By Jennifer A. McCabe, Ph.D., Goucher College

Just before the start of this spring semester, I decided to make a change in the structure of readings and discussions in my upper-level seminar course on Cognition, Teaching, and Learning. I had recently read James Lang’s (2016) book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, and was inspired to include it in my class. Instead of jumping into a discussion of research articles, with a few popular press articles or book chapters included toward the end of the semester as examples of translational science writing, I flipped the order and instead started the course with three weeks reading, discussing, and applying the information from Lang’s book (syllabus available upon request).

As described in my previous blog post (Small Metacognition I) the premise of Small Teaching is that evidence-based, incremental shifts in how teachers structure and deliver educational experiences can have a large pay-off in terms of student learning and engagement. The book speaks to multiple aspects of teacher metacognition (knowing about (students’) knowing, thinking about (students’) thinking, and learning about (students’) learning), even though the term itself is never mentioned.

My students were assigned to read one Small Teaching chapter per class day. For each, they prepared ‘Reading Responses’ consisting of three short paragraphs – from the perspective of a student, an educator, and a cognitive psychologist. At the start of each class period, they completed a ‘Comprehension Check’ question meant to give them feedback on their own learning of the day’s readings. This was self-graded with a check-plus/check/check-minus system, and was low-stakes in that only effort and completion counted. I mostly led these class periods, administering the Comprehension Check, engaging them in some type of active learning activity relevant to the day’s topic, and facilitating a discussion of the reading based on their Reading Responses. This first portion of the class was designed to help them learn about effective teaching through Lang’s book, and also through modeling my own class design and delivery.

This became important because after we finished the nine book chapters, we then shifted into primary source readings of research articles related to applied memory and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. During each class period with an article assigned, two students took the role of Discussion Leader; using what they learned from Small Teaching, and in consultation with me ahead of time, they curated and led a class period that included a Comprehension Check question (which should be effective for learning based on findings from memory research on testing as described in Lang’s Retrieving chapter), an active learning exercise (known to be effective based on ideas from the Connecting chapter), and an interactive discussion (relevant to elaboration-based strategies described in the Self-Explaining chapter). Students engaged in conversation about how the current article related to their reading of Small Teaching earlier in the semester (which itself highlighted the usefulness of spacing and mixing of topics, as described in the Interleaving chapter).

During these student-led class periods, I essentially became a member of the class, participating in demonstrations and discussions as a contributor but not as a leader. The Discussion Leaders were empowered in their choices of how to make the class period effective and engaging for their peers. Following the class, I provided feedback to the groups, with a particular emphasis early in the semester on strategies for the next time they led the class. The Discussion Leader experience helped to develop their metacognition by thinking intentionally about the most effective learning experiences, and then how to design and deliver them. There were also times when they had to change teaching/learning strategies midstream, if something was not working well (another component of sophisticated metacognition).

In order to better understand the student experience of reading Small Teaching, which is not aimed at an undergraduate audience, and also to more directly connect to topics in metacognition, I gave the thirteen students in my class an optional free-response survey completed during our final class period. In the spirit of transparency, I had them read my Small Metacognition I blog post first, and explained my plan to write a follow-up post about the class experience with Lang’s book. Each decided whether or not to allow me to use their responses. Though I use names below, pseudonyms are used as needed to reflect my students’ preference.  (Students, if you’re reading this, thank you for contributing to this post!)

I first asked about the most important or memorable lessons from Small Teaching. Several mentioned specific topics or chapters that were impactful, namely retrieving, interleaving, practicing, motivating, growing, and expanding. Many wrote about using evidence to inform teaching in ways that are incremental rather than complete overhauls. For example, Elise wrote, “The current way courses are structured are pretty terrible for durable learning. In order to better structure courses, professors can implement small but impactful techniques to encourage better learning in class as well as guide students towards more empirically supported learning and study methods.” Though metacognition did not come up directly, several responses were related. Anna wrote, “The most important lesson is that learning is complex and that there are many factors at play in the classroom.” Megan commented that it is critical that “both parties (teacher and student) understand exactly why they are doing what they do to learn.” And Katherine noted, “It made me reflect on my own experience in academics and my growth as a learner.”

