Tag: Instructors

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.


The effects of distraction on metacognition and metacognition on distraction

Beaman CP, Hanczakowski M and Jones DM (2014) The effects of distraction on metacognition and metacognition on distraction: evidence from recognition memory. Front. Psychol. 5:439. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00439

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00439/abstract (open source full text)

According to the authors (p. 11), “The results documented in our study with free-report tests also reveal that effects of distraction do not end with impairing memory processes. Auditory distraction has important consequences for how accurate people are in monitoring their memory processes, as revealed by impaired resolution of confidence judgments under distraction. Even more importantly, auditory distraction modifies metacognitive control and thus shapes performance when the “don’t know”option is available in a memory test. Participants seem to be aware that auditory distraction is harmful for memory as they become much less confident in their correct responses when distraction is present (see also Ellermeier and Zimmer, 1997; Beaman, 2005b).

 


Metacognition distinguishes Good from Great Learners

In the thought-provoking blog post, Why Good Students Do “Bad” in College: Impactful Insights by Leonard Geddes, he discusses why a large percent of good students in college do not live up to their potential. In this post, he makes the statement that “metacognition is where good students and great learners differ most. In fact, research shows that students who are not metacognitively aware will struggle in college (Caverly D.C., 2009).” He goes on to share a couple great resources to help students develop their metacognitive abilities.


Are Current Metacognition Measures Missing the Target?

by Chris Was, Kent State University

Clearly, there is some agreement as to what metacognition is, or how to define it. In layman’s terms we often hear metacognition described as “thinking about thinking.” It is often defined as knowledge of and control of one’s cognitive processes.

There is also agreement that metacognition is necessary for one to successfully learn from instruction. Models such as Nelson and Naren’s (1990) model and that presented by Tobias and Everson (2009) stress the importance of knowledge of one’s state of knowledge as a key to learning.

In laboratory settings we have a number of “measures” of metacognition. Judgments of knowing, judgments of learning, feelings of knowing, etc. are all research paradigms used to understand individuals’ ability to assess and monitor their knowledge. These measures are demonstrated to predict differences in study strategies, learning outcomes and host of other performance measures.  However, individuals in a laboratory do not have the same pressures, needs, motivations, and desires as a student preparing for an exam.

How do we measure differences in students’ ability to monitor their knowledge so that we can help those who need to improve their metacognition? Not in the lab, but in the classroom. Although much of the research I have conducted with colleagues in metacognition has included attempts to both measure and increase metacognition in the college classroom (e.g., Isaacson & Was, 2010, Was, Beziat, & Isaacson, 2014), I am not convinced that we have always successfully measured these differences.

Simple measures of metacognitive knowledge monitoring administered at the beginning of a semester long course account for significant amounts of variance in end of the semester cumulative final exams (e.g,, Hartwig, Was, Dunlosky & Isaacson, 2013). However, the amount of the variance for which metacognitive knowledge monitoring in the models accounts is typically less than 15% and often much less. If knowledge monitoring is key to learning why then is it the case that it accounts for so little variance in measures of academic performance? Are the measures of knowledge monitoring inaccurate? Do scores on a final exam depend upon the life circumstances of the student during the semester? The answer to both questions is likely yes. But even more important, it could be that students are aware that their metacognitive monitoring is inaccurate and they therefore use other criteria to predict their academic performance.

The debate over whether the unskilled are unaware continues (cf. Krueger & Dunning, 2009; Miller & Geraci, 2011). Krueger and Dunning have provided evidence that poor academic performers carry a double burden. First, they are unskilled. Put differently, they lack the knowledge or skill to perform well. Second, they are unaware. That is, they do not know they lack the knowledge or skill and therefore have a tendency to be overconfident when predicting future performance.

There is however, a good deal of evidence that low-performing students are aware that when they are asked to predict how they will perform on an examination their predictions are overconfident. When asked to predict how well they will do on a test, the lowest performing students often predict scores well above how they eventually perform, but when asked how confident they are about their predictions these low performing students often report little confidence in their predictions.

So why does a poor performing student predict that they will perform well on an exam, when they are not confident in that prediction? Interestingly, my colleagues and I have (as have others) collected data that demonstrates that many students scoring near or above the class average under-predict their scores, and are just as uncertain as to what their actual scores will be.

