Category: Blog

Some Developmental Trends in Metacognition

By Chris Was, PhD; Kent State University

Recently, I have conducted some experiments with K – 6 grade students related to children’s ability to predict their ability to recall simple items. Although a simple measure, this form of calibration is a measure of a child’s knowledge of the own memory abilities. This is, at its most basic level, metacognition.

The work in which my collaborators and I are currently engaged builds on the work of Amanda Lipko and colleagues (e.g., Lipko, Dunlosky, & Merriman, 2009). What was most striking about Lipko’s work was the robust overconfidence displayed by preschool children. Granted, there is a large body of literature that demonstrates young children are overconfident in both their physical abilities (e.g., Plumert, 1995) as well as their cognitive abilities (e.g., Cunningham & Weaver, 1989; Flavell, Friedrichs, & Hoyt, 1970). Much of this work indicates that with preschool children this overconfidence is quite persistent. But Lipko et al.’s (2009) work found that even following repeated practice and feedback, specifically salient feedback when children recalled their own previous performance, this overconfidence remained.

There are several hypotheses, both tested and untested, as to why this overconfidence exists and why it is robust against correction. Perhaps it is wishful thinking (a hypothesis test by Lipko et al.), perhaps it is a developmental issue, or perhaps it serves as a learning mechanism (children who give up the first time they fail may not learn to do succeed at much). In any case, I became interested in circumstances in which young children are capable of making accurate predictions of their cognitive abilities.

A review of the experimental methodology used by Lipko et al. is warranted. In their 2009 study Lipko et al. presented young children (mean age of approximately 5 years 0 months) with pictures of common items. As children were presented with pictures they were asked to name them. If correctly named the picture was placed on a board until 10 pictures were on the board. The experimenter then said to the children, “I am going to cover up the pictures,“ and asked, “how many do you think you will remember after I cover them?” The children then made a prediction of how many pictures they would remember. Finally, the children attempted to recall the pictures. In a series of experiments, children were overconfident in their ability even after repeated trials and even after correctly recalling their poor performance on previous trials.

Are there circumstances when children are more accurate? The simple answer is, “yes.” In a recent experiment (Was & Al-Harthy, 2015) we found that when children complete the Lipko task with unfamiliar items, their predictions of how many items they might remember are significantly lower than for familiar items. This familiarity overconfidence bias is likely due something similar to the fluency effect. That is, when the pictures are familiar to children, they seem easy to remember, but when the pictures are unfamiliar, children understand that they might be hard to recall later.

We are also investigating the developmental trends of the ability to predict recall. Our most interesting finding to date, is calibration (accuracy of recall predictions) is strongly related to the increase in working memory capacity. Put differently, as the number of items children are able to recall increases, so does their ability to accurately predict the number of items they will recall. Some will argue that this is not an unsuspected finding. The argument being that as working memory capacity increases, the ability to think about one’s own memory should also increase. My response is that it is not clear if metacognition is directly related to working memory or executive functions. Perhaps a mediating relationship exists. Recent investigations have suggested that performance on many measures of working memory are more dependent on strategy than they are on cognitive ability. Perhaps, metacognition is just good strategy use, or perhaps it is a cognitive ability.

The finding of the relationship between recall performance and calibration (the difference between predicted performance and actual performance) supports the hypothesis that metacognition is not a single skill that children have or not, but rather it is a complex of many skills and processes the children acquire through experiences and maturation. I suggest that developmental research in metacognition need focus on aptitude-by-treatment interactions. Questions such as, “What variety of academic activities contribute to the development of metacognition at different stages or levels of cognitive development?” will not only forward our understanding of metacognition, but perhaps also how to help young students develop metacognitive strategies and perhaps metacognitive performance.

Cunningham, J. G., & Weaver, S. L. (1989). Young children’s knowledge of their memory             span: Effects of task and experience. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 48,   32–44.

Flavell, J. H., Friedrichs, A. G., & Hoyt, J. D. (1970). Developmental changes in memorization    processes. Cognitive Psychology, 1,324–340.

Lipko, A. R., Dunlosky, J., & Merriman, W. E. (2009). Persistent overconfidence despite practice: The role of task experience in preschoolers’ recall predictions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 103(2), 152-166.

Plumert, J. M. (1995). Relations between children’s overestimation of their physical abilities and accident proneness. Developmental Psychology, 31(5), 866-876. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.31.5.866

Was, C. A., & Al-Harthy, I. (2015). Developmental differences in overconfidence: When do children understand that attempting to recall predicts memory performance? The Researcher, 27(1), 1-5, Conference Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Northern Rocky Mountain Education Research Association.


Metacognition About Course Design: Creating a Paradigm Shift

By Charity S. Peak, Ph.D., U. S. Air Force Academy

Recent studies have sparked a national conversation about the lack of accountability for student learning in higher education. Our Underachieving Colleges (Bok, 2006) and Academically Adrift (Arum & Roksa, 2011) are just two examples of scathing reviews of how colleges are falling short. Increasingly, colleges and universities are being asked to demonstrate their value, particularly during a recession.

The core reason for not achieving greater success is a lack of focus on student learning. Despite all that we know today, institutions continue to concentrate on belongingness, construction, and the almighty research dollar rather than on whether students are graduating with substantial learning gains. Additionally, most faculty believe they are supporting student learning. They can even recite many of the basic learning principles that are foundational to teaching, such as the value of relevance. However, many faculty are unsure about how to apply these principles to their own classes. Like our students, they need sufficient practice and feedback in order to be able to create well-designed courses that improve student learning.

One way to attack this issue is to provide opportunities for metacognition about course design, not merely lesson planning. If metacognition includes thinking about how one performs a skill (Schraw, 1998), then awareness and knowledge about how to design a course are critical for enhancing student learning. Are there clearly articulated learning goals for the course? Do the assessments align with those learning goals? What learning experiences will support student success on those assessments by providing ample practice and feedback?

Jones, Noyd, and Sagendorf (2014) propose institutional course design retreats as a method for creating metacognition about student learning. Through a series of steps and collaboration with peers, faculty might simply set out to design their courses, but often become transformed by the experience. For many years, the authors have facilitated this six-step process for course design, but it is now available for others to use in Building a Pathway for Student Learning: A How-To Guide to Course Design. The book offers a research-based course design process that can be applied to all disciplines and a variety of settings. Step-by-step, faculty walk through designing a course using a series of self-paced workboxes:

  1. Student Learning Factors – How do your students’ characteristics impact their learning?
  2. Learning Goals – What do you want students to know and be able to do as a result of taking your course?
  3. Assessment – How will you know the extent to which students accomplished your learning goals?
  4. Proficiencies – What knowledge, skills, and attitudes will students need to accomplish the learning goals?
  5. Learning Experiences – Which learning experiences (outside and inside class time) support the development of proficiencies and accomplishment of your goals?
  6. Feedback & Improvement – How will students receive useful feedback on their work so they can make the necessary adjustments to accomplish your goals?

The culmination of work is a one-page flow chart of the course – a map to student learning. This flow chart offers a metacognitive pathway through the course for students as well as faculty teaching the course. As with all learning, and perhaps most importantly, faculty gain a new awareness of who should be at the center of their course – the learner! Through metacognition about student learning, faculty are able to intentionally design college experiences that matter rather than passive lectures or fun-but-tangential activities that do not achieve the learning gains we most need in higher education.

Without appropriate support and metacognition, faculty will continue to design courses focused on content rather than learning. While the approach that Jones, Noyd and Sagendorf (2014) use seemingly addresses an instructor’s main goal in preparation of a new semester – finishing the syllabus – faculty become transformed by how to operationalize a learning-centered philosophy, which they will carry with them into all of their lessons. Through a process of metacognition about student learning, faculty begin to experience the paradigm shift about which Barr and Tagg (1995) dreamed twenty years ago.

References:

Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Barr, R. B., & Tagg, J. (Nov-Dec 1995). From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change, 27(6), 12-26.

Bok, D. (2006). Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Jones, S. K., Noyd, R. K., & Sagendorf, K. S. (2014). Building a pathway to student learning: A how-to guide to course design. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Schraw, G. (1998). Promoting general metacognitive awareness. Instructional Science, 26, 113-125.


Metacognition in Psychomotor Development and Positive Error Cultures

Ed Nuhfer, Retired Professor of Geology and Director of Faculty Development and Director of Educational Assessment, enuhfer@earthlink.net, 208-241-5029

All of us experience the “tip of the tongue” phenomenon. This state occurs when we truly do know something, such as the name of a person, but we cannot remember the person’s name at a given moment. The feeling that we do know is a form of metacognitive awareness that confirms the existence of a real neural network appropriate to the challenge. It is also an accurate knowing that carries confidence that we can indeed retrieve the name given the right memory trigger.

In “thinking about thinking” some awareness of the connection between our psychomotor domain and our efforts to learn can be useful. The next time you encounter a tip-of-the-tongue moment, try clenching your left hand. Ruth Propper and colleagues confirmed that left hand clenching activates the right hemisphere of the brain and can enhance recall. When learning names, clenching of the right hand activates the left hemisphere and can enhance encoding (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0062474). Not all connections between the psychomotor domain and intellectual development are this direct, but it is very useful to connect efforts to develop intellectually with established ways that promote psychomotor development.

Young people are active, so many things that excite them to initiate their learning have a heavy emphasis on psychomotor development. Examples are surfing, snowboarding, dance, tennis, martial arts, yoga, or a team sport. We can also include the hand-eye coordination and learning patterns involved in many addictive video games as heavy on kinesthetic learning, even though these do not offer health benefits of endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, etc. It is rare that anyone who commits to learning any of these fails to achieve measurably increased proficiency.

K-12 teacher Larry Ferlazzo uses the act of missing a wastebasket with a paper wad to help students understand how to value error and use it to inform strategies for intellectual development (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/10/31/an-effective-five-minute-lesson-on-metacognition). His students begin to recognize how the transfer of practices that they already accept as valid from their experiences may likely improve their mastery in less familiar challenges during intellectual development.

College teachers also know that the most powerful paths to high-level thinking engage the psychomotor domain. Visualization that involves explaining to self by diagram and developing images of the knowledge engages psychomotor skills. Likewise, writing engages the psychomotor in developing text, tracking and explaining reasoning and in revising the work (Nuhfer, 2009, 2010 a, b).

Students already “get” that many trips down the ski trail are needed to master snowboarding; they may not “get” that writing many evaluative argument papers is necessary to master critical thinking. In the former, they learn from their most serious error and focus on correcting it first. They correctly surmise that the focused effort to correct one troublesome issue will be beneficial. In efforts to develop intellectually, students deprived of metacognitive training may not be able to recognize or prioritize their most serious errors. This state deprives them of awareness needed to do better on subsequent challenges.