Next I asked in what ways they think that Small Teaching has (or will) changed the way you think or act in the world. Here students clearly referenced metacognitive development, with Addy saying it “introduced a more metacognitive approach in education to me,” and Samantha noting, “I now have this toolbox of ways I can implement effective strategies.” Noah said, “I feel I have a better understanding of how my mindset can affect my ability to learn.” Anna’s response captured multiple aspects of metacognition: “As a student, Small Teaching (and our larger course discussions) has already shifted the way I think about and articulate my learning experiences. I really think the metacognitive awareness of learning how to learn has helped me to think about the strategies I have used and would like to further implement in my future learning.” Two additional students commented on improved metacognitive awareness.

Finally students were asked whether they would recommend keeping Small Teaching as a core reading in this seminar course. Every student responded positively. They appreciated the book coming at the start of the class as a foundation for the research articles they would be reading, as a way to take an educator’s perspective on learning and memory research, and as an example of a translational piece (they created their own translational projects later in the semester).

I came away from this experience feeling pleased with my decision to incorporate Small Teaching into this class, and also feeling as though I myself had a significant learning (and metacognitive!) experience. Hopefully my students – most of whom were seniors, and some of whom will become teachers – will leave this course with a more sophisticated metacognitive perspective not only toward their own learning, but also toward purposeful and transparent design of educational experiences that effectively support others’ learning.

Recommended Reading

Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

by Dr. Ed Nuhfer, California State Universities (retired)

Courage is a metacognitive quality that enables not having our actions limited or dictated by fear. Academic courage is a unique category of “moral courage.” Unlike physical acts of courage that occur in a brief time span, moral courage governs a day-to-day way of being and acting in practice, despite recognizing the forces that merit fear. Martin (2011) describes academic courage as perseverance through academic difficulty in the face of fear. The threatening environments of universities and the nature of courage that educators, particularly faculty developers, need in their professional practice are our focus here. With the notable exceptions of Palmer (2017) and Martin (2011), data-based studies of developed courage by teacher-scholars are nearly nonexistent.

“Fear” inevitably enters nearly all discussions about “courage.” While courage does not exist in the absence of fear, courage is a developed metacognitive capacity; fear is not. Acting with courage becomes possible when a person’s learning involves affective development along with intellectual and ethical development. (See the last blog in this series, Part 3.) Hannah, Sweeney, and Lester (in Pury and Lopez, 2011, pp 125-148) portray acts of courage as the products of a developed “Cognitive-Affective Processing System.” In brief, courage enlists a lot of brainpower.

Academic Courage versus Suicidal Tendency

Institutions of higher education produce unique threats, and several are increasing for faculty and faculty developers. The unifying theme for most fear in academia is the potential loss of career and livelihood. Because threatening faculty livelihoods for reasons other than incompetence or ethical violations is a detriment to society, tenure developed in the U. S. as a means to shield scholars from being intimidated and having their voices silenced. But tenure has not always worked perfectly. Tenure-track positions are vanishing as academic staff, with no prospects of tenure or its protections, now replace retiring tenured professors. Increased faculty vulnerability naturally accompanies increased apprehension and fear. People involved in threatening scholars’ livelihoods are politicians & regents boards, administrators, students, and colleagues.

Politicians in parts of the federal government, and a few states, now actively suppress or work to eliminate government researchers and college faculty who work on topics where investigations produce (or might produce) evidence that contradicts partisan advocacy. Political power now is wielded to weaken tenure and eliminate programs that produce knowledge that contradicts authoritarian positions and even university benefactors’ interests. Faculty can suffer reprisals for doing politically-charged scholarship. The World Wide Web and social media open today’s college faculty and students to unprecedented surveillance, so even work performed outside universities with scholarly journals or professional organizations produces risks. Sometimes, faculty can wonder whether every group on the campus has power over them. When faculty state that their careers “live and die by student ratings,” this discloses that they also fear their students. To some faculty, it seems that even students have supervisory power to take away faculty livelihoods. All of these sources of fear represent substantial threats. When a faculty member discloses fear, a developer must never think to trivialize or discount it. The reason for fear is likely real.

College faculty have responsibilities as teachers and scholars. In both, a responsibility provides an obligation to remain current about new knowledge, to add to the knowledge base, and not merely act as dispensers of knowledge. As new evidence validates the increased effectiveness of different instructional methods, teacher-scholars have obligations to maintain command of the current literature and to apply the best available knowledge to serve their students. Yet, doing so poses risks.