An area we are beginning to explore is the relationship between ego-protection mechanisms and metacognition. As I stated earlier, students in a course, be it k-12, post-secondary or even adult education, are dealing with demands of the course, their goals in the course and the instructors goals, their attributes of success and failure in the course, and a multitude of other personal issues that may influence their performance predictions. The following is an anecdotal example from a student of mine. After several exams (in one of my undergraduate courses I administer 12 exams a semester plus a final exam) which students were required to predict their test scores, I asked a student why she consistently predicted her score to be 5 – 10 points lower then the grade she would receive. “Because when I do better than I predict, I feel good about my grade,” was her response.

My argument is that to examine metacognition of our students or to try to improve the metacognition of our students in isolation, without attempting to understand the other factors (e.g., motivation) that impact students’ perceptions of their knowledge and future performance, we are not likely to be successful in our attempts.

Isaacson, R., & Was, C. A.  (2010). Believing you’re correct vs. knowing you’re    correct: A significant difference?  The Researcher, 23(1), 1-12.

Krueger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in    recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121-1134.

Miller, T. M., & Geraci, L. (2011). Unskilled but aware: reinterpreting overconfidence    in low-performing students. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning    Memory, and Cognition, doi:10.1037/a0021802

Nelson, T. O., & Narens, L. (1990). Metamemory: A theoretical framework and some    new findings.  In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation    (Vol. 26, pp. 125–173).  New York: Academic Press.

Tobias, S., & Everson, H. (2009).  The importance of knowing what you know: A    knowledge monitoring framework for studying metacognition in education.    In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Handbook of    Metacognition in Education. (pp. 107-128). New York, NY: Routledge.
Beziat, T. R. L., Was, C. A., & Isaacson, R. M. (2014). Knowledge monitoring accuracy    and college success of underprepared students. The Researcher, 26(1), 8-13.


What do we mean when we say “Improve with metacognition”? (Part Two)

by John Draeger (SUNY Buffalo State) and Lauren Scharff (U.S. Air Force Academy*)

The nature and many benefits of metacognition might seem obvious to those of us working in the field. But because our casual conversations had revealed some “fuzziness” in how the term was interpreted, we asked a convenience sample at our institutions (30 faculty and 11 students) what they believe the term ‘metacognition’ means and why it might be important. As summarized in Part I of this two-part exploration, most respondents offered “thinking about thinking” as a rough shorthand for the meaning of metacognitive processes. Beyond that general response, many faculty offered refinements that we grouped into the categories of awareness, intentionality and understanding. While that conversation is ongoing, this week’s post will focus on responses to the second question in our “survey”, “why might it be important for students and instructors to know about metacognition and perhaps incorporate it in their classes?”

When considering the benefits, the majority of our respondents affirmed importance of metacognition in academic settings. In particular, metacognition was reported to be beneficial because it “improves student learning” and “improves teaching.” As in our last post, where we argued that, while defining ‘metacognition’ as “thinking about thinking” can be a helpful way to get the conversation started but is too simplistic, the goal in this post also is to move toward more useful refinements.

Refinements to “improved student learning” can be grouped into two categories:

(1)  Metacognition improves student learning by increasing efficiency and prompting students to  take ownership of their own learning

  • “As a student, if you can understand how you think and learn, then you can more easily choose the method that will work for you.”
  •  Metacognition can “help [students] create strategies to enhance their study of new concepts to increase their retention of the concepts.”
  •  “I can study faster and more efficiently …”
  •  “Metacognition forces students to take positive control of their own development. Much like the first step to getting your finances in order is to see where your money is going, metacognitive questions help a learner assess whether s/he has actually increased his/her level of understanding or knowledge.”
  • “…they [learners] become more independent in their learning…”

(2)  Metacognition increases the depth of learning engagement with material and supports critical thinking

  • “By reflecting on our understanding we’re more likely to improve that understanding and make connections between bodies of knowledge.”
  • “…figuring out why the wrong answers (and the reasoning behind them) are wrong.  This is often more important than getting the right answer.  It is by repairing errors in our thinking that we learn surprising things we didn’t know we were ignorant about…”
  • “[Metacognition is] an important step in the critical thinking process. If I am not aware of how I am thinking about something, the context, the role and the perspective, then it is difficult to think critically”
  • “The issue is being able to use critical-thinking skills to sift through the mass of information to develop appropriate conclusions, theses, etc.  Metacognition enables us to analyze how we’re doing this and thus, do it better.”
  • “If we can get students to think about thinking, their own and others, it will help them to be better thinkers.  It might also encourage them to be more slow, careful and deliberate in their thinking / writing / speaking.”

