Metacognition

Helping students to self-regulate

Definitions

•      Metacognition - literally “beyond knowing”, knowing what one knows and doesn’t know - promoting a student’s ability to self-monitor levels of understanding and predict how well (s)he will do on a particular task.

•      Self-regulation - students monitoring their own comprehension and assessing their own abilities without teacher help.

Metacognition

•      Most closely associated with a teacher’s instructional practices.

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

Self-Regulation

•      A process in which a person actively searches for relationships and patterns to resolve contradictions or bring coherence out of a set of experiences.

•      Contradictions lead to disequilibrium, accommodation, and assimilation.

•      Self-regulation begins with exploration, and progresses through invention and application.

•      The work of self-regulation calls for students to identify patterns, draw of inferences, and make comparisons.

•      Self-regulation is essential in order to increase both declarative and procedural knowledge.

Solid Evidence

•      There is ample PER evidence to show that metacognition and self-regulatory practices aid significantly in student learning in PHY.

•      Heuristic approaches are often the best, and each student has his or her own.

•      Highly effective if integrated into a course (e.g., students talk about practices).

Instructional Strategies - 1

•      Characterize performances (S=A_iA_lME₁E₂)

•      Make students aware they are responsible for their own learning.

•      State objectives or learning outcomes.

•      Provide practice tests and homework.

•      Provide guided practice before homework.

•      Have students participate in complex tasks such as presentations and report writing.

Instructional Strategies - 2

•      Monitor student progress; provide feedback

•      Distinguish deep and surface learning

•      Promote reciprocal teaching and reading.

•      Provide info about reading techniques.

•      Teach content in multiple contexts - reading, discussion, labs, demos, presentations.

•      Provide abstract representations.

Instructional Strategies - 3

•      Address preconceptions.

•      Identify relevant knowledge and skills.

•      Explicitly define and characterize metacognitive and self-regulatory approaches.

•      Teach mastery skills - provide information about study skills, time and effort.

•      Set high expectations for student performance.

Instructional Strategies - 4

•      Use mnemonics (e.g., F = mN, Roy G. Biv)

•      Informal assessment should focus on making students’ thinking visible to both teachers and students.

•      Encourage reflection and revision.

•      Provide timely and useful feedback.

•      Planning for instruction should include an analysis of required knowledge and skills required for problem solving.

Self-Regulatory Strategies - 1

•      Compare performance against a set of performance standards (e.g., salient behaviors)

•      Compare performance against stated objectives

•      Predict outcomes on various tasks

•      Reciprocal reading

•      Reciprocal teaching

Self-Regulatory Strategies - 2

•      Note failures to comprehend

•      Practice tests

•      Planning ahead - apportion time and memory

•      Promote active listening

•      Analysis of problem solving - explain what was done and why

Simple Strategies

•      Planning

•      Monitoring

•      Evaluating

•      Resourcing

•      Grouping

•      Note taking

•      Pre-testing

•      Complex tasks

•      Summarizing

•      Deduction/induction

•      Concept mapping

•      Peer instruction

•      Elaboration

•      Socratic dialogues

•      KWL structures

•      Graphical organizers