Introducing unfamiliar teaching structures to the classroom is not always received favorably by students or by colleagues. Striving to enact nontraditional instructional techniques carries risks of becoming unpopular by not satisfying students with teaching as they expected to be taught. Where the retention of livelihoods rests more on popularity with those who have the power to take livelihood away than on the quality of research achieved or the learning promoted, acting from fear of becoming unpopular has potential consequences.

A courageous action is not rash or suicidal; it recognizes and respects actual threats. The temptation to bulldoze ahead with “best practices” by believing that one has superior knowledge disrespects a genuine threat. Acting courageously respects the threat and works to understand it, but without giving into fear. Acting from courage requires more brainpower than does just giving up. Building capacity to enact academic courage involves a lot of work. A courageous approach may strive to find empathy for colleagues and students, seek awareness of the reasons for their dissatisfaction and will work to gain an understanding of what changes will be needed for those in opposition to begin to accept and support the most beneficial actions. A failed first attempt will serve to inform later efforts.

Face management as a Cultural Challenge to Courage

Face management seeks to advance oneself socially through associating and being seen with those who are popular and/ or influential. Face management is a way of life in many organizations. Its dark side appears when advancing self involves marginalizing those perceived as unpopular or just different. Faculty being ostracized can include those who are struggling to make changes and newcomers with new ideas, perhaps controversial to local established practices, who are striving to be accepted and valued. Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton referenced such face-managing actions as “kiss-up; slap-down,” and recognized that the behavior could render toxic the culture of an entire organization–a department, a college, and even an institution. Ostracism is something any individual should fear. Researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business studied the impact of ostracism on employee health and morale and discovered that it can be even more harmful to one’s mental and physical well-being than harassment or other forms of bullying. For a faculty developer, supporting those ostracized entails risks of also becoming marginalized.

That’s a hazard in faculty development work because faculty development is a helping profession. A faculty developer’s responsibility is to support faculty who are in need of help, and they seldom are people who hold popularity or power. Anyone who aspires to be a faculty developer needs to realize that he/she will likely experience such a threat multiple times. Often, faculty in need are also being marginalized, struggling to succeed and sometimes suffering the consequences of being caught crossways in a toxic, unit-level culture of kiss-up-slap-down. Unfortunately, face-managing cultures are tolerated, even nurtured, in universities, perhaps because courage isn’t taught in college.

While the exercise of academic courage in faculty development requires knowledge and skills, both are external qualities. Acting with academic courage is different. It’s an internal capacity that infuses knowledge and skills with empathy and affect. Internal development is a ceaseless metacognitive reflection, and it is a LOT of work.

References

Martin, A. J. (2011) Courage in the Classroom: Exploring a New Framework Predicting Academic Performance and Engagement. School Psychology Quarterly 26 2 145-160.

Palmer, P. (2017) The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. 20th Ed. San Francisco, CA: Wiley.

Pury, C. L. S., and S. Lopez, eds. (2011). The Psychology of Courage. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

By Dr. Jennifer A. McCabe, Goucher College

I recently read James Lang’s (2016) book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, which is framed by the premise that incremental shifts in how teachers structure and deliver educational experiences can have a large pay-off in terms of student learning and engagement. Each recommendation is grounded in what we know works for learning from memory research, and each is implementable without significant additional resources, time, or grading. Though Lang does not explicitly frame his book around metacognition (in fact, the word is not mentioned!), much of it supports the development of teacher metacognition with regard to several core components: knowing about (students’) knowing, thinking about (students’) thinking, and learning about (students’) learning.

In this first post (Part I), I describe Small Teaching through a metacognitive lens to support the development of teachers’ metacognition about course design and implementation. In Part II, I will discuss my experience of incorporating this book into a senior seminar in Cognition, Teaching, and Learning.

The first section of Small Teaching, entitled Knowledge, presents the idea that students do not necessarily know what strategies support durable and flexible learning. This gives teachers the opportunity (and responsibility) to structure experiences that support learning, even though these may feel harder, slower, or show smaller gains in the short term (i.e., desirable difficulties; see Yan et al., 2017 for a recent review). The Retrieving chapter discusses the testing effect, and the many ways teachers can encourage students to practice effortful retrieval of information from long-term memory. Predicting presents the value of pre-testing and predictive opportunities, which boost curiosity and aide subsequent learning. Interleaving discusses the spaced (or distributed) study principle, and the related strategy of interleaving (i.e., mixing instead of, or in addition to, blocking); these strategies help rectify the common metacognitive pitfall of forgetting we (and our students) forget. Student’s ability to produce knowledge at one point in time does not necessarily predict their future ability to remember. Incorporating frequent retrieval practice and cumulative assessments are concrete ways to counter-act the natural process of forgetting.