It is important for educators to recognize how particular cultures engage with error. Author and neuroscientist Gerd Gigerenzer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and  the Harding Center for Risk Literacy (2014) contrasts positive and negative error cultures. A positive error culture promotes recognition and understanding of error. They discuss error openly, and sharing of experienced error is valued as a way to learn. This culture nurtures a growth mindset in which participants speak metacognitively to self in terms of: “Not yet… change this …better next time.” Gigerenzer cites aviation as a positive error culture of learning that has managed to reduce plane crashes to one in ten million flights. Interestingly, the cultures of surfing, snowboarding, dance, tennis, martial arts and yoga all promote development through positive error cultures. Positive error cultures make development through practice productive and emotionally safe.

Gigerenzer cites the American system of medical practice as one example of a negative error culture, wherein systems of reporting, discussing and learning from serious errors are nearly nonexistent. Contrast aviation safety with the World Heath Organization report that technologically advanced hospitals harm about 10% of their patients. James (2013) deduced that hospital error likely causes over 400,000 deaths annually (http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Fulltext/2013/09000/A_New,_Evidence_based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspx). Negative error cultures make it unsafe to discuss or to admit to error and therefore, they are ineffective learning organizations. In negative error cultures, error discovery results in punishment. Negative error cultures nurture fear and humiliation and thereby make learning unsafe. Error there delivers the metacognitive declaration, “I failed.”

We should think in what ways our actions in higher education support positive or negative error cultures and what kinds of metacognitive conversations we nurture in participants (colleagues, students) of the culture. We can often improve intellectual development through understanding how the positive error cultures promote psychomotor development.

 

References

Gigerenzer, G. (2014) Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions. New York New York: Penguin.

Nuhfer, E.B. (2009) “A Fractal Thinker Designs Deep Learning Exercises: Learning through Languaging. Educating in Fractal Patterns XXVIII, Part 2.” The National Teaching & Learning Forum, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 8-11.

Nuhfer, E.B. (2010a) “A Fractal Thinker Designs Deep Learning Exercises: Acts of Writing as “Gully Washers”- Educating in Fractal Patterns XXVIII, Part 3.” The National Teaching & Learning Forum, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 8-11.

Nuhfer, E.B. (2010b) “A Fractal Thinker Designs Deep Learning Exercises: Metacognitive Reflection with a Rubric Wrap Up – Educating in Fractal Patterns XXVIII, Part 4.” The National Teaching & Learning Forum, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 8-11.


An Aristotelian conception of metacognition (part two)

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)aristotle

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breaking the Content Mold: The Challenge of Shaping Student Metacognitive Development

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

We all know that it’s difficult to break long-term patterns of behavior, even when we’re genuinely motivated and well intentioned. It becomes significantly more difficult when we are trying to shift behavioral patterns of groups. This is true across a spectrum of situations and behaviors, but in this post I will focus on teachers and students shifting from a focus on content and basic skills to a focus on higher-level thinking and metacognitive skills.

These musing on “breaking the content mold” have become much more salient as I look forward to a new semester and I exchange ideas with colleagues about how we will approach our upcoming classes. I refer to the “content mold” as a way of illustrating how we, both students and teachers, have been shaped, or molded, by many years of prior experiences and expectations. Due to this shaping, the natural default for both groups is to teach or learn in ways that we have been exposed to in the past, especially if those approaches have seemed successful in the past. For many of us, this default is a focus on content and on disciplinary skills closely linked with the content. With conscious effort we can break out of that molded pattern of behavior to encourage interdisciplinary thinking and higher-level thinking skills that transfer beyond our course. However, when things get tough (e.g. when there are time constraints, high cognitive load situations, or pressures to achieve success as portrayed by exam scores), we tend to revert back to the more familiar patterns of behaviors, which for many of us means a focus on content and basic skills, rather than the use of higher-level thinking or metacognitive strategies.

Similarly, in an earlier post on this site, Ed Nuhfer points out that, “When students learn in most courses, they engage in a three-component effort toward achieving an education: (1) gaining content knowledge, (2) developing skills (which are usually specific to a discipline), and (3) gaining deeper understanding of the kinds of thinking or reasoning required for mastery of the challenges at hand. The American higher educational system generally does best at helping students achieve the first two. Many students have yet to even realize how these components differ, and few ever receive any instruction on mastering Component 3.”

One of the biggest challenges to breaking this molded pattern is that it will be far more likely to be successful if both the teacher and the student are genuinely engaged in the effort. No matter how much effort is put forth by an instructor, if value is not perceived by the student, then little change will occur. Similarly, even if a student has learned the value of higher-level thinking and metacognitive approaches, if a teacher doesn’t seem to value those efforts, then a student will astutely focus on what does seem to be valued by the teacher. A further challenge is that, over the course of a semester, the effort and motivation from both groups might wax and wane in a non-synchronous manner. As I explore these challenges, I will use myself and my less-than-successful efforts last semester as an example.

I taught an upper-level majors course in vision science, and because I have taught this course many times, I knew going in that the material is often unexpectedly challenging to students and most of them find the chapter readings to be difficult. (They contain a lot of brain biology and neural communication topics, and my students are not biology majors). Thus, I decided to build in a low-threat (with a small number of points), intentional, metacognitive reflection assignment for each lesson that had a reading. Students would indicate their level of reading completion (six levels encompassing a thorough reading with annotations, skimming, not at all) and their level of understanding of the material before class. If they had problems with any of the materials, they were supposed to indicate what steps they would take to develop understanding. They would record these and turn them in at mid-semester and at the end of the semester. I had hoped that this regular reflection would prompt their awareness of their reading behaviors and their level of learning from the reading, initiate proactive behaviors if they had poor understanding, and build habits by being completed regularly. I also took time at the start of the semester to explicitly explain why I was incorporating this regular reflection assignment.

Unfortunately, except for a couple of students, I would rate this assignment as a failure. I don’t believe it did any harm, but I also don’t believe that students used it as intended. Rather, I think most of them quickly and superficially answered the questions just so they could turn in their logs at the two required times. This type of reflection is not something that they have been asked to explicitly do in the majority (all?) of their prior courses, and they already had other strategies that seemed to work for their success in other classes For example, more than half way through the semester one student informed me that it was simply easier and faster to come to the teacher’s office and get reading guide answers (or homework problem solutions in other courses), rather than deeply read and try to figure it out on his own. Thus, if he didn’t understand as he skimmed, he didn’t worry about it. This approach wasn’t working well in my course, but up to that point he’d been very successful, so he persisted in using it (although I stopped answering his questions in my office until he could demonstrate that he’d at least tried to figure them out).

In hindsight, I believe that my actions (or lack of them) also fed into the failure. I assumed that students would bring their questions to class if they had them due to their increased awareness of them and the prompt about what they would do to increase their understanding. Thus, if there were no questions (typically the case), I used the class time to connect the readings with related application examples and demonstrations rather than reiterated what was in the readings. The students seemed engaged in class and showed no indication of specific problems with the readings. Their personal application reflection writing assignments (separate from the reading logs) were fantastic. However, their poor exam performance suggested that they weren’t deeply understanding the content, and I instinctively shifted back to my prior content-focused approaches. I also did not take time in class to directly ask them about their understanding of the readings, what parts they found most challenging, and why.

Thus, although I know I wanted to support the development of student metacognitive skills, and my students also seemed accepting of that goal when I introduced it to them at the beginning of the semester, both groups of us quickly reverted to old content-focused habits that had been “successful” in the past. I am not the first to note the challenges of developing metacognitive skills. For example, Case and Gunstone (2002) state the following, “Many … authors have emphasized that metacognitive development is not easy to foster (e.g., Gunstone & Mitchell, 1998; White, 1998). Projects to enhance metacognition need to be long-term, and require a considerable energy input from both teachers and students.”

So, what will I do in the future? My plans are to more regularly and explicitly engage in discussion of the reading reflection prompts (and other metacognitive prompts) during class. By giving class time to such discussion and bringing the metacognitive processes into the open (rather than keeping them private due to completion outside of class), I hope to indicate the value of the processes and more directly support student exploration of new ways of thinking about learning. Importantly, I hope that this more public sharing will also keep me from falling back to a simple content focus when student performance isn’t what I’d like it to be. Ultimately, metacognitive development should enhance student learning, although it is likely to take longer to play out into changed learning behaviors. I need to avoid the “quick fix” of focusing on content. Thus, I plan to shape a new mold for myself and openly display it my students. We’ll all be more likely to succeed if we are “all in” together.

——–

Nuhfer, E. (15 July 2014). Metacognition for Guiding Students to Awareness of Higher-level Thinking (Part 1). Improve with Metacognition. https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-for-guiding-students-to-awareness-of-higher-level-thinking-part-1/

Case, J. & Gunstone, R. (2002). Metacognitive Development as a Shift in Approach to Learning: An in-depth study. Studies in Higher Education 27(4), p. 459-470. DOI: 10.1080/0307507022000011561

 

 


An Aristotelian conception of metacognition (Part One)

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metacognition: What Makes Humans Unique

by

Arthur L. Costa, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Sacramento

And

Bena Kallick, Educational Consultant, Westport, CT

————–

 

“I cannot always control what goes on outside.But I can always control what goes on inside.”  Wayne Dyer

————–

Try to solve this problem in your head:

How much is one half of two plus two?

Did you hear yourself talking to yourself? Did you find yourself having to decide if you should take one half of the first two (which would give the answer, three) or if you should sum the two’s first (which would give the answer, two)?

If you caught yourself having an “inner” dialogue inside your brain, and if you had to stop to evaluate your own decision making/problem-solving processes, you were experiencing metacognition.

The human species is known as Homo sapiens, sapiens, which basically means “a being that knows their knowing” (or maybe it is “knows they are knowing”). What distinguishes humans from other forms of life is our capacity for metacognition—the ability to be a spectator of own thoughts while we engage in them.

Occurring in the neocortex and therefore thought by some neurologists to be uniquely human, metacognition is our ability to know what we know and what we don’t know. It is our ability to plan a strategy for producing what information is needed, to be conscious of our own steps and strategies during the act of problem solving, and to reflect on and evaluate the productiveness of our own thinking. While “inner language,” thought to be a prerequisite, begins in most children around age five, metacognition is a key attribute of formal thought flowering about age eleven.

Interestingly, not all humans achieve the level of formal operations (Chiabetta, 1976). And as Alexander Luria, the Russian psychologist found, not all adults metacogitate.

