovery—one that comes with their self-development. For students to become life-long learners seeking truth, we bear the responsibility for the cultivation of statements, actions, behaviors, and practices that bespeaks a fully realized human being. We can and must continue to assist students in the development of new ways of being in this world as it is.

WORKS CITED

Agosta, L. (2020, September 6). Retrieved from Empathy Lessons: https://empathyinthecontextofphilosophy.com/2020/09/06/the-trouble-with-the-trouble-with-empathy/

The Dominican Charism in American Higher Education: A Vision in Service of Truth. Dominican University. 2012.

Woolf, Virginia. “Leaning Tower.” The Moment and Other Essays. HMH Books, 2003.

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.

Spaces for reflection beyond the classroom

By Honorary Associate Professor Anne-Louise Semple, PhD, Macquarie University and Associate Professor Kate Lloyd, PhD, Macquarie University

This is the fifth post in the Reflection for learning develops metacognition series.

The aim of this series is to support educators and learners with their reflective practice as a foundational skill in developing metacognition.

The blogs in the series each focus on a different mode of reflection, with the aim of introducing a spectrum of approaches to reflective practice spanning analytical,

personalistic, critical, and creative. Each blog provides the scholarship underpinning the practice and shares a reflective activity to engage readers experientially.

There are many meaningful ways to engage with, and practice, reflection and a focus of this series is engaging the reader in a range of experiential activities.

The authors of this series are members of the Reflection for Learning circle. We have experimented, practiced and researched Reflection for Learning for over ten years.

The question

This post asks: How can your surrounding environment support reflection?

Reflection and Metacognition

Metacognitive skills involve awareness of what has been learned or needs clarification, and the way you learn (Stanton et al., 2021). Awareness of and reflection on one’s surrounding environment, and one’s place within that, can enhance knowledge and understanding in ways that support metacognition.

Studies on field-based and experiential learning demonstrate the significance that reflection on one’s place/surrounds/environment can have including: increased self-awareness, ability to relate theory to real world practice, and the articulation of learning (Fedesco et al., 2020; Lloyd et al., 2015). Indeed, spending time in nature is known to enhance creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and it improves attention and focus; it is restorative (Taylor & Kuo, 2008; Rios & Brewer, 2014).

Our experiences during COVID revealed, however, that we can adapt reflection to any environment, be it indoor or out. Encouraging reflection on and in your surrounding environment, wherever you may be, supports mindful awareness and in turn contributes to “implicit knowledge in association with explicit knowledge, and insight into others’ perceptions” (Bolton, 2010, p. 15).

Therefore, taking time to explore your surrounding environment in detail, and your experience of that, can enhance our connection to that place and create new ways of seeing, thinking, doing and being. (See the Reflection as Exploration video.) This self-awareness, which draws on both the physical and physiological, contributes to metacognition as individuals gain an enhanced ability to understand how different things and their location are interconnected, including in relation to themselves (Stolz, 2015; Leigh & Bailey, 2013).

What does this look like in practice?

Whether a place is familiar or unfamiliar, whether you are in the classroom or outside in nature, the mission is simple: start by slowing down and taking time to notice things in your surrounding environment that previously might not have been apparent. “Everything is interesting. Look closer…alter your course…notice patterns…trace things back to their origins…” (Smith, 2008, p.5).

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

Document your observations in a way that suits you: use a camera, art supplies, pen and paper, laptop or audio recorder to document an object, a feeling encountered during the exploration, an experience that unexpectedly occurs, or a sense of something that evolves as a result of your exploration.

How can I learn more?

For more information, and to discover other practices including one that engages all five senses as one experiences their surrounding environment, please see our reflection for learning scholarly practice guide.

The online Reflection for Learning video series provides further demonstration:

References

Bolton, G. (2010). Reflective practice: Writing and professional development (3rd ed.). Sage.

Fedesco, H. N., Cavin, D., & Henares, R. (2020). Field-based learning in higher education: exploring the benefits and possibilities. Journal of the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching, 20 (1), 65-84. doi: 10.14434/josotl.v20i1.24877

Harvey M., Lloyd K., McLachlan K., Semple A-L., & Walkerden G. (2020). Reflection for learning: a scholarly practice guide for educators. AdvanceHE. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/reflection-learning-scholarly-practice-guide-educators

Leigh, J., & Bailey, R. (2013). Reflection, reflective practice and embodied reflective practice. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy: An International Journal for Theory, Research and Practice, 8(3), 160-171. doi: 10.1080/17432979.2013.797498

Lloyd, K., Howitt, R., Bilous, R., Clark, L., Dowling, R., Fagan, R., Fuller, S., Hammersley, L., Houston, D., McGregor, A., McLean, J., Miller, F., Ruming, K., Semple, A-L., & Suchet-Pearson, S. (2015). Geographic contributions to institutional curriculum reform in Australia: the challenge of embedding field-based learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 39(4), 491-503. doi:10.1080/03098265.2015.1103710

Rios, J.M., & Brewer, J., (2014). Outdoor education and science achievement. Applied Environmental Education & Communication, 13(4), 234-240. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1533015X.2015.975084

Smith, K. (2008). How to be an explorer of the world. Portable Life Museum. Penguin Group.

Stanton, J.D., Sebesta, A., J., & Dunlosky, J. (2021). Fostering Metacognition to Support Student Learning and Performance. CBE Life Sciences Education, 20(2), 1-7. doi: 10.1187/cbe.20-12-0289

Stolz, S.A. (2015). Embodied learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(5), 474-487. doi: 10.1080/00131857.2013.879694

Taylor, A.F., & Kuo, F.E. (2008). Children with attention deficits concentrate better after walk in the park. J Atten Disord, 12(5), 402-9. doi: 10.1177/1087054708323000

Practicing reflection beyond text to sensory and creative

By Dr Kathryn McLachlan, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, PhD, Macquarie University and Associate Professor Kate Lloyd, PhD, Macquarie University

This is the fourth post in the Reflection for learning develops metacognition series.

The aim of this series is to support educators and learners with their reflective practice as a foundational skill in developing metacognition.

The blogs in the series each focus on a different mode of reflection, with the aim of introducing a spectrum of approaches to reflective practice spanning analytical,

personalistic, critical, and creative. Each blog provides the scholarship underpinning the practice and shares a reflective activity to engage readers experientially.

There are many meaningful ways to engage with, and practice, reflection and a focus of this series is engaging the reader in a range of experiential activities.

The authors of this series are members of the Reflection for Learning circle. We have experimented, practiced and researched Reflection for Learning for over ten years.

The question

This post asks: “How can arts-based creative practices support reflection?”

Reflection and Metacognition

Creative practices like drawing and weaving have been shown to be associated with relaxation, reflection, creativity, and mindfulness (Belkofer, Van Hecke & Konopka, 2014), which in turn have been linked to enhanced cognitive and academic performance (Shapiro, Brown & Astin, 2008). Offering different and arts-based modes of reflective practice can be a “novelty seeking” activity that can enhance creativity and divergent thinking (Goclowska, et al., 2019). These creative new experiences can support a growth mindset (Dweck, 2017) and enable learners to discover that they can, with effort, improve their creative skills.

Reflective practice supports development of executive function such as working memory and cognitive flexibility and learners who engage in arts-based reflection activities can “amplify” their learning, enhancing academic performance. (Magsamen & Ross, 2023). These creative practices are often new or novel mediums for the students’ reflective repertoire, evoking different processes of reflection (Harvey et al., 2016). Examples of arts-based practices include painting, drawing, video, colouring-in and many uses of images such as photos which can “ignite inquiry…promote self awareness, self monitoring, reflective and reflexive practice while producing questions and answers….” (Lemon, 2007, p.183). Similarly, arts-based activities incorporating music in higher education teaching can enhance cognitive processing (attention, learning and memory) (Magsamen & Ross, 2023).

What does this look like in practice?

The “drawing with both hands” activity involves participants drawing in three different ways, and then participating in personal and group reflection. Follow this link for details on how to facilitate the process: see p.64 of our practice guide.

Other creative techniques such as weaving can also foster reflection, mindfulness and connection. For examples see Indigenous led practices of weaving from Bawaka in Northeast Arnhem land or the The Tjanpi Desert Weavers.

How can I learn more?

For more creative practices go to:

A guided drawing meditation Happiness Break: Sketching Serenity with Chris Murchison (berkeley.edu)
Musical Stimulus – YouTube

References

Belkofer, C. M., Van Hecke, A. V., & Konopka, L. M. (2014). Effects of drawing on alpha activity: A quantitative EEG study with implications for art therapy. Art Therapy, 31(2), 61-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2014.903821

Dweck, C.S. (2017). The new psychology of success. How we can fulfill our potential. Ballantine.

Goclowska, M., Ritter, S.,Elliot, A. J. & Baas, M. (2019). Novelty seeking is linked to openness and extraversion, and can lead to greater creative performance. Journal of Personality, 87(2), 252-266. DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12387

Harvey, M., Lloyd, K., McLachlan, K., Semple, A-L., Walkerden, G. (2020). Reflection for learning: a scholarly practice guide for educators. AdvanceHE, York (UK).

Harvey, M., Walkerden, G., Semple, A. L., McLachlan, K., Lloyd, K., & Baker, M. (2016). A song and a dance: Being inclusive and creative in practicing and documenting reflection for learning. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 13(2),3.

