Tag: Metacognitive Development

Using Metacognition to Facilitate Scholarly Identity

by Anton Tolman, Ph.D., Guest Editor

This is the final and concluding blog for our series. I want to thank my colleagues for their time and effort in this project: Steven Pearlman, Christopher Lee, and Benjamin Johnson. Speaking for all of us, we hope you found our thoughts helpful in enriching your own thinking regarding metacognition and its importance in student learning.

The topics of this series, critical thinking, inclusive classrooms, student motivation, and succeeding with collaborative learning, are all essential themes in local and national discussions right now concerning student engagement and effective teaching. Each of the blogs in the series also touched on resistance to change (faculty or student), either explicitly or implicitly, the role of humility, and the development of metacognitive skills in achieving successful outcomes. Enhancing metacognition in ourselves and in our students is an ongoing progression, a journey, and we are happy to be walking it with you. In this last blog, I address the connection between metacognition and development of students’ personal narrative, their identity as scholars or educated persons. I believe this is the true heart of higher education and the core of its value to society.

photo of a blindfolded business man reaching forward and a big forward-facing arrow painted on the ground in front of him

You Can’t Change What You Can’t See

This phrase is an axiom in clinical work with clients. Clients often come to see a therapist knowing that things are wrong in their lives, but they don’t understand the reasons why or do not see a path forward to healing. They can’t change their lives for the better until they begin to “see” the nature of their problems, accept responsibility for their own role in those problems, and imagine and start to walk the road ahead.

This axiom applies to students. They usually come to college based on the promise of an economic benefit like higher paying jobs, or because they see a degree as a requirement for future goals. Many, if not most, see the purpose of education as learning facts or information and therefore, see the role of professors as experts who teach them content. When they are confronted with assignments that ask them to use critical thinking, solve problems, or work together, they can become easily frustrated. Thus, the terms “jumping through hoops” and “busy work” are commonly found in student conversations about their classes. These forms of resistance (Tolman & Kremling, 2017) are understandable because many students can’t see that the real goal of higher education is skill development, not content; it is not easily visible to them. Like the therapist’s clients, they won’t make progress until they develop the capacity to recognize the underlying issues and see the path ahead as one of purpose and value.

Student resistance to learning begins to diminish when students evaluate their own attitudes and behaviors and connect those behaviors to their academic performance. When they learn to develop metacognitive skills they can “see” previously unseen patterns in themselves and others: they recognize their own complicity in their academic struggles and begin to grasp that they are not just consumers of external information or persons being judged by some authority figure. This empowers them to assume responsibility, take action on their own, to succeed, to grow, and to become part of a community of learners.

wireframe image of a human head facing forward wit blue points like starts surrounding it.

Seeing is Believing: Shifting Identity in Higher Education    

In his recent blog, Taraban (2020) describes identity as an ongoing form of development grounded in episodic memory: the story we tell ourselves about who we are. This self-narrated story is strongly shaped by the boundaries of what students “see” as the purpose of education, their personal goals, and how they approach learning. If students’ sense of identity about who they are does not change from that of being consumers of content or “students”, then we have failed them.

If we were to adopt the model of cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1987) in our teaching, seeing ourselves more as mentors to students, then our major task becomes to shift their story, their identity, to that of being apprentices, not students. As apprentices, they are learning new skills under the guidance of an expert who cares for them, and who asks them to constantly re-evaluate what they are learning, consider how they are learning it, and when and how to use what they are learning. This entails a transition towards seeing themselves as participating members of the academy, as scholars and educated persons who contribute to society; metacognition is at the core of this identity shift.

Undergraduate research is a great example of this as articulated by Charity-Hudley, Dickter, and Franz (2017). They explain that the mechanism of action of this “high impact” practice on student success and retention, especially for minority or under-represented students, begins as students enter into a mentored relationship with a professor. Moving away from the traditional “student” role enables them to realize there is more to learning besides getting a grade or completing course assignments. Metacognitive activity like learning to reflect and ask their own questions, carry out their own research, generate new data, challenge their own ideas as well as existing ideas in the discipline, and create new understandings, makes them a contributor to knowledge, not just a consumer. They are a scholar, or at least a scholar-apprentice, and those episodic memories begin to shift their own narrative identity — who they see themselves to be, how they interpret their own life and future. Of course, participating in research is not the only path available to this outcome.