Some adults follow instructions or perform tasks without wondering why they are doing what they are doing. They seldom question themselves about their own learning strategies or evaluate the efficiency of their own performance. They virtually have no idea of what they should do when they confront a problem and are often unable to explain their strategies of decision making, There is much evidence, however, to demonstrate that those who perform well on complex cognitive tasks, who are flexible and persevere in problem solving, who consciously apply their intellectual skills, are those who possess well-developed metacognitive abilities. They are those who “manage” their intellectual resources well: 1) their basic perceptual-motor skills; 2) their language, beliefs, knowledge of content, and memory processes; and 3) their purposeful and voluntary strategies intended to achieve a desired outcome; 4) self-knowledge about one’s own leaning styles and how to allocate resources accordingly.

When confronted with a problem to solve, we develop a plan of action, we maintain that plan in mind over a period of time, and then we reflect on and evaluate the plan upon its completion. Planning a strategy before embarking on a course of action helps us keep track of the steps in the sequence of planned behavior at the conscious awareness level for the duration of the activity. It facilitates making temporal and comparative judgments; assessing the readiness for more or different activities; and monitoring our interpretations, perceptions, decisions, and behaviors. Rigney (1980) identified the following self-monitoring skills as necessary for successful performance on intellectual tasks:

  • Keeping one’s place in a long sequence of operations;
  • Knowing that a subgoal has been obtained; and
  • Detecting errors and recovering from those errors either by making a quick fix or by retreating to the last known correct operation.

Such monitoring involves both “looking ahead” and “looking back.” Looking ahead includes:

  • Learning the structure of a sequence of operations;
  • Identifying areas where errors are likely;
  • Choosing a strategy that will reduce the possibility of error and will provide easy recovery; and
  • Identifying the kinds of feedback that will be available at various points, and evaluating the usefulness of that feedback.

Looking back includes:

  • Detecting errors previously made;
  • Keeping a history of what has been done to the present and thereby what should come next; and
  • Assessing the reasonableness of the present immediate outcome of task performance.

A simple example of this might be drawn from reading. While reading a passage have you ever had your mind “wander” from the pages? You “see” the words but no meaning is being produced. Suddenly you realize that you are not concentrating and that you’ve lost contact with the meaning of the text. You “recover” by returning to the passage to find your place, matching it with the last thought you can remember, and, once having found it, reading on with connectedness.

Effective thinkers plan for, reflect on, and evaluate the quality of their own thinking skills and strategies. Metacognition means becoming increasingly aware of one’s actions and the effects of those actions on others and on the environment; forming internal questions in the search for information and meaning; developing mental maps or plans of action; mentally rehearsing before a performance; monitoring plans as they are employed (being conscious of the need for midcourse correction if the plan is not meeting expectations); reflecting on the completed plan for self- evaluation; and editing mental pictures for improved performance.

This inner awareness and the strategy of recovery are components of metacognition. Indicators that we are becoming more aware of our own thinking include:

  • Are you able to describe what goes on in your head when you are thinking?
  • When asked, can you list the steps and tell where you are in the sequence of a problem-solving strategy?
  • Can you trace the pathways and dead ends you took on the road to a problem solution?
  • Can you describe what data are lacking and your plans for producing those data?

When students are metacognitive, we should see them persevering more when the solution to a problem is not immediately apparent. This means that they have systematic methods of analyzing a problem, knowing ways to begin, knowing what steps must be performed and when they are accurate or are in error. We should see students taking more pride in their efforts, becoming self-correcting, striving for craftsmanship and accuracy in their products, and becoming more autonomous in their problem-solving abilities.

Metacognition is an attribute of the “educated intellect.” Learning to think about their thinking can be a powerful tool in shaping, improving, internalizing and habituating their thinking.

REFERENCES

Chiabetta, E. L. A. (1976). Review of piagetian studies relevant to science instruction at the secondary and college level. Science Education, 60, 253-261.

Costa, A. and Kallick B.(2008). Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Characteristics for Success. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Rigney, J. W. (1980). Cognitive learning strategies and qualities in information processing. In R. Snow, P. Federico & W. Montague (Eds.), Aptitudes, Learning, and Instruction, Volume 1. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

 


How Do You Increase Your Student’s Metacognition?

Aaron S. Richmond

Metropolitan State University of Denver

 

How many times has a student come to you and said “I just don’t understand why I did so bad on the test?” or “I knew the correct answer but I thought the question was tricky.” or “I’ve read the chapter 5 times and I still don’t understand what you are talking about in class.”? What did you say or do for these students? Did it prompt you to wonder what you can do to improve your students’ metacognition? I know many of us at Improve with Metacognition (IwM), started pursuing research on metacognition because of these very experiences. As such, I have compiled a summary of some of the awesome resources IwM bloggers have posted (see below). These instructional strategies can be generally categorized into either self-contained lessons. That is a lesson that can teach some aspect of metacognition in one or two class sessions. Or metacognitive instructional strategies that require an entire semester to teach.

Self-Contained Instructional Strategies

In Stephen Chew’s Blog, Metacognition and Scaffolding Student Learning, he suggests that one way to improve metacognitive awareness is through well-designed review sessions (Chew, 2015). Chew suggests that students would metacogntively benefit by actively participate and incentivize participation in study review sessions. Second, Chew suggests that students should self-test before review so that it is truly a review. Third, have students predict their exam scores based on the review performance and have them reflect on their predictions after the exam.

Ed Nuhfer (2015) describes a way to increase metacognition through role-play. Ed suggests that we can use Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking hats method to train our students to increase their metacognitive literacy. In essence, using this method we can train our students to think in a factual way (white hat), be positive and advocate for specific positions (yellow hat), to be cautious (black hat), recognize all facets of our emotions (red hat), be provocative (green hat), and be reflective and introspective (blue hat). We can do this through several exercises where students get a turn to have different hats.

In David Westmoreland’s (2014) blog, he discusses a classroom exercise to improve metacognition. David created a “metacognitive lab that attempts to answer the question How do you know?” In the lab, he presents students in small groups a handful of “truth” statements (e.g., Eggs are fragile.). Then students must take the statement and justify (on the board) how it is true. Then the class eliminates the justifications if they know them not to be true. Then the students with one another about the process and why the statements were eliminated.

Course Long Instructional Strategies

Chris Was (2014) investigated whether “variable weight-variable difficulty tests” would improve students’ calibration (i.e., knowing when you know something and knowing when you don’t). Chris has his students take several quizzes. In each quiz, students can weight each question for varied amount of points (e.g., question 1 is easy so I will give it 5 points whereas question 4 is hard so I will only give it 2 points). Then students answer whether they believe they got the question correct or not. After each quiz is graded, a teaching assistant goes over the quiz and discusses with the students why they weighted the question the way they did and why the thought they would or would not get the question correct. Was found that this activity caused his students to become better at knowing when they knew or did not know something.

Similarly, Shumacher and Taraban (2015) discussed the use of the testing effect as a method to improve metacognition. They suggest there are mixed results of the testing method as an effective instructional method. That is, when students were repeatedly tested and were exposed to questions on multiple exams, only low achieving students metacognitively benefited.

John Draeger (2015) uses just-in-time teaching in attempt to improve metacognition. John asks students metacognitive prompting questions (e.g., What is the most challenging part of the reading?) prior to class and they submit their answers before coming to class. Although, he has not measured the efficacy of this method, students have responded positively to the process.

Parting Questions to Further this Important Conversation

There are many other instructional methods used to increase student metacognition described throughout IwM that are both self-contained and semester long. Please check them out!

But even considering all of what has been presented in this blog and available on IwM, I couldn’t help but leave you with some unanswered questions that I myself have:

  1. What other instructional strategies have you used to increase student metacognition?
  2. If you were to choose between a self-contained or semester long method, which one would you choose and why? Meaning, what factors would help you determine which method to use? Insructional goals? How closely related to course content? Time commitment? Level of student metacogntive knowledge? Level of course?
  3. Once you have chosen a self-contained or semester long method, how should implementation methods differ? That is, what are the best practices used when implementing a self-contained vs. semester long technique?
  4. Finally, often in the metacognition research in higher education, instructional strategies for improving metacognition are pulled from studies and experiments conducted in k-12 education. Are there any studies, which you can think of, that would be suitable for testing in higher education? If so, how and why?

References

Beziat, T. (2015). Goal monitoring in the classroom. Retrived from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/goal-monitoring-in-the-classroom/

Chew, S. (2015). Metacognition and scaffolding student learning. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-and-scaffolding-student-learning/

Draeger, J. (2015). Using Justin-in-Time assignments to promote metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/using-just-in-time-assignments-to-promote-metacognition/

Nilson, L. B. (2015). Metacognition and specifications grading: The odd couple? Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-and-specifications-grading-the-odd-couple/

Nuhfer, E. (2015). Developing metacognitive literacy through role play: Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/developing-metacognitive-literacy-through-role-play-edward-de-bonos-six-thinking-hats/

Shumbacher, J., & Traban, R. (2015). To test or not to test: That is the metacognitive question. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/to-test-or-not-to-test-that-is-the-metacognitive-question/

Was, C. (2014). Testing improves knowledge monitoring. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/testing-improves-knowledge-monitoring/

Westmoreland, D. (2014). Science and social controversy—A classroom exercise in metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/science-and-social-controversy-a-classroom-exercise-in-metacognition/

 


Metacognition and Scaffolding Student Learning

Effective scaffolding requires metacognitive awareness. #metacognition #learning Share on Xby Dr. Stephen Chew, Samford University, slchew@samford.edu

Scaffolding learning involves providing instructional support for students so that they can develop a greater understanding of a topic than they could on their own. The concept of scaffolding originated with the work of Vygotsky and was later developed by Bruner. Scaffolding is not simply giving students the answers, but helping students understand the chain of reasoning or evidence that leads to an answer. I argue that metacognition plays a crucial role in effective scaffolding. Without metacognitive awareness, attempts at scaffolding may only create overconfidence in students without any learning. Let’s examine a common scaffolding activity, review sessions for exams.

Early in my career I used to give review sessions until I realized that they weren’t being helpful to the students who needed them most. I gave students old exams to try to answer for their review. Since I change textbooks regularly, there were questions on the old exams on topics that weren’t covered in the current class. I thought the discrepancy would be obvious when students got to those questions, but only the very best students noticed. Most students answered the questions, basically by guessing, completely unaware that we had never covered the topic. In addition, many students would simply read the question and then check the answer to see if they had guessed correctly without trying to reason through the question or using it as an indicator of their degree of understanding. I realized that students hadn’t studied the material before the review session. They were using the session as a substitute for actually studying. Just going through the review session increased their (false) confidence that they had studied without increasing their learning. It was my first encounter with poor metacognition. The issue with a lot of the struggling students wasn’t the content, but their metacognition and study skills, which my review sessions weren’t addressing. So I stopped doing them.