Lemon, N. (2007). Take a photograph: teacher reflection through narrative. Reflective Practice, 8(2), 177-191. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940701288982

Magsamen, S. & Ross, I. (2023). Your brain on art. How the arts transform us. New York: Random House

Shapiro, S. L., Brown, K. A., & Astin, J. A. (2008). Toward the integration of meditation into higher education: A review of research. Center for Contemplative Mind. https://www.contemplativemind.org/files/MedandHigherEd.pdf

Practising reflection with cognitive text-based activities

by Associate Professor Agnes Bosanquet, Macquarie University

This is the third post in the Reflection for learning develops metacognition series.

The aim of this series is to support educators and learners with their reflective practice as a foundational skill in developing metacognition.

The blogs in the series each focus on a different mode of reflection, with the aim of introducing a spectrum of approaches to reflective practice spanning analytical,

personalistic, critical, and creative. Each blog provides the scholarship underpinning the practice and shares a reflective activity to engage readers experientially.

There are many meaningful ways to engage with, and practice, reflection and a focus of this series is engaging the reader in a range of experiential activities.

The authors of this series are members of the Reflection for Learning circle. We have experimented, practised and researched Reflection for Learning for over ten years.

The question

This post asks: Where is a good place to start with reflection?

Reflection and Metacognition

Reflection is a learned skill and an ongoing process.

In The Reflective Practitioner, Schön (1983) describes reflection as a process whereby individuals try to understand “some puzzling or troubling or interesting phenomenon” (p.50). Those who are new to reflection can start with a form that sits comfortably within the cognitive domain: writing.

Written activities such as journals, diaries, and learning portfolios are well-established for documenting and assessing reflection (Brookfield, 2017; Harvey et. al., 2016). Written reflection is an expansive pedagogy – simple to resource, easy to adapt, and flexible in form. With scaffolding, students can develop their written reflection literacy (Chan & Lee, 2021; Chan, Wong & Luo, 2021; Cheng & Chan, 2019).

Photo by Brad Neathery on Unsplash

Text-based reflection is a way of ‘thinking through writing’ or ‘writing along the way’. Thomson and Kamler (2010) call it “writing that is intended to sort out what we think, why, and what the implications of a line of thought might be” (p. 149). Students and teachers can articulate learning in progress – including “musings, unproven hunches, and still-forming hypotheses” – in a “relatively informal and conversational way” (Cook-Sather, Abbot, & Felten, 2019, p. 15).

What does this look like in practice?

Having students engage in written reflection can support their metacognitive development. Educators can also practice written reflection to enhance teaching and career development.

‘Seeking clarity’ is a cognitive text-based exercise that asks learners to respond to a single question. Ask the question: What was the most significant (useful, meaningful, surprising, etc.) thing you learned? Clarity of thought is a metacognitive aim and this reflection question is a strategy to achieve this. It is also important to make the purpose of the activity explicit to students.

This version of the activity adopts a strengths-based approach (Harvey, 2014) that supports students’ development of their metacognitive skills as they reflect on what they know and what they need to know after a learning experience.

Other examples of written reflection practice include: minute papers, five main points, the application list and one word at a time. Details and a template for these practices can be found in our guide and demonstration videos are available on our YouTube channel.

How can I learn more?

For more information, and to discover other practices please see our reflection for learning scholarly practice guide.

The online Reflection for Learning video series provides further demonstration of written reflective practices such as:

References

Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher (2nd edn). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Chan, C. K. Y & Lee, K. K. W. (2021). Reflection literacy: A multilevel perspective on the challenges of using reflections in higher education through a comprehensive literature review. Educational Research Review, 32, 100376 .https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2020.100376Chan, C. K. Y, Wong, H. Y. H. & Luo, J. (2021) An exploratory study on assessing reflective writing from teachers’ perspectives. Higher Education Research & Development, 40 (4), 706-720. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1773769

Cheng, M. W, T. & Chan, C. K. Y. (2019). An experimental test: Using rubrics for reflective writing to develop reflection. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 61, 176-182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.04.001

Cook-Sather, A., Abbot, S., & Felten, P. (2019). Legitimating reflective writing in SoTL: ‘Dysfunctional Illusions of Rigor’ revisited. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.7.2.2

Harvey, M., Walkerden, G., Semple, A. L., McLachlan, K., Lloyd, K., & Baker, M. (2016). A song and a dance: Being inclusive and creative in practicing and documenting reflection for learning. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 13(2), 3.

Harvey, M. (2014). Strengths-based theory and practice. In D. Coughlan and M. Brydon-Miller (Eds), the SAGE Encyclopaedia of Action Research. Volume 2 (pp.732-735). London: SAGE.

Harvey M, Lloyd K, McLachlan K, Semple A-L, Walkerden G (2020). Reflection for learning: a scholarly practice guide for educators. AdvanceHE, York (UK). https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/reflection-learning-scholarly-practice-guide-educators

Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books.

Thomson, P., & Kamler, B. (2010). It’s been said before and we’ll say it again – Research is writing. In P. Thomson & M. Walker (Eds.), The Routledge doctoral student’s companion: Getting to grips with research in education and the social sciences (pp. 149–160). Routledge.

Preparing for reflection with mindfulness

by Dr Greg Walkerden, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, PhD, Macquarie University

This is the second post in the Reflection for learning develops metacognition series.

The aim of this series is to support educators and learners with their reflective practice as a foundational skill in developing metacognition.

The blogs in the series each focus on a different mode of reflection, with the aim of introducing a spectrum of approaches to reflective practice spanning analytical,

personalistic, critical, and creative. Each blog provides the scholarship underpinning the practice and shares a reflective activity to engage readers experientially.

There are many meaningful ways to engage with, and practice, reflection and a focus of this series is engaging the reader in a range of experiential activities.

The authors of this series are members of the Reflection for Learning circle. We have experimented, practiced and researched Reflection for Learning for over ten years.

The question

This post asks: “How do we shift to being deliberately mindful of our experience?”

Reflection and Metacognition

Mindfulness is a metacognitive practice with a very long history. In the written record, it goes back at least to the early Buddhist texts (Kabat-Zinn 2015), and, in the last 50 years, secular uses of being deliberately aware of our own experiencing have flourished (Harvey et al 2020).

At its heart, mindfulness is being aware of what we are experiencing as we are experiencing it, and aware of how we are acting as we act. Doing this deliberately might seem like quite a modest contribution to learning, since, in some ways, we are always aware of what we are experiencing and what we are doing. However, the wide variety of terms in English for being unmindful underline how helpful this shift can be: we may be distracted, tired, troubled, frustrated, disinterested, overwhelmed, burdened, weary, fuzzy, disoriented, anxious, inattentive, discouraged, upset, unmotivated, unnerved, uninterested, procrastinating, frazzled, and on and on.

Being open, attentive and sensitive is not something we can take for granted in ourselves or others. So ways of shifting deliberately to being mindful have a lot to contribute to many of the things we do, and specifically to reflecting on our practice, both as we are practicing – reflecting-in-action – and afterwards – reflecting-on-action (Schön 1987).

What does this look like in practice?

A very simple way of shifting into being mindful is to simply relax, pause, and do any of the following …

think about something enjoyable, slowly, savoring it …
quietly take in the sights and sounds of where you are …
gently follow your own breathing … and if you drift off, gently return …
take a little time to notice how you are feeling, particularly whatever is in the background (usually some amalgam, perhaps of curiosity, comfort, discomfort, doubt, ease, …) … let the background reveal itself …

In a teaching setting, the practice can be that when students hear the sound of a bell, or any other pre-arranged cue, they simply pause, relax, and spend a minute doing one of the above.

Photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash

As these instructions indicate, the heart of being deliberately mindful is pausing, relaxing, and then being aware gently, slowly, quietly – letting what is happening register. There is a great deal of empirical evidence – both in practice traditions and in the research literature – that mindfulness is a metacognitive practice that supports sensitivity, insight, and learning (Kabat-Zinn 2015, Harvey et al 2020). Such practices can be individual or shared.

How can I learn more?

For more detailed instructions for using this simple mindfulness practice in teaching, see our Mindfulness Cues video and the section ‘Mindfulness Cues’ in our guide (2020, p.34).

Two related mindfulness practices that explore mindfulness in nature and in movement are:

Both are very helpful in everyday life and in teaching.

References

Harvey, M., Lloyd K., McLachlan K., Semple A-L., & Walkerden, G. (2020). Reflection for learning: a scholarly practice guide for educators. AdvanceHE. (https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/reflection-learning-scholarly-practice-guide-educators)

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2015). Mindfulness. Mindfulness, 6, 1481–1483. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-015-0456-x

Schön, D. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass.

The role of reflection for learning and metacognitive development

by Honorary Associate Professor Marina Harvey, PhD, Macquarie University, Series guest editor

This is the first post in the Reflection for learning develops metacognition series.

The aim of this series is to support educators and learners with their reflective practice as a foundational skill in developing metacognition.

The blogs in the series each focus on a different mode of reflection, with the aim of introducing a spectrum of approaches to reflective practice spanning analytical, personalistic, critical, and creative. Each blog provides the scholarship underpinning the practice and shares a reflective activity to engage readers experientially.

photo of a woman sitting at a desk and writing — *Image by Mario Hernandez from Pixabay*

There are many meaningful ways to engage with, and practice, reflection and a focus of this series is engaging the reader in a range of experiential activities.