This student progression requires creating opportunities for students to develop and use their metacognitive skills. In both Steve Pearlman’s (this blog series) and Hale’s (2012) potent arguments, the development of metacognitive and critical thinking skills is integral to development of a “personal intellectual narrative”; you cannot discuss metacognition without referencing aspects of critical thinking, and you cannot explain critical thinking without referring to the metacognitive processes involved. As Hale (2012) says, cultivation of an “intellectual language” is a key process in this development; it inducts students into the “Great Conversation” and it becomes part of their own personal history of intellectual development. The more we integrate metacognitive opportunities in our classes, and across the curriculum, the more likely we are to observe this transition occur.

Suggestions for Teaching

Here are some thoughts about ways to incorporate metacognitive practices that promote personal narratives in students:

  • Emphasize transparency and relevance. Explain the purposes of our assignments not just for short-term outcomes (learn something for a grade), but for the long-term (learn something to enhance a career and personal life, contribute to society); define and set expectations about the value of metacognition and its role in professional thinking within your discipline.
  • Assign metacognitive tasks that require students to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses as learners, identify learning strategies they are using and those they are not, and ask them to connect this information to their personal and career goals. Benjamin Johnson’s description of the Personal Learning Plan (this blog series), based partly on completing practical metacognitive inventories and evaluating how to improve is an example.
  • Emphasize the value of students thinking about their own development over time and their personal histories; reflective writing assignments, in all fields, are useful for this.
  • Use inquiry assignments requiring students to develop their own questions, do their own research, and apply it to course content and their lives.
  • Create opportunities for students to make their own thinking visible to themselves. Encourage them to question their learning, their assumptions, and acknowledge their areas of confusion as a community of learners. Hale (2012) suggests learning logs, real-time student writing of their thinking, questions, and descriptions of how they are approaching content, assignments, and preparation.
  • Shift your role from “sage on the stage” to a mentor of cognitive apprentices. Model professional thinking; demonstrate metacognition and critical thinking and help the students recognize it and practice it. One way I do this is to ask, and continuously reinforce, that students call me Coach T. In my syllabus I explain the rationale for this: my purpose is to facilitate their learning, give them exercises to improve, and to clarify or assist, but the basic responsibility for their learning, as with any athlete, actor, or musician, lies with themselves.
  • Evaluate your course design: what are the memories and personal experiences your students will take away relevant to metacognition? Do your assignments focus primarily on content acquisition or do they promote skill development, a sense of growth and progress towards becoming a scholar, ability to speak the intellectual language of the discipline and to reason within its context? What are your course objectives and where do they point your students: towards content, or towards becoming scholars?

photo of a woman peeking out from under a black blindfold

These teaching practices help students “connect the dots” and see patterns they did not know existed: how they approach learning, how well they are learning, the purpose of education, and their own intellectual growth and development. Doing this reduces resistance and shifts their understanding of learning and of themselves. When we move our perspective from content to skills and weave metacognitive development into the fabric of our class, we create an environment encouraging the exploration of new personal narratives and identity for our students. This brings us closer towards achieving the potential that higher education has to offer. If you are already doing these things, hone your work, expand your empathy, and become more transparent. If you are not, you can see the road ahead, and you don’t have to travel it alone. Reach out, learn from others, and find greater joy in what you do.

References:

Charity-Hudley, A.H., Dickter, C.L., & Franz, H.A. (2017). The Indispensable Guide to Undergraduate Research: Success In and Beyond College. New York: Teachers College Press.

Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. E. (1987). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the craft of reading, writing and mathematics (Technical Report No. 403). BBN Laboratories, Cambridge, MA.

Hale, E. (2012). Conceptualizing a personal intellectual history/narrative: The importance of strong-sense metacognition to thinking critically. In M.F. Shaughnessy (Ed). Critical Thinking and Higher Order Thinking. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Taraban, R. (2020, June 25). Metacognition and the Development of Self. ImproveWithMetacognition.com. https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-and-self-identity/

Tolman, A.O. & Kremling, J. (2017). Why Students Resist Learning: A Practical Model for Understanding and Helping Students. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.