In recent years, though, I’ve thought about bringing them back with changes to address poor metacognition. First, we know that students who most need review sessions are least likely to think they need them, so I would somehow require participation. This is one reason why I believe that brief formative assessments in class, where everyone has to participate, are better than separate, voluntary review sessions. If I were to reinstate separate review session, I might make participation worth a small portion of the exam grade. Second, I would somehow require that students had done their best to study for the exam BEFORE coming to the review session so it is truly a review. Third, the review session would have to induce students to use good study strategies, such as self-testing with feedback and reflection, or interleaving. I might require students to generate and post three good questions they want to know about the material as their entry ticket to the review session. This would require students to review material before the review session and question generation is an effective learning strategy. Finally, I would require students to utilize the feedback from the review to recognize the level of their understanding and what they need to do to improve. I might have them predict their exam grade based on their review performance. All of these changes should increase student metacognition. I’m sure I’d have to experiment with the format to try to figure it out, and my solution may not work for other classes or faculty. It’s never a simple matter of whether or not an activity such as review sessions are a good or bad idea, it’s how they are implemented.

Without metacognitive awareness, scaffolding can backfire. Consider how poor metacognition can undermine other scaffolding activities such as releasing PowerPoint slides of lectures, guided note taking, allowing a formula “cheat sheet” in STEM classes, and allowing students to discard a certain number of exam items they think they got wrong. If students lack metacognition, each of these activities can actually be counterproductive for student learning.


Supports and Barriers to Students’ Metacognitive Development in a Large Intro Chemistry Course

by Ashley Welsh, Postdoctoral Teaching & Learning Fellow, Vantage College

First off, I must admit that this blog posting has been a long time coming. I was fortunate enough to meet both John Draeger and Lauren Scharff at the ISSOTL conference in Quebec City in October of 2014. Their “Improving With Metacognition” (IWM) poster was a beacon for someone such as myself who is engaged with metacognition in both my teaching and research. I was thrilled to know there were individuals creating and contributing to a repository of literature and reflections surrounding metacognition. This past January, John asked me to contribute a blog post to the website, however I thought it best to defer my writing until after the completion of my PhD this past spring. Thus, here I am. Ready to write.

For the past 7 years I have been actively engaged with undergraduate science education and research at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Within my research and teaching, I have become increasingly aware of students’ concerns with developing and adapting the appropriate study habits/strategies for success in their introductory courses. This concern was echoed by several of my colleagues teaching large (300+ students/section) introductory math and science courses.

This growing concern led me to exploring students’ metacognitive development in two sections of a large, second year introductory organic chemistry course for biological science majors (~245 students/section). Across the literature and at UBC, this course has a reputation as a challenging, cumulative course where students often fail to develop meaningful learning strategies and fall behind in the course (Grove & Bretz, 2012; Lynch & Trujillo, 2011; Zhao et al., 2014). As a result of its reputation, the instructor with whom I was working designed several formative assessments (e.g. bi-weekly in-class quizzes, written reflections), scaffolded in-class activities (e.g. targeted study strategy readings and discussion), and workshops to improve students’ learning strategies. That is, to improve their ability to control, monitor, evaluate, and plan their learning processes (Anderson & Nashon, 2007; Thomas, 2012). Despite students’ high completion of these targeted activities/homework, many still seemed to be struggling with how to study effectively. As such, we were curious to understand the barriers and supports for students’ metacognitive development in this particular course.

My research adopted an interpretive case study approach (Creswell, 2009; Stake, 1995) with data being collected via a pre/post metacognitive instrument, a student feedback survey, classroom observations, and student interviews. At this point in time I will not get into the nitty gritty details of my thesis, but instead, will draw on a few of the main observations/themes that emerged from my work.

  1. High stakes assessments may overshadow resources designed for metacognitive development: Within this course, students’ placed considerable emphasis on high stakes assessment as a means for studying, learning, and reflection. Despite students perceiving the formative assessment measures (e.g. in-class quizzes, homework assignments, targeted study strategy activities) as useful to their learning, the majority of them attributed the midterm and final examinations as driving their studying and behaviours. The examinations were worth roughly 75% of students’ grades and as such, students expressed being more concerned with their performance on these high stakes assessments than with their own study strategies. Students indicated that because the formative activities and workshops were only worth about 15% of their grade, they rarely reflected back on these resources or implemented the advised learning strategies. While these resources were designed to provide ongoing feedback on students’ learning strategies and performance, students mentioned that their performance on the first midterm exam was the primary crossroad at which they would explicitly reflect upon their learning strategies. As one student mentioned, “The midterm is the first major point at which you realize you didn’t understand things”. Unfortunately this was often too late in the semester for most students to effectively change their strategies.
  1. The majority of students reported difficulty implementing metacognitive strategies for enhanced learning: While many students were aware of their weaknesses and lack of concentration when studying, they still struggled with effectively monitoring, evaluating and planning their learning. One student mentioned that “while I do study hard, I don’t think I study smart”. Even when students were aware of their issues, implementing change was difficult as they weren’t exactly sure what to do. Despite the instructor modeling effective strategies and providing multiple opportunities for students to reflect on their learning, several students had difficulty with acknowledging, recognizing, or implementing this advice. Students unanimously praised the efforts of the instructor and the multiple resources she created to support their learning, but outside of class, students often struggled with staying on task or changing their behaviours/attitudes. Some students mentioned they were more concerned with getting a question right than with understanding the problem solving process or with implementing the appropriate strategies for learning. The majority of students I spoke to indicated that throughout their education they had rarely received explicit advice about how to study and some even mentioned that despite writing down the advice they received in class, they were “far too lazy to change”. With learning strategies not taking a primary role in their previous and current education, it’s not surprising that most students found it difficult to implement appropriate strategies for learning.
  1. Students emphasized the importance of gaining awareness of oneself as a learner and seeking help from others: While students acknowledged that the demanding course material and high-stakes assessments were barriers to their learning, they also noted the critical influence that their own strategies and abilities as learners had on their experience and performance. Some students viewed their own stubbornness or personal issues as reasons why they were “too lazy to change” or more likely to “stick with what I already know. Like memorizing and cramming”. When asked to provide advice for incoming students, all of the students I interviewed (n=26) mentioned the necessity for students to “know yourself and what suits you best. And change it – experiment with it. Know how you study. Know that.” This comment was echoed by several students who emphasized the need for every student to be aware of their weaknesses as learners and to actively and immediately seek help from others when concerned or confused. Students who exhibited effective learning strategies were more likely to attend office hours, to create study groups, and to implement and evaluate the instructor’s study advice. Furthermore, these students could explicitly articulate the strategies they used for studying and could identify which course resources were most influential to their learning approaches.

The three themes described above are only a snapshot of some of the issues unveiled within my doctoral research. They have led me to consider more research that could explore:

  • How increasing the weight (percentage of the final grade) of the formative assessment/activities relative to the high-stakes examinations might impact students’ learning strategies/behaviours;
  • How to appropriately shift students’ fixations on grades to that of understanding and learning;
  • How we might better support students in seeing value in activities, resources, or low-stakes assessment that have been designed to support them as metacognitive, confident learners; and
  • How we might achieve these assessment and learning goals in large, introductory science courses.

I look forward to any comments/questions you have on this topic!

-Ashley

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Anderson, D., & Nashon, S. (2007). Predators of knowledge construction: Interpreting students’ metacognition in an amusement park physics program. Science Education, 91(2), 298-320. doi: 10.1002/sce.20176

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design, qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Grove, N. P., & Bretz, S. L. (2012). A continuum of learning: from rote memorization to meaningful learning in organic chemistry. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 13, 201-208.

Lynch, D. J., & Trujillo, H. (2011). Motivational beliefs and learning strategies in organic chemistry. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 9(1351- 1365).

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Thomas, G. (2012). Metacognition in science education: Past, present, and future considerations. In B. J. Fraser, K. Tobin & C. J. McRobbie (Eds.), Second International Handbook of Science Education (pp. 131-144): Springer International Handbooks of Education.

Zhao, N., Wardeska, J. G., McGuire, S. Y., & Cook, E. (2014). Metacognition: An effective tool to promote success in college science learning. Journal of College Science Teaching, 43(4), 48-54.


Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection, Anyone?

By Cynthia Desrochers, California State University Northridge

I once joked with my then university president that I’d seen more faculty teach in their classrooms than she had. She nodded in agreement. I should have added that I’d seen more than the AVP for Faculty Affairs, all personnel committees, deans, or chairpersons. For some reason, university teaching is done behind closed doors, no peering in on peers unless for personnel reviews. We attempted to change that at CSU Northridge when I directed their faculty development center from 1996-2005. Our Faculty Reciprocal Peer Coaching program typically drew a dozen or more cross-college dyads over the dozen semesters it was in existence. The program’s main goal was teacher self-reflection.

I believe I first saw the term peer coaching when reading a short publication by Joyce and Showers (1983). What stuck me was their assertion that to have any new complex teaching innovation become part of one’s teaching repertoire required four steps: 1) understanding the theory/knowledge base undergirding the innovation, 2) observing an expert who is modeling how to do the innovation, 3) practicing the innovation in a controlled setting with coaching (e.g., micro-teaching in a workshop) and 4) practicing the innovation in one’s own classroom with coaching. They maintained that without all four steps, the innovation taught in a workshop would likely not be implemented in the classroom. Having spent much of my life teaching workshops about using teaching innovations, these steps became my guide, and I still use them today. In addition, after many years of coaching student teachers at UCLA’s Lab School, I realized that they were more likely to apply teaching alternatives that they identified and reflected upon in the post-conference than ones that I singled out. That is, they learned more from using metacognitive practices than from my direct instruction, so I began formulating some of the thoughts summarized below.

Fast forward many years to this past year, where I co-facilitated a yearlong eight-member Faculty Learning Community (FLC) focused on implementing the following Five Gears for Activating Learning: Motivating Learning, Organizing Knowledge, Connecting Prior Knowledge, Practicing with Feedback, and Developing Mastery [see previous blog]. With this FLC, we resurrected peer coaching on a voluntary basis in order to promote conscious use of the Five Gears in teaching. All eight FLC members not only volunteered to pair up for reciprocal coaching of one another, but they were eager to do so.

I was asked by one faculty member why is it called coaching, because an athletic coach often tells players what to do, versus helping them self-reflect. I responded that it’s because Joyce and Showers’ study looked at the research on training athletes and what that required for skill transfer. They showed the need for many practice sessions combined with coaching in order to achieve mastery of any new complex move, be it on the playing field or in the classroom. However, their point of confusion was noted, so now I refer to the process as Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection. This reflective type of peer coaching applies to cross-college faculty dyads who are seeking to more readily apply a new teaching innovation.

Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Refection applies all or some of the five phases of the Clinical Supervision model described by Goldhammer(1969), which include: pre-observation conference, observation and data collection, data analysis and strategy, post-observation conference, and post-conference analysis. However, it is in the post-conference phase where much of the teacher self-reflection occurs and where the coach can benefit from an understanding of post-conference messages.

Prior to turning our FLC members loose to peer coach, we held a practicum on how to do it. And true to my statement above, I applied Joyce and Showers’ first three steps in our practicum (i.e., I explained the theory behind peer coaching, modeled peer coaching, and then provided micro-practice of a videotaped lesson taught by one of our FLC members). But in the micro-practice, right out of the gate, faculty coaches began telling the teacher how she used the Five Gears versus prompting her to reflect upon her own use first. Although I gently provided feedback in an attempt to redirect the post-conferences from telling to asking, it was a reminder of how firmly ingrained this default position has become with faculty, where the person observing a lesson takes charge and provides all the answers when conducting the post-conference. The reasons for this may include 1)prior practice as supervisors who are typically charged with this role, 2) the need to show their analytic prowess, or 3) the desire to give the teacher a break from doing all the talking. Whatever the reason, we want the teacher doing the reflective analysis of her own teaching and growing those dendrites as a result.

After this experience with our FLC, I crafted the conference-message matrix below and included conversation-starter prompts. Granted, I may have over-simplified the process, but it illustrates key elements for promoting Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection. Note that the matrix is arranged into four types of conference messages: successful and unsuccessful teaching-learning situations, where the teacher identifies the topic of conversation after being prompted by the coach (messages #1 and #3) and successful and unsuccessful teaching-learning situations, where the coach identifies the topic of conversation after being prompted by the teacher (messages #2 and #4). The goal of Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection is best achieved when the balance of the post-conference contains teacher self-reflection; hence, messages #1 and #3 should dominate the total post-conference conversation. Although the order of messages #1 through #4 is a judgment call, starting with message #1permits the teacher to take the lead in identifying and reflecting upon her conscious use of the Gears and their outcome –using her metacognition—versus listening passively to the coach. An exception to beginning with message #1 may be that the teacher is too timid to sing her own praises, and in this instance the coach may begin with message #2 when this reluctance becomes apparent. Note further that this model puts the teacher squarely in the driver’s seat throughout the entire post-conference; this is particularly important when it comes to message #4, which is often a sensitive discussion of unsuccessful teaching practices. If the teacher doesn’t want another’s critique at this time, she is told not to initiate message #4, and the coach is cautioned to abide this decision.

Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection

The numbered points under each of the four types of messages are useful components for discussion during each message in order to further cement an understanding of which Gear is being used and its value for promoting student learning: 1) Identifying the teaching action from the specific objective data collected by the coach (e.g., written, video, or audio) helps to isolate the cause-effect teaching episode under discussion and its effect on student learning. 2) Naming the Gear (or naming any term associated with the innovating being practiced) increases our in-common teaching vocabulary, which is considered useful for any profession. 3) Discussing the generalization about how the Gear helps students learn reiterates its purpose, fostering motivation to use it appropriately. And 4) crafting together alternative teaching-learning practices for next time expands the teacher’s repertoire.

The FLC faculty reported that their classroom Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection sessions were a success. Specifically, they indicated that they used the Five Gears more consciously after discussing them during the post-conference; that the Five Gears were beginning to become part of their teaching vocabulary; and that they were using the Five Gears more automatically during instruction. Moreover, unique to message #2, it provided the benefit of having one’s coach identify a teacher’s unconscious use of the Five Gears, increasing the teacher’s awareness of themselves as learners of an innovation, all of which serve to increase metacognition.

When reflecting upon how we might assist faculty in implementing the most promising research-based teaching-learning innovations, I see a system where every few years we allot reassigned time for faculty to engage in Reciprocal Peer Coaching for Self-Reflection.

References

Goldhammer, R. (1969). Clinical supervision. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (1983). Power in staff development though research on training. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

 

 

 

 

 

 


To Test or Not to Test: That is the Metacognitive Question

by John Schumacher & Roman Taraban at Texas Tech University

In prepping for upcoming classes, we are typically interested in how to best structure the class to promote the most effective learning. Applying best-practices recommendations in the literature, we try to implement active learning strategies that go beyond simple lecturing. One such strategy that has been found to be effective from research is the use of testing. The inference to draw from the research literature is quite simple: test students frequently, informally, and creatively, over and above standard course tests, like a mid-term and final. Testing is a useful assessment tool, but research has shown that it is also a learning tool that has been found to promote learning above and beyond simply rereading material (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a). This is called the testing effect. In controlled studies, researchers have shown testing effects with a variety of materials, including expository texts and multimedia presentations (e.g., Carrier & Pashler, 1992; Huff, Davis, & Meade, 2013; Johnson & Mayer, 2009; Roediger & Karpicke, 2006b). Testing has been found to increase learning when implemented in a classroom setting (McDaniel, Anderson, Derbish, & Morrisette, 2007) and is a useful learning tool for people of all ages (Meyer & Logan, 2013). The theoretical explanation for the benefits of testing is that testing strengthens retrieval paths to the stored information in memory more so than simply rereading the material. Therefore, later on a person can more effectively recover the information from memory.

Although implementing testing and other active learning strategies in the classroom is useful in guiding and scaffolding student learning, it is important that we develop an understanding of when and for whom these strategies are most helpful. Specifically, regarding testing, research from our lab and in others is starting to show that testing may not always be as beneficial as past research suggests. Characteristics of the students themselves may nullify or even reverse the benefits of testing. Thus, the first question we address is whether frequent classroom testing will benefit all students. Yet a more pertinent question, which is our second question, is whether frequent testing develops metacognitive practices in students. We will discuss these in turn.

In a formal study of the testing effect, or in an informal test in any classroom, one needs two conditions, a control condition in which participants study the material on their own for a fixed amount of time, and an experimental condition in which participants study and are tested over the material, for instance, in a Study-Test-Study-Test format. Both groups spend an equal amount of time either simply studying or studying and testing. All participants take a final recall test over the material. Through a series of testing-effect studies incorporating expository texts as the learning material, we have produced a consistent grade-point average (GPA) by testing-effect interaction. This means that the benefits of testing (i.e., better later retrieval of information) depend on students’ GPAs! A closer look at this interaction showed us that students with low GPAs benefited most from the implementation of testing whereas mid to high GPA students benefited just as much by simply studying the material.

While at this preliminary stage it is difficult to ascertain why exactly low GPA students benefit from testing in our experiments while others do not, a few observations can be put forth. First, at the end of the experiments, we asked participants to report any strategies they used on their own to help them learn the materials. Metacognitive reading strategies that the participants reported included focusing on specific aspects of the material, segmenting the material into chunks, elaborating on the material, and testing themselves. Second, looking further into the students’ self-reports of metacognitive strategy use, we found that participants in the medium to high GPA range used these strategies often, while low GPA students used them less often. Simply, the self-regulated use of metacognitive strategies was associated with higher GPAs and better recall of the information in the texts that the participants studied. Lower GPA students benefited when the instructor deliberately imposed self-testing.

These results are interesting because they indicate that the classroom implementation of testing may only be beneficial to low achieving students because they either do not have metacognitive strategies at their disposal or are not applying these strategies. High-achieving students may have metacognitive strategies at their disposal and may not need that extra guidance set in place by the instructor.

Another explanation for the GPA and testing-effect interaction may simply be motivation. Researchers have found that GPA correlates with motivation (Mitchell, 1992). It is possible that implementing a learning strategy may be beneficial to low GPA students because it forces them to work with the material. Motivation may also explain why GPA correlated with metacognitive strategy use. Specifically if lower GPA students are less motivated to work with the material it stands to reason that they would be less likely to employ learning strategies that take time and effort.

This leads to our second question: Does frequent testing develop metacognitive skills in students, particularly self-regulated self-testing? This is a puzzle that we cannot answer from the current studies. Higher-GPA students appear to understand the benefits of applying metacognitive strategies and do not appear to need additional coaxing from the experimenter/teacher to apply them. Will imposing self-testing, or any other strategy on lower-GPA students lead them to eventually adopt the use of these strategies on their own? This is an important question and one that deserves future attention.

While testing may be useful for bolstering learning, we suggest that it should not be blindly utilized in the classroom as a learning tool. A consideration of what is being taught and to whom will dictate the effectiveness of testing as a learning tool. As we have suggested, more research also needs to be done to figure out how to bring metacognitive strategies into students’ study behaviors, particularly low-GPA students.

References

Carrier, M., & Pashler, H. (1992). The influence of retrieval on retention. Memory & Cognition,   20(6), 633-642.

Huff, M. J., Davis, S. D., & Meade, M. L. (2013). The effects of initial testing on false recall and             false recognition in the social contagion of memory paradigm. Memory & Cognition, 41(6), 820-831.

Johnson, C. I., & Mayer, R. E. (2009). A testing effect with multimedia learning. Journal of          Educational Psychology, 101(3), 621-629.

McDaniel, M. A., Anderson, J. L., Derbish, M. H., & Morrisette, N. (2007). Testing the testing effect in the classroom. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 19(4-5), 494-513.

Meyer, A. D., & Logan, J. M. (2013). Taking the testing effect beyond the college freshman:        Benefits for lifelong learning. Psychology and Aging, 28(1), 142-147.

Mitchell Jr, J. V. (1992). Interrelationships and predictive efficacy for indices of intrinsic,                         extrinsic, and self-assessed motivation for learning. Journal of Research and       Development in Education, 25(3), 149-155.

Roediger, H., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006a). The power of testing memory: Basic research and           implications for educational practice. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(3), 181-       210.

Roediger, H., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006b). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests     improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255.


Positive Affective Environments and Self-Regulation

by Steven Fleisher at CSU Channel Islands

Although challenging at times, providing for positive affective experiences are necessary for student metacognitive and self-regulated learning. In a classroom, caring environments are established when teachers not only provide structure, but also attune to the needs and concerns of their students. As such, effective teachers establish those environments of safety and trust, as opposed to merely environments of compliance (Fleisher, 2006). When trust is experienced, learning is facilitated through the mechanisms of autonomy support as students discover how the academic information best suits their needs. In other words, students are supported in moving toward greater intrinsic (as opposed to extrinsic) motivation and self-regulation, and ultimately enhanced learning and success (Deci & Ryan, 2002; Pintrich, 2003).