 

Refinements to “improves teaching” can be grouped into two categories:

(1)  The more instructors understand about their students’ learning processes and are aware of their state of learning, the more then they can adapt to the needs of their students.

  • “I also have to be able to teach in different ways for people who learn differently than me, and have an idea how they learn”
  • “…helps us [instructors] structure our teaching to best support student learning”
  • “It’s important as instructors because if we understand how our cadets [students] think, we can tweak our teaching methods appropriately. “
  • “Because the more aware that students and teachers are about how each other thinks and learns, the more effective classroom learning techniques can be.”

(2)  The more instructors communicate about metacognition, the better they can help students become better learners.

  • “…if professors and students communicate about metacognition it can allow the instructors to use every resource available to them to better convey information to the students.”
  • “…It’s one thing to be aware of how you learn something or think through complex issues.  However, even better is to have the ability to identify which processes are most effective for you.  Metacognition becomes important when it informs us about how to improve, how to be more efficient, and how to “sift the wheat from the chaff,” so to speak… This self-awareness is not always obvious to a student and thus is most likely enhanced when facilitated by faculty members…”

In conclusion, both teaching and learning are dynamic processes that interact with each other.  Thus, we must continue to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances of our current students’ state of learning and help them do so also. Because instructors are not ever-present in students’ lives, our ultimate goal as instructors should be to help develop independent learners.

Metacognition can play a crucial role in both teaching and learning because it prompts us to be “tuned into” these dynamic processes and because it reminds us to be on the lookout for ways to improve and promote deep, life-long learning. These goals are especially important given recently reported shortcomings in higher-education  (e.g. Arum & Roksa, 2011).  Students need to know how to think critically and communicate well. The term ‘metacognition’ can be understood in a variety of ways and there are many benefits to metacognition. However, they boil down to supporting deep learning goals (beyond mere memorization) and critical thinking at a time when students in higher-education need it most.

References:

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

* 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.


What Extra Credit Participation Teaches Us about Creating Buy-in for Metacognition

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

At a surface level you might wonder what sort of parallel I sense between metacognition and extra credit activity engagement.  After all, metacognition is a cognitive process – a process by which someone becomes consciously and intentionally aware of their state of performance and of strategies that might help or are hindering their performance.  Extra credit, on the other hand, is an opportunity to earn extra points on an assignment or in a course.

One possible link is that an instructor’s inclusion of both types of activities is motivated by their desire to increase students’ success in a course. While this is likely true, I believe that a more crucial link for us to attend to is the pattern of student “buy-in” to the activities, with stronger students often showing earlier adoption and motivation, and weaker students often showing low motivation and resistance.

As many instructors have observed through their years of teaching, the students who choose to participate in extra credit activities, especially early in a term, are often those who are least likely to need the extra credit. The weaker students, who arguably could benefit most from both the points and additional learning opportunities, choose not to participate, or wait until the very last chance to participate at the end of the semester.  Similarly, some of us who have intentionally implemented metacognitive practices into our courses have found that the students who most readily appreciated the benefits of metacognitive practices and used them to modify their learning behaviors to increase their success were the stronger, more advanced students. Many of the weaker students complained that the metacognitive activities were a waste of time because they were focused on learning behaviors and not the specific course material to be learned.

I argue that we should care about this pattern because we want to maximize the learning and success of the full range of our students.  Thus, a “one-size-fits-all” approach when implementing metacognitive strategies will almost inevitably fail for too many of our students, and we need to scaffold the activities more than we might initially realize.

This need for scaffolding may not be obvious at first to those of us who already understand a lot about human learning processes and who already believe in and practice metacognition. The benefits seem so apparent to us!  But, we must realize that many of our students, especially the weaker ones, won’t immediately perceive the benefits of taking time to reflect on their learning and try new strategies. Many of these students have been “successful” using a limited range of learning behaviors, and have not yet reached the realization that alternate learning approaches would be worth their while, especially as the academic demands within courses increase.  Further, shifting learning behaviors takes time and effort, so in the short run, they might see more cost than benefit.  Therefore, they avoid spending time trying new learning strategies, and report that metacognitive activities are an even greater “waste of time” because they don’t immediately seem to help them accomplish typical course assignments for which they’ll receive points. In their chapter on “desirable difficulties,” Elizabeth and Robert Bjork note several learning strategies that slow apparent learning in the short term, but enhance long-term learning.  While the authors don’t explicitly mention the use of metacognitive strategies, they too fit that category of providing a desirable difficulty.