The authors of this series are members of the Reflection for Learning circle. We have experimented, practiced and researched Reflection for Learning for over ten years in diverse contexts: including most disciplines, at undergraduate and graduate levels, and with students and teachers. Each month we gather and play with a new reflective practice. Those that work we further research, workshop, and practice and now share with you dear reader of the blog. We have found that you need to know your learners and adapt the delivery of the reflective practice to your learners’ needs. The story of our learning circle can be read in our guide (Harvey et al., 2020, pp 8-10).

The question

This post asks: “What is the role of reflection for learning and metacognitive development?”

Reflection and Metacognition

Reflection for learning develops metacognition

Reflective practice is incorporated into university curricula worldwide, and this is because reflective practice supports learning. Three key roles of reflective practice for learning have been identified: academic learning, lifelong learning and skills development (Harvey, et al. 2010).

Academic learning

Reflection can play many roles in supporting academic learning with a key role being praxis, as it enables learners to apply and build connections between theory and practice. Reflective practice can also underpin authentic learning experiences as it enables learners to make connections between their subject or course, their learning activities and their future work. The diverse range of modes of reflective practice and its documentation provide a variety of ways in which learners can document, or evidence, their learning.

Lifelong learning

Last century it was unusual for universities to talk about lifelong learning. In contrast, today graduate capabilities or attributes espoused by universities and higher education institutions make reference to their graduates being lifelong learners (Winchester-Seeto, et al. 2012). Reflective practice can engage learners in transformative, whole person and career development learning, and achieve unintended or spontaneous learning outcomes all aligned with lifelong learning.

Skills development

Communication skills can be developed through reflective writing or journalling and through creative expressions of reflection. Of significance to this blog series, reflection contributes to the higher-order cognitive processes of self-regulation and metacognition (Harvey, Coulson & McMaugh, 2016). Reflection plays a pivotal role in the process of self-regulation (Lyons & Zelazo, 2011). The relationship between reflection and metacognition is synergistic, reciprocal and complementary (Harvey, Coulson & McMaugh, 2016). The development of metacognition is supported by reflective practice by “making formerly unconscious, intangible, or reflexive processes or events explicit” (Desautel, 2009, p. 2001).

What does this look like in practice?

Having students engage in scaffolded reflective practices can support their metacognitive development. Educators can practice reflection to enhance their teaching and career development. There are multiple practices to choose from in our practice guide.

The “Minute paper” is a cognitive based practice closely aligned with metacognitive development. This quick reflective activity asks students two questions:

What was the most significant (useful, meaningful, surprising, etc) thing you learned during this session?
What question(s) remain in your mind at the end of this session?

These questions prompt students to actively monitor their cognitive processes, identifying what they know and what they don’t know. Details and a template for this practice can be found on pp. 40-42 of our guide and the video demonstrating the practice is on Youtube.

How can I learn more?

For more information, and to discover other practices please see our reflection for learning scholarly practice guide.

The online Reflection for Learning video series provides further demonstration of text- and cognitive based practices:

References

Desautel, D. (2009). Becoming a thinking thinker: Metacognition, self-reflection, and classroom practice. Teachers College Record, 111(8), 1997-2020.

Harvey, M., Coulson, D., & McMaugh, A. (2016). Towards a theory of the ecology of reflection: reflective practice for experiential learning in higher education. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 13(2). http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol13/iss2/2

Harvey, M; Coulson, D; Mackaway, T., & Winchester-Seeto, T. (2010). Aligning reflection in the cooperative education curriculum. Australia Pacific Journal of Co-operative education, 11 (3), 137-1 https://www.ijwil.org/files/APJCE_11_3_137_152.pdf

Lyons, K.E., & Zelazo, P.D. (2011). Monitoring, metacognition, and executive function: Elucidating the role of self-reflection in the development of self-regulation. In J. B. Benson (Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior (pp. 379-412). JAI, Volume 40. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386491-8.00010-4.

Winchester-Seeto, T., Bosanquet, A., & Rowe, A. (2012). Smoke and mirrors: graduate attributes and the implications for student engagement in higher education. In I. Solomonides., A, Reid, & P. Petocz (Eds.), Engaging with learning in higher education (pp. 413-438). Oxfordshire: Libri

Broaden your self-awareness through reflective journaling

by Mariah Kidd, B.S., GEOSCIENCES, 2022, Boise State University

This is the 4th post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

Introduction

The summer after I graduated high school was a turbulent time; plans changed, I felt lost and confused, and I needed a way to make sense of it all. I’ve never understood why but at that time I felt a natural pull towards writing about my life. So, I bought a journal and began scribbling down my thoughts and feelings. During the last five years, I have used journaling as a tool to digest my experiences. Each time I write, I leave my journal feeling lighter and clearer than when I started because I took time to slow down and release the internal pressure of my mind. My journal slowly became a place where I was able to express myself freely without the worry of judgment from another person. This took time, however; it was difficult to be honest and non-judgmental with myself about my own feelings. To this day, I continue using my journal as a way to ponder, process, and plan how I want to show up in life.

Building Self-Awareness

Before I began journaling in 2017, I did not practice self-reflection. I needed a practice where my internal world could be reflected back to me in a way that I could understand. My journal is a mirror; it reflects everything about myself back to me. Once I begin writing, parts of myself that I didn’t know existed are revealed; something about writing allows my subconscious thoughts and feelings to emerge. Awareness of my subconscious thoughts and feelings shows me how my life is unknowingly controlled by impulsive reactions or assumptions I carry. This awareness provides an opportunity for me to consciously choose how to respond to situations rather than instinctually reacting in harmful ways.

An entry from my journal on July 18, 2022 is an example of my growing self-awareness:

“Distraction is everywhere. Especially in my mind – my thoughts are constantly trying to direct my attention elsewhere. This morning I noticed myself getting pulled into social media so I decided to start reading. While reading I got distracted more than once. After reading I felt the urge to check my phone again. So I picked up my journal… Now here we are.”

Consistent reflection allows patterns in my life to emerge – only then, once my patterns are revealed through my writing, am I able to make tangible change towards more aligned patterns and habits.

Tracking Growth

As a person who values personal development, re-reading and reflecting on my journals is a useful tool to see how I have grown over the years. Since I began journaling, I have filled 11 journals cover-to-cover with my life story through college and beyond. Last spring I re-read these journals in chronological order from my freshman year of college to where I currently am six months post-graduation.

Reading my journals showed me how subtle and slow the process of growth is. Just like nature, we grow slowly. Each day we have the opportunity to be 1% better than the day before, and over the years that 1% adds up to substantial change. However, change can be difficult to notice in your day-to-day life. This is where the beauty of journaling becomes crystal clear. Journals allow us to time-travel to see how younger versions of ourselves moved through the world and can reveal meaningful changes that had previously gone unnoticed. Once I recognize where growth has already occurred, I feel inspired to take more aligned actions in my life to pursue future growth as a result of my reflection.

Beyond personal growth, reflective practices during college revealed trackable growth as a student. In English classes, university foundations courses, and philosophy classes I engaged in reflective writing that guided me into new ways of thinking about my academics. I had the opportunity to consider challenges I encountered through projects, acknowledge what I did well, and plan for how I can improve in the future. A full college course-load can quickly become difficult to navigate, but having reflective practices built into courses created the space to reflect, reground, and encourage me through my journey as a student. Reflection was always my favorite part of the few classes that incorporated it and I always wished every class had a reflection component.

Let Your Writing Evolve With You

Over the years, my journal has served many purposes depending on where I am in life. In the past it has served as a place to release overwhelming emotions. Other times it is used to capture special experiences that I want to remember the fullness of for the rest of my life. When I’m feeling stagnant, I use my journal to organize my life, dial in my habits, and plan how I want to show up in my life. Most commonly now, I use my journal to ask questions and dive deeper into my relationship with myself.

During college I used my journal to separate my personal life from my academic life. I created time and space to process my life outside of school so that I was able to fully show up to my academics without the distraction of unprocessed experiences. Through the years, I’ve realized how important it is to let the purpose of my journal evolve and change as I do because then it can support me at any point in life.

Finding Beauty

Adopting a consistent journaling practice has allowed me to find more meaning and value in my life experiences. I regularly incorporate gratitude into my journaling practice as a reminder that my life is richer and more beautiful than my mind would sometimes like me to believe. Five years ago, I could have never imagined how large of a role journaling would play in my development of becoming a more aligned version of myself day by day. This fact alone provides unlimited opportunity for what role my journal may play in the coming years of my life. Reflecting and taking aligned action in my life will be a continual process of refining myself through my self-discovery process.

Additional Resources:

Laura B. Miller, Review of Journaling as a Teaching and Learning Strategy, Teaching and Learning in Nursing, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2017, Pages 39-42, ISSN 1557-3087.

Pastore, Caitlin, Stress management in college students: Why journaling is the most effective technique for this demographic, 2020.