Autonomy and Self-Regulation

In an academic context, autonomy refers to students knowing their choices and alternatives and self-initiating their efforts in relation to those alternatives. For Deci and Ryan (1985, 2002), a strong sense of autonomy within a particular academic task would be synonymous with being intrinsically motivated and, thus, intrinsically self-regulated. On the other hand, a low sense of autonomy within a particular academic context would be synonymous with being extrinsically motivated and self-regulated. Students with a low sense of autonomy might say, “You just want us to do what you want, it’s never about us,” while students with a strong sense of autonomy might say, “We can see how this information may be useful someday.” The non-autonomous students feel controlled, whereas the autonomous students know they are in charge of their choices and efforts.

Even more relevant to the classroom, Pintrich (2003) reported that the more intrinsically motivated students have mastery goal-orientations (a focus on effort and effective learning strategy use) as opposed to primarily performance goal-orientations (actually a focus on defending one’s ability). These two positions are best understood under conditions of failure. Performance-orientated students see failure as pointing out their innate inabilities, whereas mastery-oriented students see failure as an opportunity to reevaluate and reapply their efforts and strategies as they build their abilities. Thus, in the long run, mastery-oriented students end up “performing” the best academically.

The extrinsically motivated students perceive that the teacher is in charge, and not themselves, as to whether or not they are rewarded for their work. This extrinsic orientation may facilitate performance, however, it can backfire. These students can become unwilling to put forth a full effort for fear of failure or judgment. These students feel a compulsion for performance, which can result in a refusal to try to meet goals. They may come to prefer unchallenging courses, fail, or drop out entirely. On the other hand, students with intrinsic goal-orientations realize that they are in charge of their reasons for acting. Metacognitively, they are aware of their alternatives and strategies and self-regulate accordingly as they apply the necessary effort toward their learning tasks. These students would sense that the classroom provided an environment for exploring the subject matter in relevant and meaningful ways and they would identify how and where to best apply their learning efforts.

Strategies for the Classroom

As with autonomy (minimum to maximum), motivation and self-regulation exist on a continuum (extrinsic to intrinsic), as opposed to existing at one end or the other. Here are a couple of instructional strategies that I have found that support students in their movement toward greater autonomy and intrinsic motivation and self-regulation.

Knowledge surveys, for example, offer a course tool for organizing content learning and assessing student intellectual development (Nuhfer & Knipp, 2003). These surveys consist of questions that represent the breadth and depth of the course, including the main concepts, the related content information, and the different levels of reasoning to be practiced and assessed. I have found that using knowledge surveys to disclose to student where a course is going and why helps them take charge of their learning. This type of transparency helps students discover ways in which their learning efforts are effective.

Cooperative learning strategies (Millis & Cottell, 1998) provide an ideal counterpart to knowledge surveys. Cooperative learning (for instance, working in groups or teaching your neighbor) offers both positive learning and positive affective experiences. These learning experiences, between students and between teachers and students support the development of autonomy, as well as intrinsic motivation and self-regulation. For example, when students work together effectively in applications of course content, they come to see through one another’s perspectives the relevance of the material, while gaining competency as well as insights into how to gain that competency. When students are aware, by way of the knowledge surveys, of the course content and levels of reasoning required, and when these competencies and related learning strategies are practiced, reflected upon, and attained, learning and metacognitive learning are engaged.

References

Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.

Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2002). Handbook of self-determination research. Rochester, NY: The University of Rochester Press.

Fleisher, S. C. (2006). Intrinsic self-regulation in the classroom. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 10(4), 199-204.

Millis, B. J. & Cottell, P. G. (1998). Cooperative learning for higher education faculty. American Council on Education: Oryx Press.

Nuhfer, E. & Knipp, D. (2003). The knowledge survey: A tool for all reasons. To Improve the Academy, 21, 59-78.

Pintrich, P. R. (2003). Motivation and classroom learning. In W. M. Reynolds & G. E. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Educational psychology, Volume 7. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.


Using Just-in-Time assignments to promote metacognition

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)

In a previous post entitled “Just-in-time for metacognition,” I argued that Just-in-Time teaching techniques could be used to promote both higher-order-thinking and metacognition. Just-in-time teaching techniques require that students submit short assignments prior to class for review by the instructor before class begins (Novak 1999; Simkins & Maier, 2009; Schraff et al., 2011). In my philosophy courses, students send their answers to me electronically the night before class and I spend the morning of class using their answers to shape my pre-class planning. I’ve had success with higher-order-thinking questions, but I tended to ask students questions about their learning process only when the class had clearly gone off track. Since I’ve become convinced that developing good metacognitive habits requires practice, I’ve made metacognitive questions a regular component of my Just-in-Time assignments. In this post, I thought I would let you know how things are going.

Research shows that students learn more effectively when they are aware of their own learning process (I encourage you to surf around this site for examples). Borrowing from Tanner (2012) and Scharff (2014), I have asked students to think about why and how they engage in various learning strategies (e.g., reading, writing, reflecting). More specifically, I have asked: what was the most challenging part of the reading? Was the current reading more challenging than the last? What was the most useful piece of the reading? What was the most challenging piece of the reading? What was your reading strategy this week? How might you approach the reading differently next time? What was the most challenging part of the last writing assignment? How might you approach your next writing assignment differently? What are your learning goals for the week?

Responses from students at all levels have been remarkably similar. In particular, student responses fall into three broad categories: general student commentary (e.g., about the course, reading, particular assignment), content (e.g., students reframe the metacognition question and answer with use of course content), reflective practice (e.g., students actually reflect on their learning process).

First Type of Response: General Commentary

  • When asked to describe the most challenging part of the reading, students took the opportunity to observe that the reading too long, too boring, or it was interesting but confusing.
  • When asked to describe the most useful part of the reading, students often said that the question was difficult to answer because the reading was too long, too boring, or it was interesting but confusing.
  • When asked about their reading strategy, students observed that they did their best but the reading was too long, too boring, or interesting but confusing.
  • When asked about their learning goals for the week, students said that the question was strange, off the wall, and they had never been asked such a thing before.

Second Type of Response: Content

  • When asked to describe the most challenging part of the reading, students identified particular examples that were hard to follow and claims that seemed dubious.
  • When asked to describe the most useful part of the reading, students often restated the central question of the week (e.g., is prostitution morally permissible? should hate speech be restricted?) or summarized big issues (e.g., liberty argument for the permissibility of prostitution or hate speech).
  • When asked about their reading strategy, students often said that they wanted to understand a particular argument for that day (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, prostitution).
  • When asked their learning goal for the week, students said that they wanted to explore a big question (e.g., the nature of liberty or equality) and put philosophers into conversation (this is a major goal in all my courses).

Third Type of Response: Reflective practice

  • When asked to describe the most challenging part of the reading, students said that they didn’t give themselves enough time, they stretched it over multiple days, or they didn’t do it at all.
  • When asked about the most useful part of the reading, some students said that the reading forced them to challenge their own assumptions (e.g., “I always figured prostitution was disgusting, but maybe not”).
  • When asked about their reading strategies, some said that they had to read the material several times. Some said they skimmed the reading and hoped they could piece it together in class. Others found writing short summaries to be essential.
  • When asked about their learning goals for the week, some students reported wanting to become more open-minded and more tolerant of people with differing points of view.

Responses to the metacognitive prompts have been remarkably similar from students in my freshman to senior level courses. In contrast, I can say that there’s a marked difference by class year in responses to higher-order thinking prompts, possibly because I regularly use student responses to higher-order thinking prompts to structure class discussion. While I gave students some feedback on their metacognitive prompt responses, in the future I could be more intentional about using their responses to structure discussions of the student learning process.

I also need to refine my metacognition-related pre-class questions. For example, asking students to discuss the most challenging part of a reading assignment encourages students to reflect on roadblocks to understanding. The question is open-ended in a way that allows students to locate the difficulty in a particular bit of content, a lack of motivation, or a deficiency in reading strategy. However, if I want them to focus on their learning strategies, then I need to focus the question in ways that prompt that sort of reflection. For example, I could reword the prompt as follows: Identify one challenging passage in the reading this week. Explain why you believe it was difficult to understand. Discuss what learning strategy you used, how you know whether the strategy worked, and what you might do differently next time. Revising the questions so that they have a more explicitly metacognitive focus is especially important given that students are often unfamiliar with metacognitive reflection. If I can be more intentional about how I promote metacognition in my courses, then perhaps there can be gains in the metacognitive awareness demonstrated by my students. I’ll keep you posted.

References

Novak, G., Patterson, E., Gavrin, A., & Christian, W. (1999). Just-in-time teaching: Blending active learning with web technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Scharff, L. “Incorporating Metacognitive Leadership Development in Class.” (2014). Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/incorporating-metacognitive-leadership-development-in-class/.

Scharff, L., Rolf, J. Novotny, S. and Lee, R. (2011). “Factors impacting completion of pre-class assignments (JiTT) in Physics, Math, and Behavioral Sciences.” In C.

Rust (ed.), Improving Student Learning: Improving Student Learning Global Theories and Local Practices: Institutional, Disciplinary and Cultural Variations. Oxford Brookes University, UK.

Simkins, S. & Maier, M. (2009). Just-in-time teaching: Across the disciplines, across the  academy. Stylus Publishing, LLC..

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


Interest Beyond the Ivory Tower

by David Westmoreland, U.S. Air Force Academy*

I recently had a speaking engagement at a local pub which took an interesting turn related to metacognition. “Science on Tap” is a loosely organized program that takes place in cities around the United States, in which people with an interest in science can meet with a scientist to learn about current developments. The topic that I chose to cover was not current at all – in fact, it was a historical narrative set in England during the 1870s. The story revolved a public challenge to prove that the earth is a sphere, as opposed to being flat, which was published in the journal Scientific Opinion. The author of the challenge, John Hampden, was a biblical literalist who offered to match a wager up to £500 (over $30,000 in today’s dollars) that would be held by an independent party until that person determined whether the burden of evidence had been met. The bet was picked up by Alfred Russel Wallace, who used a simple demonstration involving nothing more than wooden stakes with flags, a telescope, and a surveyor’s level to win. Those interested in the details of the story can find them in Schadewald (1978).

My intent in presenting the story was to engage the audience in the process of scientific reasoning – rather than presenting Wallace’s solution, I challenged those sharing a table to come up with a convincing demonstration using the same tools that Wallace employed. They succeeded, converging on a common theme similar to the one that Wallace used. In the Q & A that followed, the audience was clearly more interested in questions about the nature of thinking than in historical details. What is happening when two people view the same evidence and come to opposite conclusions? How often does a person make a deliberate attempt to view evidence through the lens of another? When someone rejects data in order to retain a belief, has rationalism been abandoned? The discussion was lively, engaging, and ultimately had to be cut off as we ran out of time. For me, it drove home the point that metacognitive thinking is of broad interest, not relegated to the halls of the academy.

Reference

Robert Schadewald. 1978. He knew the earth is round, but his proof fell flat. Smithsonian Magazine 9 (April), 101-113.