The second section is focused on Understanding, or deep comprehension. In Connecting, Lang discusses strategies to link and expand knowledge, including the intentional activation and use of students’ prior knowledge, use of explicit frameworks (e.g., outlines, concept maps), and writing exercises that support students in the challenging task of creating new connections. Practicing stresses the metacognitive component of knowing about (students’) knowing; that is, intentionally assessing cognitive skills needed for a large assignment, then making space for practice of those skills to scaffold toward successful assignment completion. Self-Explaining describes the strategy of having students explain what they are thinking and doing during a task – another example of a desirable difficulty.

The third and final section of Small Teaching is framed around Inspiration. This includes Motivating, focusing on the role of emotions in learning. Even teachers who have metacognitive knowledge about the basics of learning from a cognitive perspective, may have low awareness of the impact motivation has on learning, and the ways in which we can intentionally utilize students’ emotion (e.g., cultivating positive rapport, showing enthusiasm, using story-telling and narratives, and supporting the development of self-transcendent purpose). Growing helps teachers understand the value of a growth mindset as connected to student success, and how to create classrooms that model and reward growth. Finally, Expanding offers a discussion about “big teaching” – new frontiers for major shifts in how college courses are structured and offered.

Ultimately, the take-away message from Small Teaching is that relatively minor changes can bring big rewards in our classrooms. As an added bonus, many techniques give teachers tangible feedback about how students are progressing toward course learning goals. Viewing this book from a metacognitive framework encourages teachers to examine their own beliefs about learning, which can lead to an enlightening appraisal of why we make the decisions we do. Metacognitive questions abound: What is the learning goal here? How does the structure of this assignment get students to the learning goal? What cognitive processes am I expecting students to engage in (and how do I know they know how to do them)? Does this assignment have an explicitly stated purpose? Do my assessments engage cognitive processes that support durable and flexible learning? Am I being transparent in communicating the rationale for my pedagogical choices to my students? How are my own learning beliefs and biases influencing my students’ experience?

These “small” principles provide great opportunity, but also potential hazards. Teachers need to consider the line between desirable and undesirable difficulties, ensuring that the work we assign for students is difficult in a way that encourages effort in support of learning, and not in a way that overwhelms or otherwise detracts from learning. That is, paying mindful attention to the cognitive processes involved in coursework, and the ability of students to engage in them, is critical. An effective assessment will be challenging in the manner of engaging processes such as retrieval or elaboration that we know support learning. An undesirably difficult assessment will be challenging in a non-productive way. For example, to make students work harder, teachers may give repetitive busy-work that requires time and energy, but does not aid learning. Or consider assessments so difficult that learners do not have the cognitive (or metacognitive) scaffolding in place to engage effectively, even with great effort. Overly difficult assessments can result in feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, and even anger – all of which are counter-productive to learning. Enter the value of teacher metacognition: A teacher skilled in thinking about how learning works, and what their students know (along with skills they bring to the course), will be better able to navigate their assessments to keep them on the side of desirable difficulties.

In sum, metacognitive awareness and self-regulation are both key components to effective translation of memory principles into effective educational design. Lessons from Small Teaching connect to “small” adjustments toward increased metacognitive awareness in teachers. In Part II I will explain and reflect on my, and my students’, experience with Small Teaching in my seminar course.

Recommended Reading

Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Yan, V. X., Clark, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2017). Memory and metamemory considerations in the instruction of human beings revisited: Implications for optimizing online learning. In J. C. Horvath, J. Lodge, & J. A. C. Hattie (Eds.), From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Translating the Learning Sciences for Teachers (pp. 61-78). New York: Routledge.

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

This simple but somewhat of a tongue-twister question takes us to several challenging aspects of teaching and learning that link to both student and instructor metacognition:

1. How do students self-assess their understanding and abilities prior to assessments?
2. Are students able to accurately know what they are expected to be able to demonstrate for an assessment?
3. What can we as instructors reasonably do to be transparent regarding our learning expectations and to support student development of accurate self-assessment?