Using Ungrading and Metacognition to Foster “Becoming a Learner”

by Matt Recla, PhD, Associate Director of University Foundations at Boise State

This is the 3rd post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

Becoming a Learner

When I started teaching a required first-year course years ago, faculty were recommended to include Matthew Sanders’ small text, Becoming a Learner. Though it seemed a distraction from the “real” content of my course, I dutifully added the text. It makes a simple, compelling argument that students should strive to be active learners rather than passive students, exposing common misconceptions about a college education and suggesting helpful corrections. I paired the text with a short assignment to craft three learning goals for the semester, including at least one for our course and at least one for their learning journey more broadly.

I was surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reactions from students. Though assigned at the beginning of the semester, in their reflections on the course months later students still made comments like the following: “I learned so much about myself and what to improve on.” “It really set the tone for the rest of the class.” “It really changed my perspective on how I view my college education.” A few even claimed it was the most valuable part of the course! Reflecting on their past learning experiences and considering concrete goals provided a tool to gain purchase on their educational journey.

I began to wonder, though, whether my teaching techniques and assignments throughout the rest of the course were in harmony with the message of becoming a learner. Sanders exhorts students to be creative and courageous in order to learn (14, 42). Was I helping students do that, or was I penalizing them if they took a risk? He encourages critical thinking and the interconnectedness of learning (15, 35). Was I providing opportunities to make those connections, to reflect on the impact of their learning? These reflections led me to further opportunities for student metacognition. I made two additional changes that, in offering students a greater sense of empowerment in their education, also hopefully contributes to their sense of well-being.

Ungrading

The first change was ungrading, which to my mind was the natural complement to a first-year required course that promotes taking charge of your education. (There are many different ways to ungrade; I was initially guided by Hacking Assessment, and have since benefitted from the edited volume, Ungrading.) I’ve landed for now on a system where students receive no grades until the end of the course. They receive significant feedback on each assignment (based on Mark Barnes’ SE2R feedback approach) from me or a teaching assistant and have unlimited opportunities to revise and resubmit their work. We meet individually with each one of our 100 students at midsemester to hear about their progress and tackle any ongoing challenges. We meet again at semester’s end, and students explain the grade they believe they’ve earned. At least nine times out of ten they assess themselves just as we (instructors) would. When there appear to be gaps in the student’s self-assessment, we have a slightly longer conversation to understand (and rarely, suggest possible corrections to) their rationale.

I have come to see ungrading as part of my own well-being as an educator, as it appropriately shares my responsibility for a student’s grade with them. They are well-positioned to evaluate their performance if I trust them to do so and let them practice. There is a learning curve, and it can at first be frustrating for students who (like myself as a student) are used to finding out “what the teacher wants.” If embraced, though, it encourages for most students more authentic engagement with their learning. Their reflections suggest this augments a feeling of ownership of their education.

Metacognitive Reflection

The second change I adopted is to have students write or record a brief metacognitive reflection along with every major assignment. (My first and last assignments are themselves reflections on their experience, so I don’t assign a reflection on their reflection. That gets confusing for everyone!) The prompt for this brief addendum asks students to think about successes and challenges, both internal and external. (I’ve lost track of the original source for this idea, but I’m grateful!) I show these four areas in a quadrant and invite students to respond to at least one prompt in each area:

Internal

External

Successes

● What did I do to achieve success on this assignment?

● What did I learn from this assessment (in terms of content, skills, and/or about myself)?

● What parts of the assignment worked well for me? Why?

● Where do I think I did best on the assignment or what portion am I particularly proud of?

● Which assignment standards did I meet or exceed? Why do I think so?

Challenges

● What challenges did I face while completing the assignment (outside the assignment itself)?

● How did I overcome those challenges?

● What do I plan to do differently next time as a result?

● What parts of the assignment were most challenging for me to understand? Why?

● How did I overcome those challenges?

● Which assignment standards did I not meet? Why?

Students reflect honestly on their challenges and modestly on their successes. They already may do this internally as they complete their work, but taking the time to record it helps reinforce that intuitive reflection and reveals the interconnectedness of their learning. The reflections often provide helpful context for their work, which may be impacted by any number of factors. In most cases I can affirm their self-assessment and suggest other small shifts as needed. The opportunity for intentional, transparent reflection has induced some “aha!” moments. I’ve seen many students follow through with changes in their time management for future assignments or double-down on areas of skill that were uncovered in reflection, which, because self-generated rather than forced, increases their felt self-efficacy.

Teaching in a COVID (and post-COVID) world

Although I incorporated both of these practices before the global disruptions of the last couple years, I’ve found that both ungrading and metacognitive reflection lend themselves well to teaching in a world unmoored by a pandemic. In the fall semester of 2020 we could see the impacts of a dramatic disruption in students’ learning, transitioning from in-person to primarily or completely virtual. Those impacts have become more pronounced each year since. The flexible design of my course is fairly adaptable to student needs and abilities when they enter the course, and it means that their grade isn’t ruined because they miss something due to unforeseen circumstances.

As they complete assignments and reflect on their progress, I can see them wrestle with the challenges of my course while simultaneously managing their other courses and the numerous obligations of adulthood. When they reflect at the end of the semester and assign themselves a grade, I can see how they comprehensively assess what this small piece of their growth as learners has added up to. I am privileged to work with students with a variety of different experiences and perspectives, and if my classroom provides a space where they can reflect on where they are and continue the lifelong process of becoming learners, I feel that I’ve boosted their well-being and not hindered their journey.

References:

Blum, S. D. (2020). Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead). West Virginia University Press.

Sackstein, S. (2015). Hacking assessment: 10 ways to go gradeless in a traditional grades school. Times 10 Publications.

Sanders, M. L. (2018). Becoming a learner: Realizing the opportunity of education. Macmillan Learning Curriculum Solutions.

Student Well-Being Through Reflection and Metacognition in a First-Year Writing Course

by Ti Macklin, PhD, Department of Writing Studies Lecturer; Lilly Crolius, graduate student (Texas A&M University-Commerce); Harland Recla, first-year writing student; and Natalie Plunkett, first-year writing student, Boise State University.

This is the 2nd post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

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photo of a bubble floating in front of a blurred background — Image by dsjones from Pixabay

In summer of 2020, it was clear that business as usual was not going to work in terms of preparing graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) to teach first-year writing (FYW) and for FYW students entering Boise State University. Students would likely be coming to class still in pandemic isolation and their needs would be unlike anything we had experienced as teachers. As FYW administrators, dawn shepherd and Heidi Estrem worked with Ti Macklin (an experienced instructor and teacher of the GTA pedagogy course) to develop a fully online course specifically designed to support both of these student populations.

This blog post examines the experiences of Ti Macklin, Lilly Crolius (graduate student and teaching assistant in the course), Harland Recla (FYW student), and Natalie Plunkett (FYW student).

Metacognition Through Reflection

For Ti, building the online FYW course, English 101 (ENGL 101), centered on metacognition as a means of supporting the well-being of all of the students involved in the course; both graduate and undergraduate. Her pedagogy focuses on the notion that improvement as writers comes from self-awareness, so reflection was built into every module of the course, with students working to answer the overarching question of “how do we improve as writers instead of simply improving individual pieces of writing?” The table below highlights the deliberately reflective elements of the course:

Class Activity	Reflection
Four Unit Course Structure	● Unit 1 – reflect on who they are as writers/what their relationship is with writing ● Unit 2 – reflect on how they became the writers they are ● Unit 3 – reflect on and identify the transferable skills they developed through the course ● Unit 4 (the final portfolio) – reflect on their learning in the course, examine their growth as writers and students, and look ahead to the next FYW course
Weekly Self-Assessment Journal	Students reflect at the end of each module on what was most helpful, what they learned, what they’re struggling with, and what adjustments they might make for future modules
Weekly Writing and Rhetoric Activity	Students are introduced to a new concept/term each week and, at the end of the lesson, are asked to reflect on how they might use this concept in the class and outside of the class
Weekly Course Readings and Discussion Boards	Course readings are designed to encourage students to reflect on their own writing processes, literacy experiences, and experiences with transfer
Final Portfolio Reflection	Students reflect on the culminating activity at the end of each unit and consider what changes they would make if they were to include this piece in the final portfolio.

All three students (graduate teaching assistant Lilly, Harland, and Natalie) were unaware of the concept of metacognition at the beginning of the semester. However, as the semester went on, they all realized that the focus on reflection was impacting both their writing and their well-being. Lilly noticed changes in the FYW students’ writing as the semester progressed. Through examining themselves and their abilities, and being encouraged by the support of creativity and personal interests in their assignments, their writing showed evidence that they were able to see connections between writing for our class and other situations (both academic and non-academic) thus cementing the concept of metacognition as a transferable learning and life skill.

The FYW students’ experiences were similar to Lilly’s. Harland began to understand the concept of metacognition about mid-semester when he realized that dedicating a large amount of time to reflection wasn’t something he was accustomed to, so it began to stand out as the course went on. Natalie found that, because the instruction on metacognition was subtle, it took a few weeks for students to fully understand that they were consistently doing metacognitive work whether they realized it or not.

Harland and Natalie also recommend that, even though it would mean adding more terminology to the course, it would be worth making metacognition even more explicit. Harland suggests that describing the purpose of metacognition in the course would demonstrate to students that metacognition can yield helpful adjustments in both learning and behaviors, thus making the concept and its function more obvious. Natalie adds that pointing out the overtly metacognitive work that students did at the end of each module in addition to the subtle work throughout the module makes this deeply reflective and challenging work seem much more manageable and possible.