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


Parallels: Instructors’ Metacognition Practices and their Mindsets

by Lauren Scharff, U. S. Air Force Academy

A week ago my institution held our annual Outstanding Educator’s Award Ceremony, at which the Chancellor of the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs, Dr. Pamela S. Shockley-Zalabak, gave the keynote address. Her presentation was engaging and right on target for the event. It helped honor the winners of the awards, and at the same time it was applicable to all the other faculty members who were in attendance. But what is prompting this blog piece is the parallel I found between her points about instructor mindset and our efforts to explore and develop metacognitive instruction (check out our Phase I research project summary).

As many of you are likely aware, and as cited by Dr. Shockley-Zalabak, Dr. Carol Dweck has led the research on the concept of mindset with respect to how it might impact educational (and many other) behaviors. She found evidence for two types of mindset: fixed and growth. Individuals who show a fixed mindset believe that characteristics such as scholastic ability, leadership potential, and speaking skills are innate rather than developable. In contrast, individuals with a growth mindset believe that such characteristics can be developed, and they seek opportunities to do so. These mindsets impact the likelihood that individuals will seek out challenging experiences (growth mindset) as opposed to seeking out experiences that will reinforce their current level of skill and avoid failure (fixed mindset). (Here is a nice review of Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.)

Typically, research on mindset and efforts to shift mindsets from fixed to growth are focused on students. For example, see the nice review and developmental activity shared in Charity Peak’s blog post from February of this year. This emphasis on student mindset is similar to the emphasis on student rather than instructor metacognitive practices. While a student focus is extremely important (ultimately students are the target population of our educational efforts), we shouldn’t neglect to acknowledge, study, and develop instructors with respect to their mindset (and their metacognitive practices).

Dr. Shockley-Zalabak’s keynote presentation pointed out that attending to instructor mindset, and not just student mindset, is key to creating great educational climates. Once you think about instructor mindset, the implications become obvious. Instructor mindset can have large influences on student learning because mindset can impact instructor expectations about their students’ abilities and about their own teaching ability.

Instructors with fixed mindsets tend to believe that students either are or are not capable within their discipline. It’s not hard to imagine that students in such a teacher’s course might not thrive unless they showed early promise and were tagged as “talented” by their instructor. For a teacher with a fixed mindset, it might be difficult to understand why effort should be put into those students who don’t seem capable. Such instructors prefer to only work with the top students, not realizing how much potential they might be overlooking and inadvertently not developing.

Instructor mindset can also apply to instructors’ views about teaching ability. If they believe that great instructors are born, not made, then they will likely resist opportunities for professional development. New approaches and pedagogies are threatening because they present the possibility of a decreased sense of efficacy as they move out of their comfortable routine. Growth mindset teachers, on the other hand, will continuously seek out new approaches, and if they don’t work well, view those experiences as learning opportunities.

Take a moment to evaluate yourself and your mindset tendencies. Where do you think you fall in the fixed-growth spectrum? (As with many evaluation tasks, it’s probably easier to roughly categorize some of your colleagues as having more fixed or growth mindsets about their students and their teaching than it is to accurately examine yourself.) Although it’s not always easy to attain, self-awareness is foundational for effective and intentional self-development.

Self-awareness is also one of the key components of metacognition, which leads me to wonder…   Will metacognition lead someone to recognize that she needs to develop a growth mindset? Will a growth mindset lead her to become a more metacognitive instructor? These questions lead me to believe that future phases of our metacognitive instruction research project should include explicit efforts to develop awareness of one’s mindset in addition to awareness and self-regulation of the teaching strategies that one chooses.*

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* If you are interested in participating in a future phase of the metacognitive instruction study, please contact one of the two lead investigators: Dr. Lauren Scharff (laurenscharff@gmail.com) or Dr. John Draeger (draegejd@buffalostate.edu).

 


Developing Metacognitive Literacy through Role Play: Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats

Ed Nuhfer, Retired Professor of Geology and Director of Faculty Development and Director of Educational Assessment, enuhfer@earthlink.net, 208-241-5029

In recent posts on the “Improve with Metacognition” blog, we gained some rich contributions that are relevant to teaching metacognition across all disciplines. (Scharff, 2015) offered a worthy definition of metacognition as “the intentional and ongoing interaction between awareness and self-regulation.” Lauren Scharff’s definition references intentionality, which John Flavell, the founding architect of metacognitive theory, perceived as essential to doing metacognition. Actions that arise from intentional thinking are deliberate, informed and goal-directed (see http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/constructivism/flavell.html).

Dr Edward de Bono created Six Thinking Hats as a framework of training for thinking. De Bono’s hats assign six distinct modes of thinking. Each role is so simple and clear that the thinker can easily monitor if she or he is engaged in the mode of thinking assigned by the role. Further, communicating the thinking through expressions and arguments to others familiar with the roles allows a listener to correctly assess the mode of thinking of the speaker or writer. Successful training eventually vests participants with the ability to shift comfortably between all six modes as a way to understand an open-ended problem from a well-rounded perspective before committing to a decision. Both training and application constitute role-play, in which each participant must, for a time, assume and adhere to the role of thinking represented by each particular hat. During training, the participant experiences playing all six roles.

Six Thinking Hats: Summary of the Roles

The White Hat role offers the facts. It is neutral, objective and practical. It provides an inventory of the best information known without advocating for solutions or positions.

The Yellow Hat employs a sunny, positive affect to advocate for a particular position/action but always justifies the proposed action with supporting evidence. In short, this hat advocates for taking informed action.

The Black Hat employs a cautious and at times negative role in order to challenge proposed positions and actions, but this role also requires the challenging argument to be supported by evidence. This hat seeks to generate evidence-based explanations for why certain proposals may not work or may prove counter-productive.

The Red Hat’s role promotes expression of felt emotion—positive, negative, or apathy—without any need to justify the expressed position with evidence. Red Hat thinking runs counter to the critical thinking promoted in higher education. However, to refuse to allow voice to Red Hat thinking translates into losing awareness that such thinking exists and may ultimately undermine an evidence-based decision. De Bono recognized a sobering reality: citizens often make choices and take actions based upon affective feelings rather than upon good use of evidence.

The Green Hat role is provocative in that it questions assumptions and strives to promote creative thinking that leads to unprecedented ideas or possibly redefines the challenge in a new way. Because participants recognize that each presenter is playing a role, the structure encourages creativity in the roles of all hats. It enables a presenter to stretch and present an idea or perspective that he or she might feel too inhibited to offer if trepidation exists about being judged personally for so-doing.

The Blue Hat is the control hat. It is reflective and introspective as it looks to ensure that the energy and contributions of all of the other hats are indeed enlisted in addressing a challenge. It synthesizes the awareness that grows from discussions and, in a group, is the hat that is charged with summarizing progress for other participants. When used by an individual working alone, assuming the role of the Blue Hat offers a check on whether the individual has actually employed the modes of all the hats in order to understand a challenge well.

Six Thinking Hats exercises are overtly metacognitive—intentional, deliberate, and goal-directed. One must remain focused on the role and the objective of contributing to meeting the challenge by advocating from thinking in that role. Those who have experienced training know how difficult it can be to thoughtfully argue for a position that one dislikes and how easily one can slip out of playing the assigned role into either one’s usual style of thinking and communicating or toward starting to advocate for one’s favored position.

Classroom use can take varied forms, and the most useful props are a one-page handout that concisely explains each role and six hats in the appropriate colors. Two of several formats that I have used follow.

(1) The class can observe a panel of six engage a particular challenge, with each member on the panel wearing the assigned hat role and contributing to discussing the challenge in that role. After the six participants have each contributed, they pass the hat one person clockwise and repeat the process until every person has assumed all six roles. Instructors, from time to time, pause the discussion and invite the observers to assume each of the roles in sequence.

(2) One can arrange the class into a large circle and toss a single hat in the center of the circle. Every person must mindfully assume the role of that hat and contribute. The instructor can serve the blue-hat role as a recorder at the whiteboard and keep a log of poignant contributions that emerge during the role-plays. The process continues until all in the class have experienced the six roles. In follow-up assignments, self-reflection exercises should require students to analyze a particular part of the assignment regarding the dominant kind of “colored hat” thinking that they are engaged in.

I first learned about Six Thinking Hats from a geology professor at Colorado School of Mines, who had learned it from Ruth Streveler, CSM’s faculty developer. The professor used it to good advantage to address open-ended case studies, such as deciding whether to permit a mine in a pristine mountain area or to develop a needed landfill near Boulder, Colorado. Subsequently, I have used it to good advantage in many classes and faculty development workshops.

When one develops ability to use all six hats well, one actually enters the higher stages of adult developmental thinking models. All involve the obtaining of relevant evidence, weighing of contradictory evidence, addressing affective influences, developing empathy with others oppositional viewpoints, and understanding the influences of one’s own bias and feelings on a decision (Nuhfer and Pavelich, 2001 mapped Six Thinking Hats onto several developmental models: ModelsAdultThinkingmetacog).

We can become aware of metacognition by reading about it, but we only become literate about metacognition through experiences gained through consciously applying it. Draeger, 2015 offered thoughts that expanded our thinking about Scharff’s definition by suggesting that advantages can come from embracing metacognition as vague. The flexibility gained by practicing applications on diverse cases allows us to appreciate the plastic, complex nature of metacognition as we stretch to do think well as we engage challenges.

Six Thinking Hats offers an amorphous approach to engaging nearly any kind of open-ended real-life challenge while mindfully developing metacognitive awareness and skill. After experiencing such an exercise, one can return to a definition of metacognition, like that of Lauren Scharff’s and find deeper meanings within the definition that were unlikely apparent from initial exposure to the definition.

Reference

Nuhfer E. and Pavelich M. (2001). Levels of thinking and educational outcomes. National Teaching and Learning Forum 11 (1) 9-11.


So Your Students Think They Are Left-Brained Thinkers or Kinesthetic Learners: Please God, No! How Metacognition Can Explain Student’s Misconceptions

By Aaron S. Richmond, Hannah M. Rauer, and Eric Klein

Metropolitan State University of Denver

Have you heard students say, “We only use 10% of our brain!” or “MMR shots cause Autism” or “My cousin has ESP…no seriously!” or “I am really good at multi-tasking.” or “I have high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence!”? Sadly, the list can go on, and on, and on. Our students, and the general public for that matter, have many misconceptions and preformed inaccurate naïve theories of the world which often impairs learning in the classroom (Dochy et al., 1999). These misconceptions are pervasive and extremely hard to change (Lilienfeld et al., 2009). Our research suggests that metacognition may be the key to understanding misconceptions.