Generally speaking, humans ARE good at self-assessment, as long as the self-assessment activity/tool is well-aligned with the actual assessment activity/tool (e.g. see Nuhfer, 2015). However, there are many possible reasons why students may not accurately self-assess, and several of those are directly under our control as instructors.

Thus, I believe we should engage in metacognitive instruction by developing our awareness of common reasons that students may not accurately self-assess, what we might be doing that inadvertently leads to those pitfalls, and some means by which we can support more accurate student self-assessment. We should then intentionally use that awareness to adjust what we do. This combination of awareness and self-regulation provides the foundation for metacognitive instruction.

Based on my observations and discussions with colleagues across the years, here are three common reasons students might not accurately self-assess along with some strategies instructors might take to support better student self-assessment:

1. Lesson-to-Exam Misalignment – For example, classroom instruction and activities sometimes focus on basic concepts and definitions, while exams ask for evaluation and synthesis. Students may self-assess their competency based on what was presented in the lesson, but then feel surprised and perform poorly on the exam when they are asked to go beyond the lower level. Even if instructors “warn” students that they will need to engage in higher-level processing on the exams, if students haven’t been given the opportunity to experience what that means and practice it, those students may not accurately self-assess their preparedness for the exam. Instructors should analyze the levels and types of learning materials they present in class and require of students during formative learning activities (in-class activities, homework, quizzes). Then, they should align their exams to have similar levels of expectation. If they desire higher-level learning to be demonstrated on exams, they should redesign their learning activities to allow scaffolding, practice, and feedback with those higher-level expectations.
2. Confusing Questions – Students often claim that questions on exams are confusing, even if they don’t seem to be confusing from the instructor’s perspective. Thus, students might actually be accurate in their self-assessment of their understanding of a topic, but then fail to demonstrate it because they were confused by the question or simply misread it. Test anxiety can add additional cognitive load and make it more likely for students to misread questions. Thus, instructors should review their questions to find ways to more clearly indicate what they expect in a response. For example, if there are two parts to the question, rather than having a long question, break it into part (a) and part (b). This symbolism clearly communicates that a good response should have two parts. It often can be difficult for the person writing the question to assess the clarity of their question because they know what they mean, so it seems obvious. (Instructors can also fall into this trap when reviewing test banks questions and the correct answer is clearly indicated. Once the answer is known, it seems obvious.) Being aware of these pitfalls and taking the time to critically analyze one’s test questions is a good way to engage in metacognitive instruction. Having a colleague from a different area of expertise read through the questions before finalizing them can also help catch some instances where clarity could be improved.
3. Smooth Presentations – Instructors are experts, and they generally like to be perceived as such. Thus, it is far more common for instructors to present problem work-outs or other complex material in ways that make it look smooth and easy. That seems good, right? Actually, smooth presentations can mislead students into thinking that the material is easy and not prompt them to ask questions. Following a smooth presentation, students might then self-assess as understanding the material when really they would not be able to work out a problem on their own. Explicit step-by-step examples in textbooks also sometimes fool students into thinking they know how to workout problems if the assigned homework can be completed by following the examples. Instructors should consider verbalizing points of possible confusion that they know often catch students or sharing their own struggles as they learned the material in the past. As they work out problems in front of class, they could ask what worked, what didn’t, and what changes could be made in the problem-solving approach (or writing approach, or presentation of an argument, etc.). They should also emphasize to students that they will be better able to self-assess their preparation for an exam if they work out problems without the examples in front of them.

The above challenges for accurate student self-assessment and instructor strategies to address them are just a start to help us become metacognitive instructors and help students become more metacognitive learners. In my next post I will share with you my recent exploration into the use of Knowledge Surveys. This tool directly helps students develop more accurate self-assessment. Further, with direction and encouragement from the instructor, knowledge surveys can help students become metacognitive learners by using their awareness of their learning to guide their use of learning strategies.

There are many routes to becoming a metacognitive instructor, although all require intentionality in developing awareness of factors impacting student learning and using that awareness to self-regulate instructional efforts. It is a process with many options and possible strategies, where even small efforts can lead to big pay-offs in student learning and development.