Metacognition and Well-Being

When asked how their learning/thinking/writing processes changed as a result of ENGL 101, all three students indicated that their well-being was positively impacted. For example, for Harland, this style of learning shifted his life outside of class because he spent time reflecting upon the methods he used to think and learn. He specifically noticed that the metacognitive focus of the course boosted his well-being as it gave him a sense of control over the knowledge he absorbs.

Likewise, for Natalie, the focus on metacognition impacted her well-being by fostering and supporting her self-confidence in her writing skills and ideas. This boost largely came from when she realized that she was thinking of the concepts in the ENGL 101 course in her spare time and found herself applying them to other courses and areas of her life.

For Lilly, the experience as a graduate instructor within this class and learning about these ideas encouraged her to apply her learning in much more thoughtful ways. It made learning more engaging and highlighted how meaningful and valuable it could be, giving her clarity. Her job as a GTA became less stressful once she realized that there was a clear purpose for everything done in the English 101 class that she could use elsewhere.

All three students believe that their writing processes evolved significantly as a result of the course. Natalie went from quickly completing assignments within the due date to soaking in what was being taught and feeling more fulfilled and confident in her learning. Harland echoes this and adds that he became more comfortable with his own process, which resulted in a boost in his overall well-being.

As a student, Lilly found that reflection helped her to see that her writing was part of a bigger picture. No matter what is being written, she felt like there was a place for it in the world. Even if it never sees the light of day, it’s an opportunity for improvement and growth.

The Takeaway

In the midst of the isolation of the pandemic, people were turning inward and hiding from the world, which became a cycle of solitude and stagnation. The consistent reflective opportunities of this English 101 course introduced and amplified the notion of metacognition, thus pulling both the GTAs and the FYW students back into the world. By reflecting on themselves as writers, these students were able to connect to various places in their lives where they hadn’t previously made associations.

It is worth noting that this productive introspection took place in a class of 300 students in an asynchronous, fully online course. The students worked in semester-long groups of 10, each with an assigned GTA, in order to provide as much educational and human support to both the GTAs and the FYW students as possible. The reflection that Heidi, dawn, and I mention in the introduction to this blog series allowed us to rethink the size and shape of FYW classes while holding on to the essential elements of the course, like metacognition, that make a class a writing class.

Student Readings on Reflection, Metacognition, & Transfer

Allen, Sarah. “The Inspired Writer vs. the Real Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, https://writingspaces.org/essays

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 49, no. 2, 1998, pp. 165–185. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/358929. Accessed 13 July 2020.

Carillo, Ellen C. “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball & Drew M. Loewe, p. 34-37.

Driscoll, Dana Lynn and Roger Powell. “States, Traits, and Dispositions: The Impact of Emotion on Writing Development and Writing Transfer Across College Courses and Beyond.” Composition Forum, vol. 34, 2016. Accessed 21 July 2020.

Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 31, no. 4, 1980, pp. 389–401. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/356589. Accessed 1 June 2020.

Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Source.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, https://writingspaces.org/essays

Robertson, Liane, Kara Taczak, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. “Notes toward A Theory of Prior Knowledge and Its Role in College Composers’ Transfer of Knowledge and Practice.” Composition Forum, vol. 26, 2012. Accessed 21 July 2020.

Tomlinson, Barbara. “Cooking, Mining, Gardening, Hunting: Metaphorical Stories Writers Tell about Their Composing Processes.” Metaphor & Symbolic Activity, vol. 1, no. 1, Mar. 1986, p. 57.

Teaching and Learning Writing Together in a Pandemic

by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD, Boise State University

This is the 1st post in the Guest Editor Series, Metacognition, Writing, and Well-Being, Edited by dawn shepherd, PhD, Ti Macklin, PhD, and Heidi Estrem, PhD

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It is not hyperbolic to say that “The Pause and The Pivot” of March 2022 has irrevocably changed the three of us (dawn, Ti, and Heidi). In particular, the pause, pivot, and subsequent rethinking of nearly every aspect of our professions has deeply affected how we approach our colleagues and the classroom. The three of us have extensive experience administering large first-year writing programs, as well as decades of teaching behind us. Still, the unprecedented changes brought about by the pandemic shook loose many of our previously held beliefs about quality writing instruction.

Throughout this intensive and extended pandemic period, the three of us have met regularly to commiserate, plan courses, brainstorm ways to support our first-year writing students and instructors, and develop new approaches to teaching. Our collegial, challenging, and deeply supportive professional conversations have enabled us to use the unsettled ground of this time period to prompt new growth for all of us. This professional growth has, in turn, enabled us to develop pragmatic and humane classrooms and relationships with colleagues. To be sure, we would have said our classrooms were humane prior to 2020, and they were – but we attend to the well-being of self, colleagues, and students now like we never have before. One of our richest strategies for calling attention to well-being is through metacognitive discussions that take place in our co-writing and collaborative pedagogical work.

Metacognition has long been recognized as a deeply valuable and critically important practice for first-year writing students and for learning about writing more generally (Hayes, Jones, Gorzelsky, and Driscoll 2018). Indeed, one of the most important aspects of a rich first-year writing course is not only content about writing and practice doing writing but also extensive reflective work on how, when, and why writing changes across contexts (see Gorzelsky, Driscoll, Jones and Hayes 2016; see also Moore and Anson 2016). It is in the thinking about writing that novice writers gain sensitivity to changing rhetorical demands. So, as the three of us have collaborated over the past three years, employing these reflective practices ourselves has been fundamentally important. As program directors (dawn and Heidi) and innovative course designers (dawn and Ti), and as colleagues and friends (all three of us), we constantly and critically approached all of our curricular and pedagogical practices through a lens of metacognition and with a steady eye on making decisions that promote well-being.

This has been layered, intensive, and exhausting work. It has also been one of the richest periods of growth and collaboration of our professional lives. In brief, here are some of the grounding principles we returned to and perspectives that enabled us to thrive in these times:

We can enable, enact, and model healthy decisions. As program directors, dawn and Heidi were keenly aware of the need to encourage healthier work-life choices but sought to make it explicit in crisis times. It was top of mind for us to encourage our colleagues – to give them permission – to scale back assignments, to cull their courses for anything that wasn’t essential, to honor their need for breaks in fully online/remote semesters. Our approach to leadership has always been reflective, iterative, and in service to others. We also tend to work more than we should. This moment required us to enact healthy decisions related to our own workload and self- care, serving a model for others as well. We quickly set up google drive folders for sharing ideas for moving online in late spring 2020 to immediately encourage informal collaboration; we sent regular emails throughout the pandemic designed to both acknowledge the deep challenges of teaching in this time and offer hope and strategies for instructors.
We can change course. We all learned to be differently flexible in this time period, and meeting regularly to check in with each other helped us make visible things that were and weren’t working – and that might need to be adjusted. For example, the three of us were excited about a potential second course innovation for the spring 2022 semester. But as the fall unfolded, we realized together that it wasn’t the right semester for it. So, we adjusted. And let go.
We can learn to live and even thrive in an environment of productive discomfort. Nothing felt comfortable in 2020-2022. We know that learning is uncomfortable, and we strive to help our students to remain resilient when things are hard, and we were forced to face both productive discomfort and trauma, by experiencing them in our own lives and witnessing them in the lives of colleagues and students. In teaching and learning environments as well as workplaces, we don’t always make a distinction between the two. Discomfort can bring growth.

With these ideas in mind, we brought together a number of other colleagues who have also been thinking deeply about the interplay of writing, well-being, and cognition. In the next post, Ti Macklin and three students from her Fall 2021 first-year writing course examine their experiences with a metacognitively-focused English 101 course. Lilly Crolius (graduate student and teaching assistant in the course), Harland Recla (first-year writing student), and Natalie Plunkett (first-year writing student) provide insight into the student experience by discussing how reflection and a focus on transferable writing skills impacted their well-being.

The third post, written by Matt Recla, Associate Director of University Foundations at Boise State, discusses how reflective practices and assessment improved his students’ sense of self-efficacy and well-being. He specifically details how incorporating “ungrading” and metacognitive reflection practices into his required first-year course provides students with a framework to see themselves as life-long learners.

The series ends with a final post from a former Boise State University undergraduate student, Mariah Kidd, who explains how reflective journaling helped her to track her growth as a writer throughout her undergraduate career.

Works Cited

Hayes, Carol, Ed Jones, Gwen Gorzelsky, and Dana Driscoll. “Adapting Writing About Writing: Curricular Implications of Cross-Institutional Data from the Writing Transfer Project,” WPA: Writing Program Administration, 41.2, Spring 2019, pp. 65-88.

Gorzelsky, Gwen, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Joe Paszak, Ed Jones, and Carol Hayes, “Cultivating Constructive

Metacognition: A New Taxonomy for Writing Studies,” in Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer, eds Jessie Moore and Chris Anson, Utah State University Press, 2016.

Moore, Jessie and Chris Anson, Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer, eds Jessie Moore and Chris Anson, Utah State University Press, 2016.

Using Metacognition to Scaffold the Development of a Growth Mindset

by Lauren Scharff, PhD, U. S. Air Force Academy,*
Steven Fleisher, PhD, California State University,
Michael Roberts, PhD, DePauw University

It conceptually seems simple… inform students about the positive power of having a growth mindset, and they will shift to having a growth mindset.

