Teaching with Metacognition

Nancy Allen, Ph.D.College of Education

Qatar Universitynancya@qu.edu.qa

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Session Objectives• Identify key elements of metacognition. • Give a summary of the research related to

metacognition. • Describe how an instructor can use metacognition

in his/her own course preparation and teaching. • Explain how instructors can encourage students

to be self-regulated learners. • Modify current lessons/assignments to

incorporate metacognition.

What is metacognition?

• Usually defined as “Thinking about thinking.”• Preferred term:

Strategic Thinking

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Definitions• Metacognition

- literally means “beyond knowing”

- “an appreciation of what one already knows, together with a correct apprehension of the learning task and what knowledge and skills it requires, combined with the agility to make correct inferences about how to apply one’s strategic knowledge to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and reliably” (Taylor, 1999).

• Self-regulation – assessing one’s own comprehension and monitoring the thinking process

Metacognition• Most closely associated with a

teacher’s instructional practices.

• The teacher’s metacognitive practices, if done effectively, can lead to student self-regulation.

What does the research say?

• A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

• How People Learn: Mind, Experience, and School

(Bradsford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).

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What does the research say?

• The goal of education, then, is to promote people who can think for themselves and actively direct their own learning – but students must be taught to do that

• We must deliberately cause students to think about thinking, to deliberately develop thinking skills.

• Education in the past has served largely to IDENTIFY good thinkers. We must strive, instead, to teach all students how to be good thinkers.

(Bradsford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000)

What does the research say?

For at least two decades, researches have consistently shown that metacognition, or the awareness and regulation of the process of one’s thinking , is critical ingredient to successful learning.

(Lin, Schwartz, & Hatano, 2005; Freebern, & Meter,1998; Pressley, Etten, Yokoi, Freebern, & Meter, 1998; Hacker, Dunlosky, & Graesser, 1998; Flavell, 1987; Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983)

What does the research say?

• In the past, the focus was on deliberately teaching students metacognitive strategies.

• More recently, there has been an increase in the use of modeling and prompting (Lin, Swartz, & Hatano, 2005).

Metacognition Process

Identify goals

Evaluate current

knowledge/skills

Plan actions

Monitor progress

Monitor results

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What we need to know…

Facts

How

When

• Kinds of knowledge:

oDeclarative

o Procedural

oConditional

Activity 1• We are going to build a bridge to

Bahrain. What…o …knowledge do we need? o …kinds of processes will we need to be able to

do?

• Which of these do we already have? • Which will we need to acquire?• How will we acquire them?

Now you do it!1. Select an objective for your course. 2. Identify the assignment you will use to teach/assess

this objective. 3. Identify the declarative and procedural knowledge

necessary to complete the task. 4. Evaluate which knowledge/skills students already

have and identify how they may acquire the other ones.

• Discuss your work in small groups. Select one of the examples and someone to present for your group. “Assign” it to the rest of us, modeling metacognition.

Problems with the Process: Encoding

• Encoding refers to putting knowledge into long term memory.

Problems with the Process: Encoding

How can we avoid problems with encoding?

o Define relationships when teaching a concept.o Use concept mapping and other graphic

organizers. o “Think aloud” when modeling skills. o Provide opportunities for sharing

understanding among students. Let them talk. o Pre-test before testing.o Ask for writing or drawing explanations,

Problems with the Process: Encoding

Activity 2: Think-Pair-ShareDescribe what encoding means and how it can result in student under achievement.

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Problems with the Process: Clarifying

• Missing important data or not separating relevant from irrelevant data. (Example: basing an interpretation of a poem on just the first stanza)

• What strategies might be helpful to correct problems with encoding? o Modelo Practiceo Require outlines or drafts

• Example: • Compare and contrast the histories of

Pakistan and Indian during the first half of the 20th century.

• Suppose a water tank in the shape of a right circular cylinder is thirty feet long and eight feet in diameter. How much sheet metal was used in its construction?

• Draw a model of photosynthesis, label each part, and explain the steps.

Problems with the Process: Clarifying

Problems with the Process: Clarifying

• Missing important data or not separating relevant from irrelevant data. (Example: basing an interpretation of a poem on just the first stanza)

• What strategies might be helpful to correct problems with encoding? o Modelingo Practice

Errors in Operations• Failing to select the right sub-skills to apply.

