Tag: teaching metacognition

Using metacognitive awareness to facilitate healthy engagement with moral issues

By John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

As the new semester begins, I am again looking out on a classroom full of students eager to discuss “hot button” moral issues (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, hate-speech, same-sex marriage, drug legalization). In an earlier post entitled, “Using metacognition to uncover the substructure of moral issues,” I argued that metacognitive awareness can help students move beyond media pundit drivel and towards a more careful consideration of moral issues. In “Cultivating the habit of constructive discomfort”, I argued that learning requires cultivating a certain healthy discomfort (much like the discomfort often associated with vigorous exercise) and it is metacognitive awareness that keeps us within our own “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky 1978). This post considers some of the sources of discomfort that threaten to undermine the discussion of moral issues.

Confronting “hot button” moral issues can be difficult because each of us brings our own complicated history to the conversation (replete with hang ups and blind spots). Based on my many years of teaching moral philosophy, I offer the following list of items that I found seem to derail discussion. The list is by no means exhaustive and whether these are the elements most likely to impede engagement is ultimately an empirical question that the needs to be answered. However, I argue that all of us (instructors, students, those outside the classroom) need to be aware of our own sources of discomfort with moral matters if we hope to move beyond them and towards a healthy engagement with these important issues.

Sources of discomfort: 

(1) Entrenched beliefs— some moral issues are difficult to consider because they force us to confront our foundational values.  For example, those from a wide variety of religious traditions can find it difficult to be completely open-minded to the possibility that abortion and same-sex marriage could be permissible. While they can summarize a particular position on the issue (e.g., for a particular course assignment), many find it difficult to move beyond a “bookish” articulation of the problem towards a genuine consideration of the issues because it threatens to undermine other firmly held beliefs (e.g., religious teachings).

(2) Peer pressure — many students find it difficult to swim against the current of peer opinion. When discussing sex, for example, students want to avoid being seen as either too prudish or too perverted. Sometimes students have views that fall outside the range of perceived acceptability but they refuse to voice them for fear of social disapproval. Other times, it doesn’t even occur them to consider anything outside the norm. In both cases, peer pressure can undermine full consideration of the issues.

(3) Self-interest — shifts in moral position require changes in our behavior. For example, “buying into” arguments for animal rights might demand that we change our eating habits. Often, it is easy to discount these arguments, not because they lack merit, but because we do not want to make the lifestyle changes that might be required if we became convinced by the argument.

(4) “Afraid of looking in the mirror” — discussions of moral issues can reveal uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Discussions of racial and gender discrimination, for example, can make us uncomfortable when we realize that we (or those we love) have attitudes and behaviors are insensitive and even hurtful.

(5) Ripple effects — because moral issues are interrelated, modifying our view on one issue can send ripple effects through our entire conceptual system.  For example, a discussion of euthanasia might lead us to the conclusion the quality life is important and even that some lives are no longer worth living (e.g., extreme pain without the prospect of relief). If true, then we might come to believe that it be better if some people were never born (e.g., extreme pain without the prospect of relief). Thus, thinking carefully about euthanasia might change our view of abortion. Likewise, becoming convinced by arguments for individual freedom in one area (e.g., free speech) can lead us to rethink our views in other areas (e.g., drug legalization, abortion, hate speech). However, if a student senses that a ripple might turn into a tidal wave, they often disengage.

In each case, becoming aware of the sources for our discomfort can help us move beyond a superficial consideration of the issues. In particular, asking a series of metacognitive questions can help uncover whether the discomfort is healthy (e.g., struggle with unfamiliar or difficult material) or unhealthy (e.g., blocked by entrenched beliefs, peer pressure, self-interest, or an inability to look in the mirror).

Questions we might ask our students (or even ourselves):

  • To what extent is my thinking on particular issue being influenced by my firmly held beliefs, the views of my peers, self-interest, a reluctance to take an honest look in the mirror, or concerns about the need revise my entire ethical system?
  • Am I taking the moral issue under consideration seriously? Why or why not?
  • Would I be willing to change my stance if the argument was compelling? Why or why not?
  • Is there something about the view that I cannot bring myself to consider? If so, what?