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Nuhfer, E. (January 2015). Self-assessment and the Affective Quality of Metacognition: Part 2 of 2. Blog post on Improve with Metacognition, retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/self-assessment-and-the-affective-quality-of-metacognition-part-2-of-2/

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

by Mary L. Hebert, PhD; Fairleigh Dickinson University, The Regional Center for Learning Disabilities

Launching as a new college student is one of the most significant transitions a young person experiences. With college comes not only the adjustment to a new school, but newly defined relationships and expectations with professors, higher-level classes, new levels of independence and expectations for managing academics, social, emotional and physical wellness, as well as increasing physical separation from family. Academic transitions can be particularly stressful for students with a learning disability, as well as for their parents. This post advocates that strong metacognitive skills are an asset for any student going through transitions, but particularly for a student with learning differences.

Metacognition is associated with self-awareness and application to one’s environment to assist with adaptation. For the student who is arriving on a college campus with a history of accommodations and either an Individualized Education Plan or a 504 Plan due to a learning disability, the transition can be a daunting one. Well-developed metacognition is a powerful asset in preparing a student with learning disabilities to transition successfully to college. These students’ confidence may be impacted due to their history of academic challenges and having been a part of a program of services that provided accommodations in high school. It is important for such students to evaluate several things including: will they or won’t they identify their LD as they enter college, will they opt to seek services or apply for accommodations, how comfortable do they feel about identifying their LD in a college setting, how much do they know about services and accommodations at the college level?

While confidence is a necessary and desirable quality, a student with a LD may be at risk of over confidence, which has the potential to interfere with quality metacognition. Stephen Chew of Samford University in Alabama discusses over confidence in regard to its negative impact on choices of behaviors related to learning (Lang, 2012). I suggest here that over-confidence can also negatively impact the metacognition of students, especially LD students, across that broader set of choices related to the transition to college. Metacognitive strategies are essentially strategies that provide a student with a heightened awareness of the skill sets they have that will support them toward their tasks at hand. Students with weak metacognitive skills may underestimate the degree of support or accommodations that might be appropriate to support their successful adjustment to college life. I have observed students who are new freshmen with long histories of academic, mental health, and other services decide upon entry to college that they no longer wish to utilize these services. It is worth pausing to ask, is this the best time to cease or decrease services? Strong metacognitive skills can assist the student to judge more accurately a plan of services that will suit their needs at this point of transition.

A useful metacognitive strategy in preparation for this transitional phase of their education is to give aspiring college students lower stakes experiences and opportunities to assess their own awareness about the mastery of skills necessary to adjust to college. This practice prior to performance is an effective strategy to apply to college readiness thinking, decision-making and planning skills. Parents, counselors, teachers and others involved in a student’s educational process can orchestrate purposeful metacognitive opportunities to give the student a chance to practice and reflect on experiences that will be key strategies for the transition to college life. For example, a student who may be expressing a desire not to identify their disability when they transition to college and therefore not seek accommodations may be given the chance to work without accommodations in high school to assess how they perform without certain accommodations such as extended time, a note taker, modified assignments, organizational and time management assistance etc. In a supportive manner the student can be questioned as to what this experience was like, and how it impacted their learning and performance.

Having students practice in the manner they will be required to perform becomes an indispensable metacognitive tool which can assist with the metacognitive skills to think about, evaluate, and acquire self-knowledge and awareness of what their strengths, needs, and challenges are so they can plan for their transition more realistically and therefore more effectively. The goal is that they will adjust more successfully to college expectations and demands. As a high school student, a certain set of skills and expectations have been developed to respond to academics, social and emotional and time management tasks. Transitioning to college requires a solid metacognitive evaluation of how these skills and expectations will or won’t transfer to college expectations and demands. Understanding one’s learning disability and its impact not only on academic performance, but also on life skills such as time management, social relationships, emotional regulation, and wellness needs becomes key in readiness for functioning successfully in a college setting.

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Lang, James M. (2012). Metacognition and Student Learning, Chronicle of Higher Education, Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/MetacognitionStudent/130327

By Jennifer A. McCabe, Goucher College

Five years ago, I radically changed the assessment format of my undergraduate Human Learning and Memory course, from a more traditional model with three big exams to a frequent low-stakes testing approach, which involved administering a short quiz to start most class periods (and nixing big exams). This choice came on the heels of a shift from a content-driven focus to an elaboration and integration emphasis in this course, and a shift from a textbook to five popular press books about learning and memory (syllabus available by request). I decided that the assessments should more intentionally reflect a central goal for the course that students would come to class each day prepared to actively engage with and discuss the assigned material. When I first made this change, I gave little explicit thought to metacognitive development in my students; as I describe in this blog post, along the way I tweaked the way the quizzes were framed and administered to more transparently support metacognition.

