Category: Class Activities

Fostering Metacognition to Support Student Learning and Performance

This article by Julie Dangremond Stanton, Amanda J. Sebesta and John Dunlosky “outline the reasons metacognition is critical for learning and summarize relevant research … in … three main areas in which faculty can foster students’ metacognition: supporting student learning strategies (i.e., study skills), encouraging monitoring and control of learning, and promoting social metacognition during group work.” They then “distill insights from key papers into general recommendations for instruction, as well as a special list of four recommendations that instructors can implement in any course.”

CBE Life Sci Educ June 1, 2021 20:fe3

https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-12-0289


Promoting Student Metacognition

by Kimberly D. Tanner

This article starts out with two student scenarios with which many faculty will easily resonate (one student with poor and one with good learning skills), and which help make the case for the need to incorporate metacognitive development in college courses. Kimberly then shares some activities and a very comprehensive list of questions that instructors might ask students to answer regarding the planning, monitoring and evaluating of their own learning. While Kimberly makes a point of teaching metacognition within the disciplines, these questions are all generic enough to be used in any discipline. Of note in this article, there is a section that discusses metacognitive instruction, and includes a series of questions that faculty should ask of themselves as they plan, monitor and evaluate their teaching.

CBE—Life Sciences Education; Vol. 11, 113–120, Summer 2012

https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.12-03-0033


Teaching Metacognition to Improve Student Learning

By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD; published in Teaching Professor Blog October 31, 2012

This blog post offers suggestions for manageable approaches to getting students started in metacognitive types of reflection. Her suggestions are modifications of some shared by Kimberly Tanner in her article on “Promoting Student Metacognition”. Maryellen also astutely points out that, “When you start asking questions about learning, I wouldn’t expect students to greet the activity with lots of enthusiasm. Many of them believe learning is a function of natural ability and not something they can do much about. Others just haven’t paid attention to how they learn.”

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/teaching-metacognition-to-improve-student-learning/


Webinar Slides: From ‘Student’ to ‘Informed Consumer’ of Learning

by Ed Nuhfer and Karl Wirth

http://www.calstate.edu/itl/documents/ITLFeb72014EN_KW_final.pdf

This very informative and useful set of webinar slides (supported by the CSU Institute for Teaching and Learning) starts with a discussion of metadisciplines, pointing out that “A realization that arises from becoming educated: every metadiscipline offers a valuable way of knowing.” Following that, the presenters discuss three types of learning (knowing, skills and reasoning), and assert that “Ideally, a curricula should help students become mindful of how to distinguish the three and how to learn all three effectively.” They present data showing that most courses in reality emphasize knowledge, followed by skills, and have very little emphasis on developing reasoning. They then propose that metacognition is a means by which to help develop reasoning, and share some specific metacognitive tools and some data that indicate the usefulness of incorporating these tools into our courses.