While awareness of our various blind spots and areas of discomfort will not automatically improve the quality of discussion, it can pave the way for a more meaningful consideration of the issues. As such, metacognitive awareness can facilitate healthy engagement with moral issues.

Reference:

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.


Testing Improves Knowledge Monitoring

by Chris Was, Kent State University

Randy Isaacson and I have spent a great deal of time and effort creating a curriculum for an educational psychology class to encourage metacognition in preservice teachers. Randy spent a number of years developing this curriculum before I joined him in an attempt to improve the curriculum and use the curriculum to test hypotheses regarding improvement of metacognition with training for undergraduate preservice teachers. A detail description of the curriculum can be found in the National Teaching and Learning Forum (Isaacson & Wass, 2010), but I wanted to take this opportunity to give a simple overview of how we structured our courses and some of the results produced by using this curriculum to train undergraduates to be metacognitive in their studies.

With our combined 40+ years of teaching, we our quite clear that most undergraduates do not come equipped with the self-regulation skills that one would hope students would acquire before entering the university. Even more disappointing, is students lack the metacognition required to successfully regulate their own learning behaviors. Creating an environment that not only encourages, but also requires students to be metacognitive is not a simple task. However, it can be accomplished.

Variable Weight-Variable Difficulty Tests

The most important component of the course structure is creating an environment with extensive and immediate feedback. The feedback should be designed to help the student identify specific deficiencies in his or her learning strategies and metacognition.  We developed an extensive array of learning resources which guide the student to focusing on knowing what they know, and when they know it. The first resource we developed is a test format that helps the students reflect and monitor their knowledge regarding the content and items on the test. In our courses we have students judge their accuracy and confidence in their responses for each item and having them predict their scores for each exam

Throughout the duration of the semester in which they were enrolled in the course students are administered a weekly exam (the courses meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday with the exams occurring on Friday). Each examination is based on a variable weight, variable difficulty format. Each examination contained a total of 35 questions composed of 15 Level I questions that were at the knowledge level, 15 Level II questions at the evaluation level, and 5 Level III questions at the application/synthesis level. Scoring of the exam was based on a system that increased points for correct responses in relation to the increasing difficulty of the questions and confidence in responses: Students choose 10 Level I questions and put those answers on the left side of the answer sheet. These 10 Level I questions are worth 2 points each. Ten Level II questions were worth 5 points each are placed on the left side of the answer sheet, and three Level III questions were worth 6 points each are placed on the left. Students were also required to choose the questions they were least confident about and place them on the right side of the answer sheet. These questions were only worth one point (5 of the 15 Level I and II questions, and 2 of the 5 Level III questions). The scoring equaled a possible 100 points for each exam. Correlations between total score and absolute score (number correct out of 35) typically range from r = .87 to r = .94.  Although we provide students with many other resources to encourage metacognition, we feel that the left-right test format is the most powerful influence on student knowledge monitoring through the semester.

The Results

Along with our collaborators, we have conducted a number of studies using the variable weight-variable difficulty (VW-VD) tests as a treatment. Our research questions focus on whether the test format increases knowledge monitoring accuracy, individual differences in knowledge monitoring and metacognition, and psychometric issues in measuring knowledge monitoring. Below is a brief description of some of our results followed.

Hartwig, Was, Isaacson, & Dunlosky (2011) found that a simple knowledge monitoring assessment predicted both test scores and number of items correct on the VW-VD tests.

Isaacson & Was (2010) found that after a semester of VW-VD tests, knowledge monitoring accuracy on an unrelated measure of knowledge monitoring increased.


Metacognition and Reflective Thinking

By Steven C. Fleisher, California State University Channel Islands

Imagine that we are reading an assignment. As we read, do we think: “How long will this take?” “Will this be on the test?” If so, try this instead. Presume that we are reading the article as preparation for meeting later with an important person such as our supervisor to discuss the article. How would this situation change the questions we ask ourselves? Such thinking can make us aware of what constitutes satisfactory mastery of knowing and how to achieve it.