If only it were that easy!

Black silhouette of a human head with colored neurons inside it — Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

In reality, even if we (humans) cognitively know something is “good” for us, we may struggle to change our ways of thinking, behaving, and automatic emotional reactions because those have become habits. However, rather than throw up our hands and give up because it’s challenging, in this blog we will model a growth mindset by offering a new strategy to facilitate the transition to a growth mindset. The strategy involves metacognitive refection, specifically the use of awareness-oriented and self-regulation-oriented questions for both students and instructors.

Mindset Overview

To get us all on the same page, let’s first examine “mindset,” a term coined by Carol Dweck (2006). This concept proposes that individuals internalize ways of thinking about their abilities related to intelligence, learning, and academics (or any other skill). These beliefs become internalized based on years of living and hearing commentary about skills (e.g., She’s a born leader! or, You’re so smart! or, They are natural math wizzes!). These internalized beliefs subsequently affect our responses and performance related to those skills.

According to Dweck and others, people fall along a continuum (Figure 1) that ranges from having a fixed mindset (“My skills are innate and can’t be developed”) to having a growth mindset (“My skills can be developed”). Depending on a person’s beliefs about a particular skill, they will respond in predictable ways when a skill requires effort, when it seems challenging, when effort affects performance, and when feedback informs performance. The two-part mindset blog posts in Ed Nuhfer’s guest series (Part 1, and Part 2, 2022) provide evidence that the feedback component is especially influential.

Figure 1. Fixed – growth mindset tendencies. (From https://trainugly.com/portfolio/growth-mindset/)

Metacognition to Support Change

As the opening to this blog pointed out, simply explaining the concept of mindset and the benefits of growth mindset to students is not typically enough to lead students to actually adopt a growth mindset. This lack of change is likely even if students say they see the benefits and want to shift to a greater growth mindset. Thus, we need a process to scaffold the change.

We believe that metacognition offers a process by which to do this. Metacognition not only helps us examine our beliefs, but also provides a guide for one’s subsequent behaviors. More specifically, we believe metacognition involves two key processes, 1) awareness, often gleaned through reflection, and 2) self-regulation, during which the person uses that awareness to adjust their behaviors as needed in order to achieve their targeted goal.

Much research (e.g., Isaacson & Fujita, 2006) has already documented the benefits of students being metacognitive about their learning processes. However, we haven’t seen any other work focus on being metacognitive about one’s mindset.

Further, we know that efforts to develop skills are often more successful when they are more narrowly targeted on specific aspects of a broader construct (e.g., Heft & Scharff, 2017). Thus, rather than encouraging students to simply adopt a general “growth mindset,” or be metacognitive about their general mindset for a task, it would be more productive to target how they think about and respond to the specific component aspects of mindset for that task (e.g., challenge, feedback, failure).

Promoting a Growth Mindset Via Metacognition

Below we offer some example metacognitive reflection questions for students and for instructors that focus on awareness and self-regulation related to the feedback component of mindset. For the full set of questions that target all of the mindset components, please go to our full Mindset Metacognition Questions Resource.

We chose to highlight the component of feedback due to Nuhfer et al.’s findings reported in his 2022 guest series. By targeting the specific aspects of mindset, such as feedback, students might more effectively overcome patterns of thinking that keep them stuck in a fixed mindset.

We also include metacognitive reflection questions for instructors because they are instrumental in establishing a classroom environment that either supports or inhibits growth mindset in students. Instructors’ roles are important – recent research has demonstrated that instructor mindset about student learning abilities can impact student motivation, belongingness, engagement, and grades (Muenks, et al., 2020). Yeager, et al. (2021) additionally showed that mindset interventions for students had more impact if the instructors also display growth mindsets. Thus, we suggest that instructors examine their own behaviors and how those behaviors might discourage or encourage a growth mindset in their students.

Student Questions Related to Feedback

(Self-assessment/awareness) How am I thinking about and responding to feedback that implies I need to make changes or improve?
(Self-assessment/awareness) How am I interacting with the instructor in response to feedback? (emotional regulation; comfort versus frustration)
(Self-regulation) How do I plan to respond to feedback I have / will receive?
(Self-regulation) How might I reasonably seek feedback from peers or the instructor when more is needed?

Instructor Questions Related to Feedback

(Self-assessment/awareness) Are students using my feedback? Are there aspects of content or tone of feedback that may be interacting with students’ mindsets?
(Self-assessment/awareness) Am I appropriately focusing my feedback on student performance (e.g., meeting standards) rather than on students themselves (e.g. their dispositions or aptitudes)?
(Self-regulation) When a student approaches me with a question, what do I signal via my demeanor? Am I demonstrating that engaging with feedback can be a positive experience?
(Self-regulation) What formative assessments might I develop to provide students feedback about their progress and learn to constructively use that feedback to support their growth?

Take-aways and Future Directions

We believe the interconnections between mindset and metacognition can go beyond the use of metacognition to examine aspects of one’s mindset. Students can be metacognitive about the learning process itself, which can interact with mindset by providing realizations that adapting one’s learning strategies can promote success. The belief that one can try new strategies and become more successful is a hallmark of growth mindset.

We hope that you utilize the questions above for yourself and your students. Given the lack of research in this area, your efforts could make a contribution to the larger understanding of how to effectively promote growth mindset in students. (If you investigate, let us know, and we would welcome a blog post so you could share your results.) At the very least, such efforts might help students overcome patterns of thinking that keep them stuck in a fixed mindset, and it might help them more effectively cope with the inevitable challenges that they will face, both in and beyond the academic realm.

References

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Heft, I. & Scharff, L. (July 2017). Aligning best practices to develop targeted critical thinking skills and habits. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol 17(3), pp. 48-67. http://josotl.indiana.edu/article/view/22600

Isaacson, R.M. & Fujita, F. (2006). Metacognitive knowledge monitoring and self-regulated learning: Academic success and reflections on learning. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol 6(1), 39-55. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ854910

Muenks, K., Canning, E. A., LaCosse, J., Green, D. J., Zirkel, S., Garcia, J. A., & Murphy, M. C. (2020). Does my professor think my ability can change? Students’ perceptions of their STEM professors’ mindset beliefs predict their psychological vulnerability, engagement, and performance in class. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(11), 2119-2114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000763

Yeager, D.S., Carroll, J.M., Buontempo, J., Cimpian, A., Woody, S., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., Murray, J., Mhatre, P., Kersting, N., Hulleman, C., Kudym, M., Murphy, M., Duckworth, A.L., Walton, G.M., & Dweck, C.S.(2022). Teacher mindsets help explain where a growth-mindset intervention does and doesn’t work. Psychological Science, 33(1), 18-32. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/09567976211028984

* The views expressed in this article, book, or presentation are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Guest Edited Series on Self-Assessment: Synthesis

by Ed Nuhfer, California State Universities (retired)

Self-assessment is a metacognitive skill that employs both cognitive competence and affective feelings. After over two decades of scholars’ misunderstanding, misrepresenting, and deprecating self-assessment’s value, recognizing self-assessment as valid, measurable, valuable, and connected to a variety of other beneficial behavioral and educational properties is finally happening. The opportune time for educating to strengthen that ability is now. We synthesize this series into four concepts to address when teaching self-assessment.

Image of a face silhouette watching a schematic of a man interfacing with mathematical symbols and a human brain — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Teach the nature of self-assessment

Until recently, decades of peer-reviewed research popularized a misunderstanding of self-assessment as described by the Dunning-Kruger effect. The effect portrayed the natural human condition as most people overestimating their abilities, lacking the ability to recognize they do so, the most incompetent being the most egregious offenders, and only the most competent possessing the ability to self-assess themselves accurately.

From founding to the present, that promotion relied on mathematics that statisticians and mathematicians now recognize as specious. Behavioral scientists can no longer argue for “the effect” by invoking the unorthodox quantitative reasoning used to propose it. Any salvaging of “the effect” requires different mathematical arguments to support it.

Quantitative approaches confirm that a few percent of the populace are “unskilled and unaware of it,” as described by “the effect.” However, these same approaches affirm that most adults, even when untrained for self-assessment accuracy, are generally capable of recognizing their competence or lack thereof. Further, they overestimate and underestimate with about the same frequency.

Like the development of higher-order or “critical” thinking, the capacity for self-assessment accuracy develops slowly with practice, more slowly than required to learn specific content, and through more practice than a single course can provide. Proficiency in higher-order thinking and self-assessment accuracy seem best achieved through prolonged experiences in several courses.

During pre-college years, a deficit of relevant experiences produced by conditions of lesser privilege disadvantages many new college entrants relative to those raised in privilege. However, both the Dunning-Kruger studies and our own (https://books.aosis.co.za/index.php/ob/catalog/book/279 Chapter 6) confirm that self-assessment accuracy is indeed learnable. Those undeveloped in self-assessment accuracy can become much more proficient through mentoring and practice.

Teach the importance of self-assessment

As a nation that must act to address severe threats to well-being, such as healthcare, homelessness, and climate change, we have rarely been so incapacitated by polarization and bias. Two early entries on bias in this guest-edited series explained bias as a ubiquitous survival mechanism in which individuals relinquish self-assessment to engage in modern forms of tribalism that marginalize others in our workplaces, institutions, and societal cultures. Marginalizing others prevents holding the needed consensus-building conversations between diverse groups that bring creative solutions and needed action.