My undergraduate students and I sought to understand the role metacognition could play in the susceptibility to common psychology and education misconceptions. Prior to our study, most research in this area focused on the persistence of misconceptions (e.g., Kowalski & Taylor, 2009), or how they relate to critical thinking skills (Taylor & Kowalski, 2004), or how to reduce misconceptions by direct instruction (e.g., Glass et al., 2008). However, our study was the first to investigate how metacognitive beliefs (e.g., metacognitive awareness, need for cognition, cognitive and learning strategy use, or actual metacognitive performance) may predict prevalence of psychological and educational misconceptions.

We gave over 300 undergraduate freshman a 65-item psychological and educational misconceptions inventory that were pooled from several studies (e.g., Amsel et al., 2009; Standing & Huber, 2003). We assessed metacognitive beliefs using the Need for Cognition Scale (NCS; Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, & Jarvis, 1996), the Memory for Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (MSEQ; Berry, West, & Dennehy, 1989), the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI; Schraw & Dennison, 1994), the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991), and one direct measure of metacognition, calibration. Calibration is the degree to which learners understand what they know and what they do not know.

We found that metacognitive variables were highly predictive of student’s susceptibility to believing in educational and psychological misconceptions. Interestingly, the most powerful predictor was the student’s actual measure of metacognition (e.g., calibration as measured through gamma). Meaning, the more accurate students were at knowing when they knew or did not know something (i.e., calibration), the less they believed in misconceptions. Also, when students had higher scores on need for cognition, had more advanced beliefs on how to regulate cognition, stronger self-efficacy for learning preferences and control of learning beliefs, the less susceptible they were to believing in misconceptions.

What does this research tell us? We think that this is the first step in understanding the role metacognition has in conceptual development (both inaccurate and accurate). Second, if teachers stress the importance of metacognitive development and teach how to improve student metacognition, then one of the added benefits maybe that students will have more accurate conceptual development. The natural progression in this research is to experimentally manipulate metacognitive instruction and see if it reduces educational and psychological misconceptions.

References

Amsel, E., Johnston, A., Alvarado, E., Kettering, J., Rankin, L., & Ward, M. (2009). The effect of perspective on misconceptions in psychology: A test of conceptual change theory. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 36(4), 289-295.

Berry, J. M., West, R. L. & Dennehey, D. M. (1989). Reliability and validity of the Memory Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Developmental Psychology, 25(5), 701-713. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.25.5.701

Kowalski, P., & Taylor, A. K. (2009). The effect of refuting misconceptions in the introductory psychology class. Teaching of Psychology, 36(3), 153-159. doi:10.1080/00986280902959986

Pintrich, P. R., Smith. D. A., Garcia, T., & McKeachie. W. (1991) A manual for the use of the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.

Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19(4), 460-475. doi:10.1006/ceps.1994.1033

Standing, L. G., & Huber, H. (2003). Do psychology courses reduce beliefs in psychological myths? Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 31(6), 585-585. doi:10.2224/sbp.2003.31.6.585

Taylor, A. K., & Kowalski, P. (2004). Naïve psychological science: The prevalence, strength, and sources of misconceptions. The Psychological Record, 54(1), 15-25.


Exploring the relationship between awareness, self-regulation, and metacognition

Thinking about thinking, awareness, and self-regulation Share on Xby John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State)

Recent blog posts have considered the nature of metacognition and metacognitive instruction. Lauren Scharff, for example, defines metacognition as “the intentional and ongoing interaction between awareness and self-regulation” (Scharff, 2015). This post explores the relationship between the elements of this definition.

Scharff observes that a person can recognize that a pedagogical strategy isn’t working without changing her behavior (e.g., someone doesn’t change because she is unaware of alternative strategies) and a person can change her behavior without monitoring its efficacy (e.g., someone tries a technique that she heard about in a workshop without thinking through whether the technique makes sense within a particular learning environment). Scharff argues that a person engaging in metacognition will change her behavior when she recognizes that a change is needed. She will be intentional about when and how to make that change. And she will continue the new behavior only if there’s reason to believe that it is the achieving the desired result. Metacognition, therefore, can be found in the interaction between awareness and self-regulated action. Moreover, because learning environments are fluid, the interaction between awareness and self-regulation must be ongoing. This suggests that awareness and self-regulation are necessary for metacognition.

In response, I offered what might seem to be a contrary view (Draeger, 2015). I argued that the term ‘metacognition’ is vague in two ways. First, it is composed of overlapping sub-elements. Second, each of these sub-elements falls along a continuum. For example, metacognitive instructors can be more (or less) intentional, more (or less) informed about evidence-based practice, more (or less) likely to have alternative strategies ready to hand, and more (or less) nimble with regards to when and how to shift strategies based on their “in the moment” awareness of student need. Sub-elements are neither individually necessary nor jointly sufficient for a full characterization of metacognition. Rather, a practice is metacognitive if it has “enough” of the sub-elements and they are far “enough” along the various continua.

Scharff helpfully suggests that metacognition must involve both awareness and action. I would add that awareness can be divided into sub-elements (e.g., reflection, mindfulness, self-monitoring, self-knowledge) and behavior can be divided into sub-elements (e.g., self-regulation, collective actions, institutional mandates). While I suspect that no one of the sub-elements is individually necessary for metacognition, Scharff has correctly identified two broad clusters of elements that are required for metacognition.

As I continue to think through the relationship between awareness and self-regulation, I am reminded of an analogy between physical exercise and intellectual growth. As I have said in a previous post, I am a gym rat. Among other things, I swim several times a week. A few years ago, however, I noticed that my stroke needed refinement. So, I contacted a swimming instructor. She found a handful of areas where I could improve, including my kick and the angle of my arms. As I worked on these items, it was often helpful to focus on my kick without worrying about the angle of my arms and vice versa. With time and effort, I got gradually better. Because my kick had been atrocious, focusing on that one area resulted in dramatic improvement. Because my arm angle hadn’t been all that bad, improvements were far less dramatic. Working on my kick and my arm angle combined to make me a better swimmer. Separating the various elements of my stroke allowed me to identify areas for improvement and allowed me to tackle my problem areas without feeling overwhelmed. However, even after working on the parts, I found that I still needed to put it together. Eventually, I found a swim rhythm that brought elements into alignment.

Likewise, it is often useful to separate elements of our pedagogical practice (e.g., awareness, self-regulation) because separation allows us identify and target areas in need of improvement. If a person knows what she is doing isn’t working but doesn’t know what else to do, then she might focus on identifying alternative strategies. If a person knows of alternative strategies but does not know when or how to use them, then she might focus on her “in the moment awareness” and her ability to shift to new strategies as needed during class. Focusing on the one element can give a person something concrete to work on without feeling overwhelmed by all the other moving parts. The separation is useful, but it is also somewhat artificial. By analogy, my kick and my arm angle are elements of my swim stroke, but they are also part of an interrelated process. While it is important to improve the parts, the ultimate goal is finding a way to integrate the changes into an effective whole. Metacognitive instructors seek to become more explicit, more intentional, more informed about evidence-based practice, and better able to make “in the moment” adjustments. Focusing on each of these elements can improve practice. Separating these elements can be useful, but somewhat artificial because the ultimate goal is finding a way to integrate these elements into an effective whole.

References

Draeger, John (2015). “So what if ‘metacognition’ is vague!” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/so-what-if-metacognition-is-vague/

Scharff, Lauren (2015). “What do we mean by ‘metacognitive instruction?” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/what-do-we-mean-by-metacognitive-instruction/

 


Metacognition and Specifications Grading: The Odd Couple?

By Linda B. Nilson, Clemson University

More than anything else, metacognition is awareness of what’s going on in one’s mind. This means, first, that a person sizes up a task before beginning it and figures out what kind of a task it is and what strategies to use. Then she monitors her thinking as she progresses through the task, assessing the soundness of her strategies and her success at the end.

So what does this have to do with specs grading?

In specs grading, all assignments and tests are graded pass/fail, credit/no credit, where “pass” means at least B or better work. A student product passes if it conforms to the specifications (specs) that an instructor described in the assignment or test directions. So either the students follow the directions and “get it right,” or the work doesn’t count. Partial credit doesn’t exist.

For the instructor, the main task is laying out the specs. A short reading compliance assignment may have specs as simple as: “You must answer all the study questions, and each answer must be at least 100 words long.” For more substantial assignments, the instructor can detail the “formula” or template of the assignment – that is, the elements and organization of a good literature review, research proposal, press release, or lab report – or provide a list of the questions that she wants students to answer, as for a reflection on a service-learning or group project experience. Especially for formulaic assignments, which so many undergraduate-level assignments are, models and examples bring the specs to life.

The stakes are higher for students than they are in our traditional grading system. With specs grading, it’s all or nothing. No sliding by with a careless, eleventh-hour product because partial credit is a given.

To be successful in a specs-graded course, students have to be aware of their thinking as they complete their assignments and tests. This means that students, first have to pay attention to the directions, and the directions are themselves a learning experience when they explicitly lay out the formula for different types of work. Especially when enhanced with models, the specs supply the crucial information that we so often gloss over: exactly what the task involves. Otherwise, how should our students know? With clear specs, they learn what reflection involves, how a literature review is organized, and what a research proposal must contain. Then during the task, students need to monitor and assess their work to determine if it is indeed meeting the specs. “Does the depth of my response match the length requirement?” “Am I answering all the reflection questions?” “Am I following the proper organization?” “Have I written all the sections?”

Another distinguishing characteristic of specs grading is the replacement of the point system with “bundles” of assignments and tests. For successfully completing a bundle, students obtain final course grades. And they select the bundle and the grade they are willing to work for. To get a D, the bundle involves relatively little, unchallenging work. For higher grades, the bundles require progressively more work, more challenging work, or both. In addition, each bundle is associated with a set of learning outcomes, so a given grade indicates the outcomes a student has achieved.

If students fail to self-monitor and self-assess, they risk receiving no credit for their work and, given that it is part of a bundle, getting a lower grade in the course. And their grade is important for a whole new reason: because they chose the grade they wanted/needed and its accompanying workload. This element of choice and volition increases students’ sense of responsibility for their performance.

With specs grading, students do get limited opportunities to revise an unacceptable piece of work or to obtain get a 24-hour extension on an assignment. These opportunities are represents by virtual tokens that students receive at the beginning of the course. Three is a reasonable number. This way, the instructor doesn’t have to screen excuses, requests for exceptions, and the like. She also has the option of giving students chances to earn tokens and rewarding those with the most tokens at the end of the course.

Specs grading solves many of the problems that our traditional grading system has bred while strengthening students’ metacognition and sense of ownership of their grades. Details on using and transitioning to this grading system are in my 2015 book, Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Faculty Time (Sterling, VA: Stylus).