Think back for a moment to learning a psychomotor skill, such as learning to ride a bicycle. It is normal to master that skill with normal innate balance and strength. We might think: “That’s all there is to it.” However, watching cyclists in a serious bicycle race or triathlon, reveals that reliance only on innate ability cannot produce that kind of performance. That level of expertise requires learning to pedal with cadence, to deliver equal power from both legs, use the gearing appropriately, exploit position within a group of racers and pace oneself relative to challenges. Untrained innate ability can rarely get us far in comparison to the results of informed training.

The same is true in learning. Metacognitive skills (learnable skills) enhance academic performance. People with metacognitive skill will usually outperform others who lack such skill, even others with greater innate intelligence (natural ability). Metacognitive training requires developing three strengths: 1) metacognitive knowledge, 2) metacognitive monitoring, and 3) metacognitive control.

Metacognitive knowledge refers to our understanding about how learning operates and how to improve our learning. We should have enough of this knowledge to articulate how we learn best. For example, we can know when it is best for us to write a reflection about a reading in order to enhance our learning. We should be alert to our misconceptions about how our learning works. When we learn that cramming is not always the best way to study (Believe it!), we must give that up and operate with a better proven practice.

Metacognitive monitoring refers to developed ability to monitor our progress and achievement accurately. For example, self-assessment is a kind of metacognitive monitoring. We should know when we truly understand what we are reading and assess if we are making progress toward solving a problem. When we become accurate and proficient in self-assessment, we are much better informed. We can see when we have mastered certain material well enough, and when we have not.

Metacognitive control. This competency involves having the discipline and control needed to make the best decisions in our own interests. This aspect of metacognition includes acting on changing our efforts or learning strategies, or taking action to recruit help when indicated.

Putting it together. When we engage in metacognitive reflection, we can ask ourselves, for example, “What did we just learn?” “What was problematic, and why?” “What was easy, and why?” “How can we apply what we just learned?” Further, when we gain metacognitive skill, we begin to internalize habits of learning that better establish and stabilize beneficial neural connections.

Reflective Exercises for Students:

  1. Metacognitive knowledge. Consider three learning challenges: acquiring knowledge, acquiring a skill, or making an evidence-based decision. How might the approaches needed to succeed in each of these three separate challenges differ?
  2. Metacognitive monitoring. After you complete your next assignment or project, rate your resultant state of mastery on the following scale of three points: 0 = I have no confidence that I made any meaningful progress toward mastery; 1 = I clearly perceived some gain of mastery, but I need to get farther; 2 = I am currently highly confident that I understand and can meet this challenge.
  3. Next, see if your self-rating causes you to take action such as to re-study the material or to seek help from a peer or an instructor in order to achieve more competence and higher confidence. A critical test will be whether your awareness from monitoring was able to trigger your taking action. Another will come in time. It will be whether your self-assessment proved accurate.
  4. Metacognitive control. To develop better understanding of this, recall an example from life when you made a poor decision that proved to produce a result that you did not desire or that was not in your interests. How did living this experience equip you to better deal with a similar or related life challenge?

References

Chew, S. L. (2010). Improving classroom performance by challenging student misconceptions about learning. Association for Psychological Science: Observer, Vol. 23, No. 4. http://psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2666

Dunlosky, J. and Metcalf, J. (2009). Metacognition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Leamnson, R. N. (1999). Thinking about teaching and learning: Developing habits of learning with first year college and university students. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and assessing. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 219-225.

Wirth, K. (2010). The role of metacognition in teaching Geoscience. Science Education Resource Center, Macalester College. http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/metacognition/activities/27560.html


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/


Promoting general metacognitive awareness

This informative article by Gregory Schraw begins with a distinction between knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition (lots of great references included), continues with a a discussion of generalization and a summary of some additional research that examines the relationship between metacognition and expertise (cognitive abilities), and finishes with several strategies that instructors can use to develop both metacognitive awareness and regulation.

http://wiki.biologyscholars.org/@api/deki/files/87/=schraw1998-meta.pdf 


Metacognition for Guiding Students to Awareness of Higher-level Thinking (Part 2)

by Ed Nuhfer (Contact: enuhfer@earthlink.net; 208-241-5029)

Part 1 introduced the nature of adult intellectual development in terms of the stages ascended as one becomes educated. Each stage imparts new abilities that are valuable. This Part 2 reveals why awareness of these stages is important and offers metacognitive exercises through which students can begin to engage with what should be happening to them as they become better thinkers.