(Example, when proofreading, reading just to see if it sounds right, rather than making separate passes that check for fragments, subject-verb mis-agreement, and other errors they have learned from experience they are likely to make.

SPECIFICALLY TEACH “reading for meaning” skills:• predicting • scanning • Using context clues* summarizing • KWL • note-sharing

Errors in Operations• Failing to divide a task into subparts.

(Example, jumping right to the final calculation in a math or physics problem)

• Model• Practice• Think-aloud

What steps will we need to follow? How would we break this into parts?What should I do first? Then what?

Errors in Goal Seeking

• Misrepresenting the task. (Example: Thinking they understand the task without reading or listening carefully.)

• Have them repeat the task in pairs. (Think-Pair-Share)

• Have them summarize. • Have the list knowledge, procedures, etc.

(Activity 1)

Errors in Cognitive Load

• Too many skills involved.

• Help the student separate the skills. • Give the student the self-confidence s/he needs to

be successful.

How to Teach Strategies

• Give the strategy a name.• Describe its importance.• Tell when it should be used and when it would not

be helpful. Give examples. • Explain why the strategy would in helping in that

situation. • Practice with students and give them

independent practice.

What the research says…

• Explicitly teaching study strategies in content courses improves learning. (Commander & Valeri-Gold, 2001; Ramp & Guffey, 1999; Chiang, 1998; El-Hindi, 1997; McKeachie, 1988).

• Few instructors explicitly teach study strategies; they seem to assume that students have already learned them in high school—but they haven’t. (McKeachie, 1988).

• Rote memorization is the usual learning strategy—and often the only strategy—employed by high school students when they go to college (Nist, 1993).

More Activities• Think Aloud• Note Taking• Concept Mapping

Remember…

Model

Teach

PracticeStrategic, successful thinking

References

• TaBradsford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (2000). How people learn: Mind, experience, and school. The National Academies Press. Available from the Internet at www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368

• Brown, A. L., Bransford, J. D., Ferrara, R. A., & Campione, J. C. (1983).Learning, remembering, and understanding. In J. H. Flavell & E.M.Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol.3. Cognitive development (4th ed., pp. 77–166). New York: Wiley.

• Chiang, L. H. (1998). Enhancing metacognitive skills through learning contracts. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-Western Educational Research Association, Chicago. (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED425 154).

• Commander, N. E., & Valeri-Gold, M. (2001). The learning portfolio: A valuable tool for increasing metacognitive awareness. The Learning Assistance Review 6(2), 5-18.

• El-Hindi, A. E. (1997). Connecting reading and writing: College learners’ metacognitive awareness. Journal of Developmental Education, 21(2), 10-17.

• Flavell, J. H. (1987). Speculations about the nature and development of metacognition. In Weinert, F. E., & Kluwe, R. H. (Eds.), \ Metacognition, motivation, and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

• Hacker, D. J., Dunlosky, J., & Graesser, A. C. (1998). Metacognition in educational theory and practice. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

• Lin, X; Schwartz, D. & Hatano, G. (2005). Toward teachers’ adaptive metacognition. Educational Psychologist, 40(4), 245-255.

• McKeachie, W. J. (1988). The need for study strategy training. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 3-9). New York: Academic Press.

• Nist, S. (1993). What the literature says about academic literacy. Georgia Journal of Reading, (Fall-Winter), 11-18. • Peirce, W. (2003). Metacognition: Study strategies, monitoring, and motivation. Available from the Internet at

http://academic.pgcc.edu/~wpeirce/MCCCTR/metacognition.htm• Pressley,M., Etten, S. V., Yokoi, L., Freebern, G.,&Meter, P. V. (1998). The metacognition of college studentship: A

grounded theory approach. In H. Dunlosky& A. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in educational theory and practice (pp. 347–367). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

• Ramp, L. C. & Guffey, J. S. (1999). The impact of metacognitive training on academic self-efficacy of selected underachieving college students. (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED432 607).

• Taylor, S. (1999). Better learning through better thinking: Developing students’ metacognitive abilities. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 30(1), 34ff. Retrieved November 9, 2002, from Expanded Academic Index ASAP.