Metacognitian

Paul, A. (2012)  Do Students Know Enough Smart Learning Strategies?  KQED Blogs.  Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/03/do-students-know-enough-smart-learning-strategies/.

One thing that stands out to me from this article is the fact that students who struggle have poor understanding of the learning process.  One problem, I think, is that many teachers were "good" learners.  Often, their learning strategies happen subconsciously, without them really thinking about it.  However, what made this click was the example from the article:

“Students who use appropriate strategies to understand and remember what they read, such as underlining important parts of the texts or discussing what they read with other people, perform at least 73 points higher in the PISA assessment—that is, one full proficiency level or nearly two full school years—than students who use these strategies the least,” the PISA report reads.

Teachers can easily teach these strategies--explicitly--during class AND boost nonfiction reading comprehension.  Give students a specific portion of text to read.  Give them a quiz.  Then have them read it again, but this time ask them to highlight or underline what they think is important.  Then have them discuss in small groups what they highlighted or underlined.  Then let them take the quiz again.

Then TALK about why they did better on the 2nd quiz.  I mean, all the information was there the first time, right?  But when they actively engage--when they underline, highlight, talk about--they remember what they read more.  This is why teachers ask students to outline chapters, or bring in quotations, or do quick writes.  We are not torturing them (at least not on purpose), we are trying to help them connect with what they are reading.

And there isn't just one way to do this--students need to find what works for them.  But the most important thing is that they understand WHY they need to do this (because they will learn better).  That will help them evaluate what method works for them.

I actually think this should be an assignment--try different techniques to engage with text, reflect on each experience, and then discuss which one works best for you.

Also, I think there should be a class called "21st Century Literacy" that is taught by the TL and is a requirement for every student. :)  But I digress.

From the article, good questions for students to use to assess their metacognitian:

Students can assess their own awareness by asking themselves which of the following learning strategies they regularly use (the response to each item is ideally “yes”):

• I draw pictures or diagrams to help me understand this subject.
• I make up questions that I try to answer about this subject.
• When I am learning something new in this subject, I think back to what I already know about it.
• I discuss what I am doing in this subject with others.
• I practice things over and over until I know them well in this subject,
• I think about my thinking, to check if I understand the ideas in this subject.
• When I don’t understand something in this subject I go back over it again.
• I make a note of things that I don’t understand very well in this subject, so that I can follow them up.
• When I have finished an activity in this subject I look back to see how well I did.
• I organize my time to manage my learning in this subject.
• I make plans for how to do the activities in this subject.

"Just in Time" questions to drop into lessons:

• What is the topic for today’s lesson?
• What will be important ideas in today’s lesson?
• What do you already know about this topic?
• What can you relate this to?
• What will you do to remember the key ideas?
• Is there anything about this topic you don’t understand, or are not clear about?

One of my professors does this in her lectures.  Every so often, she "interrupts" the information in her pdf lecture with a question, activity, or reflection that forces us to engage with the concepts.  She is the only professor who posted written lectures I've seen do this in the entire MLIS program, and it has significantly increased my engagement in her class.