 

A disturbingly tiny contingent of professors in disciplines outside adult education have read the adult developmental research and recognized the importance of Perry’s discovery. Even fewer pass on this awareness directly to their students. Thus, recognition that the main value of a university education does not lie in acquired knowledge of facts and formulae but rather in acquiring higher level thinking abilities remains off the radars of most students.

Given what we know from this research, a potential exists for American higher education’s evolving into a class-based higher educational system, with a few institutions for the privileged supporting curricula that emphasize developing the advanced thinking needed for management and leadership, and a larger group of institutions fielding curricula emphasizing only content and skills for producing graduates destined to be managed. Until students in general (and parents) recognize how these two educational models differ in what they offer in value and advantages for life, they will fail to demand to be taught higher-order thinking. Overcoming this particular kind of ignorance is a struggle that neither individual students nor a free nation can afford to lose.

 

Teaching Metacognition: Mentoring Students to Higher Levels of Thinking

One way to win this struggle is to bring explicit awareness of what constitutes becoming well educated directly to students, particularly those not enrolled in elite, selective schools. All students should know what is happening to them, which requires understanding the stages of adult intellectual development and the sequence in which they occur offers the explicit framework needed to guide students to do beneficial “thinking about thinking.” (See Part 1, Table 1.) This research-based framework offers the foundation required for understanding the value of higher-level thinking. It offers a map for the journey on which one procures specific abilities by mastering successively higher stages of adult thinking. Through learning to use this framework metacognitively, individuals can start to discover their current stage of intellectual development and determine what they need for achieving the next higher stage.

I have included two exercises for students to show how the research that informs what we should be “thinking about” can be converted into metacognitive components of lessons. These modules have been pilot tested on  students in introductory general education and critical thinking courses.

The first, “Module 12 – Events a Learner Can Expect to Experience,” uses the research that defines the Perry stages (Table 1) as a basis for authoring an exercise that guides students through key points to “think about” as they start to reflect upon their own thinking. Instructors can employ the module as an assignment or an in-class exercise, and should modify it as desired. For many students, this will serve as their first exposure to metacognition. If this is the reader’s first introduction to adult intellectual development, work through this module, ideally with a colleague on a lunch break. Start to procure some of the key resources listed in the references for your personal library.

With the exception of Perry Stages 7, 8, and 9, Module 12 largely addresses the cognitive realm. However, when intellectual development occurs successfully, affective or emotional development occurs in parallel as one advances through higher cognitive stages (see Nuhfer, 2008). Metacognition or “thinking about thinking” should extend also to a reflective “thinking about feelings.” Since the 1990s, we have learned that our feelings about our learning–our affective component of thinking– influence how well we can learn. Further, our affective development or “emotional intelligence” determines how well that we can work with others by connecting with the through their feelings, which is a huge determinant in work and life success.

The second “Module 4—Enlisting the Affective Domain” helps students to recognize why the feelings and emotions that occur as one transitions into higher stages are important to consider and to understand. At the higher levels of development, one may even aspire to deeply understand another by acquiring the capacity for experiencing another’s feelings (Carper, 1978; Belenky and others, 1986).

Frequent inclusion of metacognitive components in our assignments is essential for providing students with the practice needed for achieving better thinking. Guiding students in what to “think about” can help students engage in challenges that arise at the finer scales of metadisciplines, disciplines, courses, and lessons. This requires us to go beyond articulating: “What should students learn and how can we assess this?”  by extending our planning to specify “What is essential that students should think about, and how can we mentor them into such thinking?”

REFERENCES CITED (additional references are provided in the two exercises furnished)

Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Belenky, M.F., B.M. Clinchy, N.R. Goldberger, and J.M. Tarule. (1986) Women’s Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind, New York: Basic Books. (Reprinted in 1997).

Carper, B. A. (1978). Fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing. Advances in Nursing Science 1 1 13–24.

Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), The nature of intelligence (pp. 231–235). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Journal of Adult Development (2004). Special volume of nine papers on the Perry legacy of cognitive development. Journal of Adult Development (11, 2) 59-161 Germantown NY: Periodicals Service Co.