Learning about learning: A student perspective

by Caroline Mueller, B.S., Clinical Anatomy PhD student, University of Mississippi Medical Center

Intro: In this guest editor miniseries, “The Evolution of Metacognition”, we will be discussing a progression of metacognitive awareness and development of metacognition in multiple stages of education, from undergraduate, to graduate and professional students, and even faculty. In this first post Caroline Mueller, a doctoral student in an anatomy education program, is providing a student perspective.  She shares reflections on learning about metacognition, how it has shaped her approaches to learning, and how it is influencing her as an emerging educator.  ~Audra Schaefer, PhD, guest editor

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As a second-year graduate student hearing the word “metacognition” for the first time, I thought the idea of “thinking about thinking” seemed like another activity necessitated by teachers to take up more time. After looking into what metacognition actually meant and the processes it entails, my mindset changed. It is logical to think about the thought processes that occur during learning. Engaging in metacognitive thought seems like an obvious, efficient activity for students to do to test their knowledge—yet very few do it, myself included. In undergrad, I prided myself on getting high grades, thinking that my method of reading, re-writing, memorizing, and then repeating was a labor-intensive but effective method. It did the job, and it resulted in high grades. However, if my goals included retaining the content, this method failed me. If someone today asked me about the Krebs Cycle, I could not recite it like I could for the test, and I definitely could not tell you about its function (something to do with glucose and energy?).

Upon entering graduate school, what I thought were my “fool-proof” methods of study soon became insufficient and fallible. The work load in medical gross anatomy and medical histology increased by at least 20 times (well, it felt like it anyway). It was laborious to keep up with taking notes in lecture, re-writing, reading the text, and then testing myself with practice questions. I felt as though I was drowning in information, and I saw a crippling arthritis in my near future. I then faced my first devastating grade. I felt cheated that my methods did not work, and I wondered why. Needing a change, I started trying different study methods. I started reviewing the information, still re-writing, but self-quizzing with a small group of classmates instead of by myself. We would discuss what we got wrong and explain answers if we knew them. It helped me improve my grades, but I wish I had more guidance about metacognition at that point.

As I begin studying for my terrifying qualifying exams this semester, I am currently facing the daunting task of studying all the material I have learned in the last 2 years of graduate school. Easy task, right? Even though you may sense my dread, I have a different approach to studying because of what I’ve recently learned about metacognition. An important aspect of metacognition is self-assessment, using tools such as pre-assessment and the most confusing point (muddiest point). The pre-assessment is a tool that allows students to examine their current understanding of a topic and to direct them to think about what they do and do not know. It helps guide students to focus their efforts on those elements they do not know or understand well (Tanner, 2012). The muddiest point tool can be used at the end of a long day of studying. Students reflect on the information covered in a class or study session and assess what was the muddiest point (Tanner, 2012).

Both tools have shaped my approach to studying.  Now I study by human body systems, starting each system off by writing what I do know about the subject and then writing down what I want to know by the end of my review. This aids in my assessment of what I do and do not know, so that I can orient myself to where I struggle the most. At first, it seemed like a time-intensive activity, but it quickly made me realize that it was more efficient then rewriting and rereading the content I already knew. I implemented muddiest point in my studies too because after a strenuous day of trying to grasp intense information, I end up feeling like I still do not know anything. After reviewing the information and filling in the gaps, at the end of my week of review, I quiz myself and ask myself what I was most confusing. It helps me plan for future study sessions.

Metacognition feels like it takes a lot of time when you first start doing it because it makes the learner deal with the difficult parts of a subject matter. Students, myself included, want the act of acquiring new information to be rewarding, quick, and an affirmation of their competency of the material. An example of this is when I would get an answer correct when I did practice questions while preparing for an exam, but I never thought about why the correct answer was correct. Getting it right could have been pure luck; in my mind, I must have known the material. By thinking about the “why,” it prompts students to think deeply about their thought process to picking that answer. This act alone helps solidify understanding of the topic. If one can explain how they got to the answer, or why they believe an answer to be true, it allows them to assess how well they understand the content matter.

cartoon of a brain working out using books as weights

My role as a student is beginning to change—I have become a teacher’s assistant, slowly on my way to full-on teacher status. After learning about metacognition and applying it as a student, I attempted to try it on the students I teach.