Some of the differences between the observed levels of motivation and engagement across students might also be linked to student mindset (see Carol Dweck’s work, e.g. Dweck, 1996). Students who show incremental/malleable intelligence beliefs, i.e. mindset, believe that they can improve their abilities in certain skill areas (e.g. math, writing, speaking) rather than believing that they are inherently “good” or “okay” or “bad” at such skills (a fixed/entity mindset). Typically the former type of student seeks learning challenges and mastery-oriented learning behaviors.  Metacognitive reflection could be considered a type of mastery-oriented learning behavior. [Hmmmm… sounds like a great topic to research!  What IS the relationship between mindset and adoption of metacognitive approaches?]

Changing gears back to application, if you’re an instructor who plans to incorporate metacognitive approaches into your course in order to promote student learning, awareness of different levels of buy-in and some possible reasons behind the differences can help your effort be more successful. You can increase your awareness of how the activities are being received by asking students for their feedback.  What do they think about the activities?  Do they believe the activities help their learning, why or why not? What is something new they’ve tried and how did it go for them?

Just understanding the student perceptions isn’t enough, however.  How and what you do to present the activities and embed them in your course will impact student perceptions and likelihood to engage in the activities. For example, you should be sure to explain (and re-visit multiple times throughout the semester) the potential benefits of metacognitive reflection, addressing student feedback in your discussions.  If possible, collect data about their learning and share it with them (e.g. exam performance based on self-reported learning strategies). You might need to take time to explicitly share alternate learning strategies for your course so that if students reflect that what they’re doing is not working well, they have some accessible alternate options to try. Finally, it might be beneficial to make the metacognitive activities worth some points toward the course grade.

The bottom line is that, as instructors, we have control over how we present the value of metacognition in our courses, and by being thoughtful about it, we will be able to increase the “buy-in” from a greater range of our students, hopefully reaching more of those who need it the most.

——-

Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M. A. Gernsbacher, R. W. Pew, L. M. Hough, & J. R. Pomerantz (Eds.), Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society (pp. 56-64). New York: Worth Publishers.

Dweck, C. (1996). Implicit theories as Organizers of Goals and Behaviors, pp. 69-90. In: Gollwitzer, P. & Bargh, Eds, The psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior, J. Guilford Press: New York.

* 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.


A Brief History of Learning Inventories

Noel Entwistle and Velda McCune (2004) catalog the evolution of learning inventories over the last fifty years. The article is particularly useful in highlighting the ways similar ideas are discussed using differing terminology. Because of the article’s scope, readers can become quickly familiar with broad trends.

Entwistle, N., & McCune, V. (2004). The conceptual bases of study strategy inventories. Educational Psychology Review, 16(4), 325-345.


Self-regulation and metacognitive judgments among psychology students

Randy Isaacson and Frank Fujita (2006) consider the effects of metacognitive judgments on anticipated performance, self-efficacy, and learning satisfaction in introductory psychology students. Of note, the study allowed students to choose test questions based on their self-assessment of the comprehension of the material.

Isaacson, R. M., & Fujita, F. (2006). Metacognitive Knowledge Monitoring and Self-Regulated Learning: Academic Success and Reflections on Learning. Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(1), 39-55.


The Value of Integrative Learning

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED486247.pdf

Mary Huber and Pat Hutchings (2004) consider the value of integrative learning (e.g., to becoming a more motivated learner, a more nimble employee, a more responsible citizen, an educated person) and the role metacognition can play in making learning more integrative. They write, “Reflection. Metacognition. Learning how to learn. Whatever the language or lineage, the idea of making students more self-aware and purposeful –more intentional –about their studies is a powerful one, and it is key to fostering integrative learning. Assisting students to develop such capacities poses important challenges for campus reforms around teaching and learning” (7).

Huber, M. T., & Hutchings, P. (2004). Integrative Learning: Mapping the Terrain. The Academy in Transition. Association of American Colleges and Universities.