Relinquishing metacognitive self-assessment to engage in bias obscures perceiving the impacts and consequences of what one does. Developing the skill to exercise self-assessment and use evidence, even under peer pressure not to do so, seems a way to retain one’s perception and ability to act wisely.

Teach the consequences of devaluing self-assessment

The credibility “the effect” garnered as “peer-reviewed fact” helped rationalize the public’s tolerating bias and supporting hierarchies of privilege. A quick Google® search of the “Dunning Kruger effect” reveals widespread misuse to devalue and taunt diverse groups of people as ignorant, unskilled, and inept at recognizing their deficiency.

Underestimating and disrespecting other peoples’ abilities is not simply innumerate and dismal; it cripples learning. Subscribing to the misconception disposes the general populace to avoid trusting in themselves, in others who merit trust, and to dismiss implementing or even respecting effective practices developed by others presumed to be inferiors. It discourages reasoning from evidence and promotes unfounded deference to “authority.” Devaluing self-assessment encourages individuals to relinquish their autonomy to self-assess, which weakens their ability to resist being polarized by demagogues to embrace bias.

Teach self-assessment accuracy

As faculty, we have frequently heard the proclamation “Students can’t self-assess.” Sadly, we have yet to hear that statement confronted by, “So, what are we going to do about it?”

Opportunities exist to design learning experiences that develop self-assessment accuracy in every course and subject area. Knowledge surveys, assignments with required self-assessments, and post-evaluation tools like exam wrappers offer straightforward ways to design instruction to develop this accuracy.

Given the current emphasis on the active learning structures of groups and teams, teachers easily mistake these as the sole domains for active learning and deprecate study alone. The interactive engagements are generally superior to the conventional structure of lecture-based classes for cognitive mastery of content and skills. However, these structures seldom empower learners to develop affect or recognize the personal feelings of knowing that come with genuine understanding. Those feelings differ from those that rest on shallow knowledge and often launch the survival mechanism of bias at critically inopportune times.

Interactive engagement for developing cognitive expertise differs from the active engagement in self-assessment needed to empower individuals to direct their lifelong learning. When students employ quiet reflection time alone to practice self-assessment by enlisting understanding for content for engaging in knowing self, this too is active learning. Ability to distinguish the feeling of deep understanding requires repeated practices in such reflection. We contend that active learning design that attends to both cognition and affect is superior to design that attends only to one of these.

To us, John Draeger was particularly spot-on in his IwM entry, recognizing that instilling cognitive knowledge alone is insufficient as an approach for educating students or stakeholders within higher education institutions. Achievement of successful outcomes depends on educating for proficiency in both cognitive expertise and metacognition. In becoming proficient in controlling bias, “thinking about thinking” must include attention to affect to recognize the reactive feelings of dislike that often arise when confronting the unfamiliar. These reactive feelings are probably unhelpful to the further engagement required to achieve understanding.

The ideal educational environment seems one in which stakeholders experience the happiness that comes from valuing one another during their journey to increase content expertise while extending the knowing of self.

Knowledge Surveys Part 2 — Twenty Years of Learning Guiding More Creative Uses

by Ed Nuhfer, California State Universities (retired)
Karl Wirth, Macalester College
Christopher Cogan, Memorial University
McKensie Kay Phillips, University of Wyoming
Matthew Rowe, University of Oklahoma

Early adopters of knowledge surveys (KSs) recognized the dual benefits of the instrument to support and assess student learning produced by a course or program. Here, we focus on a third benefit: developing students’ metacognitive awareness through self-assessment accuracy.

Communicating self-assessed competence

Initially, we just authored test and quiz questions as the KS items. After the importance of the affective domain became more accepted, we began stressing affect’s role in learning and self-assessment by writing each knowledge survey item with an overt affective self-assessment root such as “I can…” or “I am able to…” followed by a cognitive content outcome challenge. When explaining the knowledge survey to students, we focus their attention on the importance of these affective roots for when they rate their self-assessed competence and write their own items later.

We retain the original three-item response scale expressing relative competence as no competence, partial competence, and high competence. Research reveals three-item scales as valid and reliable as longer ones, but our attraction to the shorter scale remains because it promotes addressing KS items well. Once participants comprehend the meaning of the three items and realize that the choices are identical for every item, they can focus on each item and rate their authentic feeling about meeting the cognitive challenge without distraction by more complex response choices.

photo of woman facing a black board with the words "trust yourself" — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We find the most crucial illumination for a student’s self-assessment dilemma: “How do I know when I can rate that I can do this well?” is “When I know that I can teach how to meet this challenge to another person.”

Backward design

We favor backward design to construct topical sections within a knowledge survey by starting with the primary concept students must master when finally understanding that topic. Then, we work backward to build successive items that support that understanding by constantly considering, “What do students need to know to address the item above?” and filling in the detail needed. Sometimes we do this down to the definitions of terms needed to address the preceding items.

Such building of more detail and structure than we sensed might be necessary, especially for introductory level undergraduates, is not “handing out the test questions in advance.” Instead, this KS structure uses examples to show that deceptively disconnected observations and facts allow understanding of the unifying meaning of “concept” through reaching to make connections. Conceptual thinking enables transferability and creativity when habits of mind develop that dare to attempt to make “outrageous connections.”

The feeling of knowing and awareness of metadisciplinary learning

Students learn that convergent challenges that demand right versus wrong answers feel different from divergent challenges that require reasonable versus unreasonable responses. Consider learning “What is the composition of pyrite?” and “Calculate the area of a triangle of 50 meters in length and a base of 10 meters?” Then, contrast the feeling required to learn, “What is a concept?” or “What is science?”

The “What is science?” query is especially poignant. Teaching specialty content in units of courses and the courses’ accompanying college textbooks essentially bypass teaching the significant metadisciplinary ways of knowing of science, humanities, social science, technology, arts, and numeracy. Instructors like Matt Rowe design courses to overcome the bypassing and strive to focus on this crucial conceptual understanding (see video section at times 25.01 – 29.05).

Knowledge surveys written to overtly provoke metadisciplinary awareness aid in designing and delivering such courses. For example, ten metadisciplinary KS items for a 300-item general geology KS appeared at its start, two of which follow.

I can describe the basic methods of science (methods of repeated experimentation, historical science, and modeling) and provide one example each of its application in geological science.
I can provide two examples of testable hypotheses statements, and one example of an untestable hypothesis.

Students learned that they would develop the understanding needed to address the ten throughout the course. The presence of the items in the KS ensured that the instructor did not forget to support that understanding. For ideas about varied metadisciplinary outcomes, examine this poster.

Illuminating temporal qualities

Because knowledge surveys establish baseline data and collect detailed information through an entire course or program, they are practical tools from which students and instructors can gain an understanding of qualities they seldom consider. Temporal qualities include magnitudes (How great?), rates (How quickly?), duration (How long?), order (What sequence?), frequency (How often?), and patterns (What kind?).

More specifically, knowledge surveys reveal magnitude (How great were changes in learning?), rates (How quickly we cover material relative to how well we learned it?), duration (How long was needed to gain an understanding of specific content?), order (What learning should precede other learning?), and patterns (Does all understanding come slowly and gradually or does some come in time as punctuated “Aha moments?”).

Knowledge survey patterns reveal how easily we underestimate the effort needed to do the teaching that makes significant learning change. A typical pattern from item-by-item arrays of pre-post knowledge surveys reveals a high correlation. Instructors may find it challenging to produce the changes where troughs of pre-course knowledge surveys revealing areas of lowest confidence become peak areas in post-course knowledge surveys showing high confidence. Success requires attention to frequency (repetition with take-home drills), duration (extending assignments addressing difficult contents with more time), order (giving attention to optimizing sequences of learning material), and likely switching to more active learning modalities, including students authoring their own drills, quizzes, and KS items.

Studies in progress by author McKensie Phillips showed that students were more confident with the material at the end of the semester rather than each individual unit. This observation even held for early units where researchers expected confidence would decrease given the time elapsed between the end of the unit and when the student took the post-semester KS. The results indicate that certain knowledge mastery is cumulative, and students are intertwining material from unit to unit and practicing metacognition by re-engaging with the KS to deepen understanding over time.

Student-authored knowledge surveys

Introducing students to the KS authoring must start with a class knowledge survey authored by the instructor so that they have an example and disclosure of the kinds of thinking utilized to construct a KS. Author Chris Cogan routinely tasks teams of 4-5 students to summarize the content at the end of the hour (or week) by writing their own survey items for the content. Typically, this requires about 10 minutes at the end of class. The instructor compiles the student drafts, looks for potential misconceptions, and posts the edited summary version back to the class.

Beginners’ student-authored items often tend to be brief, too vague to answer, or too focused on the lowest Bloom levels. However, feedback from the instructor each week has an impact, and students become more able to write helpful survey items and – more importantly – better acquire knowledge from the class sessions. The authoring of items begins to improve thinking, self-assessment, and justified confidence.