For example, an important part of metacognition is learning to recognize what you do and do not know. In anatomy lab, in order to prompt students to think deeper about material, I ask students what they know, rather than just giving them the answer to their questions. I let them describe the structure and ask them to explain why they think that structure is what it is.

When I first did this, students resisted—the stress of the first-year medical school makes students desire the answer immediately and to move on. But I persisted in asking questions, explaining to students that finding out what you do know and do not know allows you to focus your studying to filling in those gaps.

Since I am a new convert to teacher assistant from student, students often ask me the best ways to study and about how I studied. I again urge them to take an approach that helps identify gaps in their knowledge. I encourage them to go over the chapter headings and write down what they know about each one, essentially completing a preassessment I previously mentioned.

At this point, I might be a little rough in my approach to instill the incredible power of metacognitive skills in students, but I am still working out the kinks. I am still learning—learning to be an effective teacher, learning the content as a student, and learning to learn about teaching and learning. As a student and a teacher, my hope for the future of my teaching is that I learn how to implement metacognitive methods effectively and to be able to assess these methods and keep trying to improve on them.

Tanner, K.D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11, 113-120. [https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/promoting-student-metacognition/]


A Whole New Engineer: A Whole New Challenge

by Roman Taraban, Ph.D.,  Texas Tech University

In 1973, cognitive psychologists Kahneman and Tversky (1973) wanted to present their study participants with a stereotypical description of engineers:

Jack is a 45-year old man. He is married and has four children. He is generally conservative, careful, and ambitious. He shows no interest in political and social issues and spends most of his free time on his many hobbies, which include home carpentry, sailing, and mathematical puzzles. (p. 241)

When asked if they thought Jack was an engineer, 90% of the participants thought he was.

Whatever stereotypes of engineers may persist to the present day (e.g., geek, introvert, asocial: http://www.thecreativeengineer.com/2008/12/16/a-few-engineering-myths/ ), various parts of the engineering community are trying to create “a whole new engineer” (Goldberg & Somerville, 2014). Cross-disciplinary centers have been established at universities, like iFoundry which was launched in 2008 at the University of Illinois, in order to prepare engineering students for working in the 21st century. One mandate was to promote “deep reflection and attention to the complex system in which engineering education is embedded” (https://ifoundry.illinois.edu/who-we-are/what-ifoundry ).

On a larger scale, the Franlin W. Olin College of Engineering admitted its first class in 2002 in order to implement a full-scale hands-on, project-based and design curriculum. Olin College provides students with funding for “passionate pursuits,” which are personal projects of academic value proposed by students https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_W._Olin_College_of_Engineering. STEM is being transformed to STEAM, where the addition of A represents Artful Thinking in the context of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (Radziwell et al., 2015). To develop artful thinking a facilitator might present a painting and ask students: What do you see? What does it make you think? What is happening? Why do you think so? These questions help learners develop dispositions to observe, describe, question, reason, and reflect. The whole new engineer is becoming a whole lots of things, but is the new engineer becoming more metacognitive?

We know that engineering students can be metacognitive when solving textbook problems (Taraban, 2015). Indeed, by now there is an extensive corpus of research on students’ textbook problem-solving in introductory physics and other areas of STEM. Explaining the material to oneself with the knowledge that this will help one better understand it, or testing oneself with the knowledge that this will help one more reliably retrieve the information later, are examples of metacognitive processes and knowledge. Case and Marshall (1995) described a developmental pathway by which students transition towards deeper understanding of domain concepts and principles, which they labeled the conceptual deep approach to learning, and which is: “relating of learning tasks to their underlying concepts or theory” with the intention “to gain understanding while doing this” (p. 609). Basically, their suggestion is that over the course of development students recognize that a goal of learning is to understand the material more deeply, and that this recognition guides how they learn. Draeger (2015), and others, have suggested that this kind of monitoring of the effectiveness of learning strategies and regulating one’s behavior are characteristic of metacognitive thinking.