The first iteration of the daily low-stakes assessment was described as a “KCA Quiz,” designed to assess (and improve) students’ Knowledge, Connection, and Application (“KCA”) of course topics and readings. At the start of most class periods, students had about 10 minutes to complete a 5-item open-book and open-notes quiz, which could include factual questions, connection questions, application questions, and thought/opinion questions. These would mainly focus on the reading assignment for the current day, but could also draw from prior assigned readings/topics. Students were expected to bring all their notes and books to class each day in hard copy (no electronics allowed), for reference. After collecting the quizzes, we discussed the answers as a large group, and then the quizzes were graded on a scale of 0 (absence) to 1 (0 or 1 correct) to 2 (2 or 3 correct) to a maximum of 3 (4 or 5 correct).

Certainly some elements of this assessment strategy had the potential to impact metacognition. For one, there was a consequence for lack of preparation if students could not find the answers in time. Also, receiving immediate feedback in class about whether their answers were correct should have given them insight into their learning. Yet, given what we now know about the power of retrieval practice (i.e., the testing effect; see recommended reading below), namely the inherent memory and metacognitive benefits, I was dissatisfied with the low (or no) expectation that students would retrieve the information from memory without using external sources. Therefore, I worked toward developing a modified version of “KCA Quizzes” that would better support retrieval practice and metacognition, yet preserve the low-stakes and frequent-testing components.

Starting in Fall 2016, I made several changes to this component of the course. First, I started calling them “KCA Assessments” instead of “KCA Quizzes.” Previously, I would get some complaints – in person and on course evaluations – about the pressure and stress of having a quiz every day. Simply shifting the language from “quiz” to “assessment” completely eliminated those complaints. I think that being “assessed” rather than “quizzed” activates a different schema for the students – perhaps representing a metacognitive shift from a performance focus to more of a learning focus.

This is particularly striking given that along with the name change, I made the assessments more challenging. Now they are a hybrid of closed- and open-books/notes, with a unique metacognitive twist. Students start by dividing their paper into left and right columns. For the first five minutes, they answer the five questions from memory (closed-book) in the left column. Then, I announce they can open their books and notes, and anything they want to add or modify about their answers is written in the right column. They know that I grade their answers (using the same generous scale described above) based only on whether they got them correct through the combination of closed- and open-notes. Yet using the left-right column method, they are forced not only to spend time effortfully retrieving the information (or even just trying – which as we discuss in class, still benefits memory), but also have a clear record of how easily and accurately they could arrive at correct answers from long-term memory, without consulting external sources. This supports metacognition by building students’ explicit awareness of their level of learning, which can then be used to guide their further learning behaviors. I encourage them to strive to be able to answer all the questions in the left column, but the pressure of testing is relieved by the back-up plan to consult course materials.

Recently, I administered a brief anonymous feedback survey about the KCA Assessments. Of the 21 students who responded in a class of 25, 86% agreed or strongly agreed that the assessments “improved my metacognition – that is, they helped me think and know more about my own learning and memory.” When asked an open-ended question about which aspect(s) of the assessments supported metacognition, 65% identified the closed/open-book hybrid approach, with comments such as:

“You couldn’t be convinced you know something if you couldn’t get it during the closed- book portion.”

“Helped me see what I actually remembered and what I needed help with or didn’t encode or couldn’t retrieve.”

“This allowed me to use my own memory to remember answers and gave me an idea of what I need to focus on more for when I read for the next class.”

“Having the closed then open note format really obviously shows what you processed more deeply than others.”

Other answers described the focus on deeper processing and application to real-life issues, learning to be more interactive and engaged with course reading assignments, getting immediate feedback after the assessments, and the reduced-pressure grading scale. The majority (90%) probably or definitely “would recommend keeping the KCA Assessments for future classes.”

The current iteration of this in-class assessment strategy grew from my own metacognitive insight as an instructor, with regard to balancing student learning, engagement, and incentives for examining and potentially changing learning strategies. Based on observing student performance, and on student feedback on course evaluations and from this survey, this approach is palatable (even enjoyable) for students, encourages deep and elaborative reading, supports durable memory for course material, and – at least by way of self-report – boosts metacognition in undergraduates.