Recalibrating for self-assessment accuracy

Students with large miscalibrations in self-assessment accuracy should wonder, “What can I do about this?” The pre-exam knowledge survey data enables some sophisticated post-exam reflection through exam wrappers (Lovett, 2013). With the responses to their pre-exam knowledge survey and the graded exam in hand, students can do a “deep dive” into the two artifacts to understand what they can do.

Instructors can coach students to gain awareness of what their KS responses indicate about their mastery of the content. If large discrepancies between the responses to the knowledge survey and the graded exam exist, instructors query for some introspection on how these arose. Did students use their KS results to inform their actions (e.g., additional study) before the exam? Did different topics or sections of the exam produce different degrees of miscalibration? Were there discrepancies in self-assessed accuracy by Bloom levels?

Most importantly, after conducting the exam wrapper analysis, students with significant miscalibration errors should each articulate doing one thing differently to improve performance. Reminding students to revisit their post-exam analysis well before the next exam is helpful. IwM editor Lauren Scharff noted that her knowledge surveys and tests reveal that most psychology students gradually improved their self-assessment accuracy across the semester and more consistently used them as an ongoing learning tool rather than just a last-minute knowledge check.

Takeaways

We construct and use surveys differently than when we began two decades ago. For readers, we provide a downloadable example of a contemporary knowledge survey that covers this guest-edited blog series and an active Google® Forms online version.

We have learned that mentoring for metacognition can measurably increase students’ self-assessment accuracy as it supports growing their knowledge, skills, and capacity for higher-order thinking. Knowledge surveys offer a powerful tool for instructors who aim to direct students toward understanding the meaning of becoming educated, becoming learning experts, and understanding themselves through metacognitive self-assessment. There remains much to learn.

Knowledge Surveys Part 1 — Benefits of Knowledge Surveys to Student Learning and Development

by Karl Wirth, Macalester College,
Ed Nuhfer, California State Universities (retired)
Christopher Cogan, Memorial University
McKensie Kay Phillips, University of Wyoming

Introduction

Knowledge surveys (KSs) present challenges like exam questions or assignments, but respondents do not answer these. Instead, they express their felt ability to address the challenges with present knowledge. Knowledge surveys focus on self-assessment, which is a special kind of metacognition.

Overall, metacognition is a self-imposed internal dialogue that is a distinguishing feature of “expert learners” regardless of the discipline (e.g., Ertmer & Newby, 1996). Because all students do not begin college as equally aware and capable of thinking about their learning, instructors must direct students to keep them in constant contact with their metacognition. Paul Pintrich, a pioneer in metacognition, stressed that “instruction about metacognition must be explicit.” Knowledge surveys enable what Ertmer & Newby and Pintrich advocate in any class in any subject.

road sign with words "data" pointing to words "information" pointing to word "knowledge" with the word "learning above — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Knowledge surveys began in 1992 during a conversation about annual reviews between the guest editor and a faculty member who stated: “They never ask about what I teach.” Upon hearing the faculty member, the guest editor decided to create a 200-item form to survey student ratings of their mastery of detailed content for his geology course at the start and end of the class. The items were simply an array of test and quiz questions, ordered in the sequence the students would encounter during the course. The students responded to each item through a 3-point response at the start and end of the course.

The information from this first knowledge survey proved so valuable that the guest editor described this in 1996 in a geology journal as a formative assessment. As a result, geoscience faculty elsewhere started taking the lead in researching them and describing more benefits.

In 2003, U.S. Air Force Academy’s physics professor Delores Knipp and the guest editor published the first peer-reviewed paper (Nuhfer and Knipp, 2003) for multiple disciplines. If new to knowledge surveys, click the hotlink to that paper now and read at least the first page to gain a conceptual understanding of the instrument.

Self-assessment, Metacognition, and Knowledge Surveys

Becoming educated is a process of understanding self and the phenomena that one experiences. Knowledge surveys structure practices in understanding both.

Our series’ earlier entries revealed the measurable influence of self-assessment on dispositions such as self-efficacy, mindset, and intellectual and ethical development that prove indispensable to the lifelong process of becoming educated. The entries on bias and privilege revealed that the privilege of having the kind of education that renders the unconscious conscious may determine the collective quality of a society and how well we treat one another within it.

Knowledge surveys prompt self-assessment reflections during learning every aspect of the content. Over a baccalaureate education, cumulative, repetitive practice can significantly improve understanding of one’s present knowledge and self-assessing accuracy.

Improving Learning

Knowledge surveys’ original purpose was to improve student learning (e.g., Nuhfer & Knipp, 2003; Wirth et al., 2016, 2021). Providing students with a knowledge survey at the beginning of a course or unit of instruction offered an interactive roadmap for an entire course that overtly disclosed the instructor’s intentions for learning to students.

Early on, users recognized that knowledge surveys might offer a measure of changes in learning produced by a unit of instruction. Demonstrating the validity of such self-assessed competence measures was crucial but was finally achieved in 2016 and 2017.

Deeper Reading

Students quickly learned the value of prioritizing knowledge through engaging with the knowledge survey prior to and during engaging in reading. The structure of the KSs enabled reading with the purpose of illuminating known learning objectives. The structure also primed students to understand concepts by using the reading to clarify the connectedness between knowledge survey items.

Rather than just sitting down to “complete a reading,” students began reading assignments with appropriate goals and strategies; a characteristic of “expert readers” (Paris et al., 1996). When they encountered difficult concepts, they displayed increasing effort to improve their understanding of the topics identified as being essential to understand the concept. Further, knowledge surveys facilitated mentoring. When students did not understand the material, they proved more likely to follow up with a colleague or instructor to complete their understanding.

Facilitating Acquiring Self-Regulation

Well-constructed knowledge surveys are detailed products of instructor planning and thinking. They communicate instructor priorities and coordinate the entire class to focus on specific material in unison. That students’ comments expressing they “didn’t know that would be on the exam” nearly disappeared from classroom conversations cannot be overly appreciated.

Replacing scattered class-wide guessing of what to study allowed a collective focus on “How will we learn this material?” That reframing led to adopting learning strategies that expert learners employ when they have achieved self-regulation. Students increasingly consulted with each other or the instructor when they sensed or realized their current response to a knowledge survey item was probably inadequate.

Levels and Degrees of Understanding

In preparing a knowledge survey for a course, the instructor carefully writes each survey item and learning objective so that learning addresses the desired mastery at the intended Bloom level (Krathwohl, 2002). Providing awareness of Bloom levels to students and reinforcing this throughout a course clarifies student awareness of the deep understanding required to teach the content at the required Bloom level to another person. Whereas it may be sufficient to remember or comprehend some content, demonstrating higher cognitive processes by having to explain to another how to apply, synthesize or evaluate central concepts and content of a course feels different because it is different.

Knowledge surveys can address all Bloom levels and provide the practices needed to enable the paired understanding of knowing and “feeling of knowing” like no other instrument. Including the higher Bloom levels, combined with the explicitly stated advanced degree of understanding as the level of “teaching” or “explaining” to others, builds self-assessment skills and fosters the development of well–justified self-confidence. A student with such awareness can better focus efforts on extending the knowledge in which they recognize their weakness.

Building Skills with Feedback

The blog entries by Fleisher et al. in this series stressed the value of feedback in developing healthy self-assessments. Knowledge survey items that address the same learning outcomes as quizzes, exams, assignments, and projects promote instructional alignment. Such alignment allows explicit feedback from the demonstrated competence measures to calibrate the accuracy of self-assessments of understanding. Over time, knowledge surveys confer awareness that appropriate feedback builds both content mastery and better self-assessment skills.

A robust implementation directs students to complete the relevant portions of a knowledge survey after studying for an exam but before taking it. After the teacher grades the exams, students receive their self-assessed (knowledge survey score) and demonstrated (graded exam score) competence in a single package. From this information, the instructor can direct students to compare their two scores and to receive mentoring from the instructor when there is a large discrepancy (>10 points) between the two scores.

Generally, a significant discrepancy from a single knowledge survey-exam pair comparison is not as meaningful as longer-term trends illuminated by cumulative data. Instructors who use KSs skillfully mentor students to become familiar with their trends and tendencies. When student knowledge survey responses consistently over- or under-estimate their mastery of the content, the paired data reveal this tendency to the student and instructor and open the opportunity for conversations about the student’s habitually favored learning strategies.

A variant implementation adds an easy opportunity for self-assessment feedback. Here, instructors assign students to estimate their score on an assignment or exam at the start of engaging the project and after completing the test or assignment prior to submission. These paired pre-post self-assessments help students to focus on their feelings of knowing and to further adjust toward greater self-assessment accuracy.

Takeaways

Knowledge surveys are unique in their utility for supporting student mastery of disciplinary knowledge, developing their affect toward accurate feelings of knowing, and improving their skills as expert learners. Extensive data show that instructors’ skillful construction of knowledge surveys as part of class design elicits deeper thinking and produces higher quality classes. After construction, class use facilitates mutual monitoring of progress and success by students and instructors. In addition to supporting student learning of disciplinary content, knowledge surveys keep students in constant contact with their metacognition and develop their capacity for lifelong learning.

In Part 2, we follow from our more recent investigations on (1) more robust knowledge survey design, (2) learning about temporal qualities of becoming educated, (3) student authoring of knowledge surveys, and (4) mentoring students with large mis-calibrations in self-assessed competence toward greater self-assessment accuracy.