The current re-design of the traditional engineer involves sweeping changes, in the classroom, in the university, and in professional practice, and it aims to do this, in part, by infusing more reflection into engineering training and practice. So, what is a reflective practitioner, and are reflective practitioners metacognitive thinkers?

Schön (1987) suggested that reflective practitioners think carefully about what they are doing as they are doing it. Reflective practitioners assess and revise their existing practices and strive to develop more effective behaviors. They critically assess their behavior as a means to improving it. As Schön (1987) puts it, reflective practice is a “dialogue of thinking and doing through which I become more skillful” (p. 31). Schön maintained “that there is a core of artistry, an exercise of intelligence, and a kind of knowing inherent in professional practice, which we can only learn about by carefully studying the performance of extremely competent professionals” (Osterman, 1990, p. 133).

Through reflective practice we submit our behaviors to critical analysis, asking questions like these: What am I doing? What effect is it having? (Osterman, 1990). This very much reminds one of the distinction that Draeger (2015) made between metacognition and critical thinking. Specifically, one can be a critical thinker without being metacognitive. The two processes can overlap but are not identical. Simply, to be metacognitive, one would need to think about the reflective processing itself. Metacognitions would involve knowledge of the benefits of reflective practice, how it relates to self, and metacognitive processes related to monitoring and controlling the reflective practices. Imagine observing any expert – an expert teacher, an expert golfer, an expert acrobat – and striving to mimic that expertise through carefully observing and critiquing one’s own performance. That’s reflective practice. It’s about trying to get a job done in the best possible way. In a complementary fashion, metacognitive knowledge and processing involve intentionally and consciously monitoring and regulating those reflective practices.

In A Whole New Engineer (Goldberg & Somerville, 2014) the authors assert that

Here we are calling attention to the importance of the Whole New Engineer’s ability to do three things:

  • Notice and be aware of thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
  • Reflect and learn from experience.
  • Seek deeper peace, meaning, and purpose from noticing and reflection. (p. 114)

Goldberg and Somerville (2014) make a call to be more attentive and sensitive to surroundings, to notice and reflect, but not necessarily to be metacognitive in those contexts – they are not clear about the latter point. Thus, it may be safe to say that being metacognitive doesn’t automatically come through reflective practice, critical thinking, mindfulness, or artful thinking strategies. Metacognition represents a distinct type of knowledge and process that can potentially enhance the effects of the aforementioned. The whole new engineer can be a whole lot of things, but is not automatically a metacognitive engineer. Simply, an engineering student, or even a practicing engineer, can be good at certain design projects, for instance, and develop a critical eye for that work, but without necessarily developing metacognitive awareness around when to shift strategies or techniques in order to be more effective.

References

Draeger, J. (2015). Two forms of ‘thinking about thinking’: metacognition and critical thinking. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/two-forms-of-thinking-about-thinking-metacognition-and-critical-thinking/ .

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 80(4), 237-251. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0034747

Osterman, K. F. (1990). Reflective practice: A new agenda for education. Education and Urban Society, 22(2), 133-152.

Radziwill, N. M., Benton, M. C., & Moellers, C. (2015). From STEM to STEAM: Reframing what it means to learn. The STEAM Journal, 2(1), Article 3.

Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. How professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith.

Taraban, R. (2015). Metacognition in STEM courses: A developmental path. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-in-stem-courses-a-developmental-path/


Metacognitive Development as a Shift in Approach to Learning: An in-depth study

Case and Gunstone conducted a study on students who were enrolled in an engineering course and after conducting series of interviews, they were able to provide detailed information about students’ metacognitive development or “lack thereof.”

Jennifer Case & Richard Gunstone (2002) Metacognitive Development

as a Shift in Approach to Learning: An in-depth study, Studies in Higher Education, 27:4,

459-470, DOI: 10.1080/0307507022000011561

Metacognitive Development as a Shift in Approach to Learning: An in-depth study