Nuhfer, E. B (2008) The feeling of learning: Intellectual development and the affective domain: Educating in fractal patterns XXVI. National Teaching and Learning Forum, 18 (1) 7-11.

Perry, W. G., Jr. (1999). Forms of intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years. (Reprint of the original 1968 1st edition with introduction by L. Knefelkamp). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.


Metacognition for Guiding Students to Awareness of Higher-level Thinking (Part 1)

by Ed Nuhfer (Contact: enuhfer@earthlink.net; 208-241-5029)

When those unfamiliar with “metacognition” first learn the term, they usually hear: “Metacognition is thinking about thinking.” This is a condensation of John Flavell’s (1976) definition: “Metacognition refers to one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes or anything related to them…” Flavell’s definition reveals that students cannot engage in metacognition until they first possess a particular kind of knowledge. This reminds us that students do not innately understand what they need to be “thinking about” in the process of “thinking about thinking.” They need explicit guidance.

When students learn in most courses, they engage in a three-component effort toward achieving an education: (1) gaining content knowledge, (2) developing skills (which are usually specific to a discipline), and (3) gaining deeper understanding of the kinds of thinking or reasoning required for mastery of the challenges at hand. The American higher educational system generally does best at helping students achieve the first two. Many students have yet to even realize how these components differ, and few ever receive any instruction on mastering Component 3. Recently, Arum and Roksa (2011) summarized the effectiveness of American undergraduate education in developing students’ capacity for thinking. The record proved dismal and revealed that allowing the first two components to push aside the third produces serious consequences.

This imbalance has persisted for decades. Students often believe that education is primarily about gaining content knowledge—that the major distinction between freshmen and seniors is “Seniors know more facts.” Those who never get past this view will likely acquire a degree without acquiring any significantly increased ability to reason.

We faculty are also products of this imbalanced system, so it is not too surprising to hear so many of us embracing “covering the material” as a primary concern when planning our courses. Truth be told, many of us have so long taught to content and to skills necessary for working within the disciplines that we are less practiced in guiding our students to be reflective on how to improve their thinking. Adding metacognitive components to our assignments and lessons can provide the explicit guidance that students need. However, authoring these components will take many of us into new territory, and we should expect our first efforts to be awkward compared to what we will be authoring after a year of practice. Yet, doing such work and seeing students grow because of our efforts is exciting and very worthwhile. Now is the time to start.

Opportunities for developing metacognitive reflection exist at scales ranging from single-lesson assignments to large-scale considerations. In my first blog for this site, I chose to start with the large-scale considerations of what constitutes development of higher-level thinking skills.

 

What Research Reveals about Adult Thinking

More than five decades have passed since William Perry distinguished nine stages of thinking that successful adult intellectual development (Table 1) produces. The validity of his developmental model in general seems firmly established (Journal of Adult Development, 2004). Contained within this model is the story of how effective higher education improves students’ abilities to think and respond to challenges. Knowing this story enables us to be explicit in getting students aware of what ought to be happening to them if higher education is actually increasing their capacity for thinking. This research enables us to guide students in what to look for as they engage in the metacognition of understanding their own intellectual development.

Enhanced capacity to think develops over spans of several years. Small but important changes produced at the scale of single quarter or semester-long courses are normally imperceptible to students and instructors alike. Even the researchers who discovered the developmental stages passed through them as students, without realizing the nature of the changes that they were undergoing. For learning that occurs in the shorter period of a college course, it is easier to document measurable changes in learning of disciplinary content and the acquisition of specific skills than it is to assess changes in thinking. Research based on longitudinal studies of interviews with students as they changed over several years finally revealed the nature of these subtle changes and the sequence in which they occur (Table 1).