Recommended Reading

Putnam, A. L., Sungkhasettee, V. W., & Roediger, H. L. (2016). Optimizing learning in college: Tips from cognitive psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 652-660. doi: 10.1177/1745691616645770

Roediger, H. L., & Pyc, M. A. (2012). Inexpensive techniques to improve education: Applying cognitive psychology to enhance educational practice. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 1, 242-248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2012.09.002

by Hillary Steiner, Ph.D., Kennesaw State University

The students in my first-year seminar were engaged in a small group activity, which had spread outside of the classroom into the hallways. It was my first semester teaching this seminar, and we were approaching midterm. “Adam,” a good student who normally acted as a leader during group activities, sat alone, trying to stifle tears. He seemed grateful that I cared to ask what was wrong, but doubtful that I could help. His story was one I’d heard before. After years of straight As in science classes, he was encountering his first failures in an important chemistry course that was a gateway course to his major. His plan was to drop the course and rethink the career plans he’d first made as a child. Could I explain why “studying like crazy” wasn’t working? His chemistry professor couldn’t. While I had introduced good study strategies to the students a few weeks prior, this touching conversation caused me to rethink the way I approached the topic. Drawing on my background in educational psychology, I came to two conclusions: 1) I needed to make sure students understood the why behind study strategies so they’d be better prepared to implement them, and 2) I needed to reach out to other faculty to encourage the application of these strategies in the context of content-area courses. Since that time, I’ve written about these activities for a faculty audience (Steiner, 2014; 2016; Steiner, Dean, Foote, & Goldfine, 2013; 2016) and changed the way I approached metacognition.

Lately there seems to be a buzz about metacognition at my institution. Dr. Saundra McGuire, Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success at Louisiana State University and author of a popular book on the topic (McGuire, 2015), visited our campus recently to speak about the importance of metacognition. Unlike me, who first learned of metacognition in my graduate training, McGuire discovered metacognition from outside educational psychology. As a chemistry professor, she saw the powerful ways her students’ learning was transformed when they used metacognitive strategies. Inspired by her campus visit, many faculty began requesting more information about how they could use metacognition in their own classes. At our teaching and learning center where I currently serve as a faculty fellow, my colleagues and I responded by offering more workshops and consultations on how to put the concept into practice. In these interactions, most faculty easily grasped metacognition, understood its importance, and were able to generate some strategies for their courses. However, what they needed was a quick and easy way to promote the idea to students—a concise primer for how (and why!) to become a metacognitive college student. I realized that such a document could also serve as a jumping-off point for discussion with my own students.

The handout was developed with this in mind. Keeping in mind students’ motivations for using such a document, I kept the language brief, encouraging, and jargon-free. I did not include scholarly references, but I did include a short list of resources students could access for further reading. My intent was to provide students enough of an explanation and rationale for metacognition that they’d have sufficient motivation to put the suggested strategies to use in an authentic context. Many faculty with whom I’ve worked feel they lack adequate time to introduce metacognition in their content-area courses. However, while first-year seminars and learning-to-learn classes offer a great opportunity to talk at length about metacognition, students especially benefit when content-area faculty encourage it in their individual disciplines. I am hopeful that this handout can serve as a resource for time-strapped faculty to distribute to their students who, like Adam, are searching for that life hack that will help them succeed in college.

References

McGuire, S. Y. (2015). Teach students how to learn: Strategies you can incorporate into any course to improve student metacognition, study skills, and motivation. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Steiner, H. H. (2014). Teaching principles from cognitive psychology in the first-year seminar. E-Source for College Transitions, 11, 14-16.

Steiner, H. H. (2016). The strategy project: Promoting self-regulated learning through an authentic assignment. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28, 271-282.

Steiner, H.H., Dean, M. L., Foote, S. M., & Goldfine, R. A. (2013). Applying TLC (a targeted learning community) to transform teaching and learning in science. Learning Communities Research and Practice, 1(3), Article 5.

Steiner, H. H., Dean, M. L., Foote, S. M, & Goldfine, R.A. (2016). The targeted learning community: A comprehensive approach to promoting the success of first-year students in general chemistry. In L. C. Schmidt & J. Graziano (Eds.), Building synergy for high-impact educational initiatives: First-year seminars and learning communities. Columbia, SC: National Resource Center.