 

Table 1: A Summary of Perry’s Stages of Adult Intellectual Development

Stage 1 & 2 thinkers believe that all problems have right and wrong answers, that all answers can be furnished by authority (usually the teacher), and that ambiguity is a needless nuisance that obstructs getting at right answers.
Stage 3 thinkers realize that authority is fallible and does not have good answers for all questions. Thinkers at this stage respond by concluding that all opinions are equally valid and that arguments are just about proponents’ thinking differently. Evidence to the contrary does not change this response.
Stage 4 thinkers recognize that not all challenges have right or wrong answers, but they do not yet recognize frameworks through which to resolve how evidence best supports one among several competing arguments.
Stage 5 thinkers can use evidence. They also accept that evaluations that lead to best solutions can be relative to the context of the situation within which a problem occurs.
Stage 6 thinkers appreciate ambiguity as a legitimate quality of many issues. They can use evidence to explore alternatives. They recognize that the most reasonable answers often depend upon both context and value systems.
Stages 7, 8 and 9 thinkers incorporate metacognitive reflection in their reasoning, and they increasingly perceive how their personal values act alongside context and evidence to influence chosen decisions and actions.

In part 2 of this blog, we will provide metacognitive class exercises that help students to understand what occurs during intellectual development and why they must strive for more than learning content when gaining an education.


Using metacognition to uncover the substructure of moral issues

By John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

As a moral philosopher, my introductory courses revolve around various controversial issues (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, hate speech, same sex marriage, invasions of privacy in the name of national security or commerce). It is not hard to generate discussion about these topics, but important philosophical issues often to get lost in the mayhem. My students try to keep things straight by focusing on particular bits of content. They hope that a laundry list of terms and distinctions will help them make sense of particular ethical issues. For my part, however, most of the interesting stuff occurs behind the scenes. I don’t much care about which topics we discuss because at some level I don’t think that we are talking about the particular topical issues anyway. Details matter, of course, but I am most interested in helping students uncover the underlying value conflicts common to many ethical debates. This, I argue, requires developing metacognitive awareness.

Consider three possible positions on hate speech: (1) ban hate speech on college campuses because it harms individual students, (2) allow hate speech because banning it would violate the rights of individual students, (3) allow hate speech because banning it would do more harm than good in the long-run. Now consider three possible views on governmental surveillance in the name of national security: (1) allow governmental surveillance because it promotes an important good (e.g., national security), (2) ban governmental surveillance because it violates the rights of citizens (e.g., privacy), (3) ban governmental surveillance because it does more harm than good in the long-run. Note the similar underlying value structures of these positions. One favors well-being (e.g., protect individual students or a nation) over other considerations. Another favors rights (e.g., free-speech or privacy) over harms to well-being caused by the exercise of those rights. The last considers two forms of well-being (e.g., short-term and long-term).

As an instructor, I know that teaching students a process by which they can uncover underlying value structures requires scaffolding and plenty of opportunities to practice (Duron, Limback, & Waugh, 2006). Among my many activities and assignments, I ask students to answer the following questions about each of the readings: (1) what is the author’s core insight/thesis? (2) what are the core values at issue? (3) what are the central philosophical problems at issue? (4) what are the central topics at issue? It is not long before students understand that the last two questions are not actually redundant (e.g., well-being versus rights is not the same as hate speech versus governmental surveillance).

This exercise helps students focus on what I take to be most important, namely the underlying value structure. It also sets up the next exercise in which I ask students to use the resources found in one reading (e.g., hate speech) to answer the topical question raised in another (e.g., government surveillance).  This can be difficult until students recognize there are values common across different topical debates and they recognize the similarities in the philosophical substructure (e.g., well-being over rights, rights over well-being, long-term well-being over short-term well-being). Because it isn’t always easy to fit one view into the structure of another, this exercise leads to many questions about each of the readings. As the semester moves along, we discuss each reading in relation to those that came before.  By the end of the semester, we pick author names “at random” and discuss the connections between them.

With an understanding the underlying value structure of a particular moral issue, students can begin to “think like a philosopher.” It puts them in a position to move beyond mere coffee shop conversation and the rehash of media pundit drivel towards a more careful consideration of the issues. Through the process outlined above, they begin to notice when their discussions lapse into media drivel and thus when they need steer the conversation back towards the underlying value structure. Insofar as this exercise moves students towards the ability to consciously and explicitly understand the substructure of values underlying a wide variety of ethical issues, it moves them towards a more sophisticated understanding of those issues and towards a metacognitive awareness of their own learning.

References

Duron, R., Limbach, B., & Waugh, W. (2006). “Critical Thinking Framework for Any Discipline.” International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 17 (2), 160-166.