Tapping into Students’ Learning
Awareness
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN
A.K.A
Metacognition
Metacognition
People’s knowledge of their own
learning and cognitive processes
Regulation of learning processes to
enhance learning and memory
Basically: the more met cognitively
sophisticated-the greater potential
for learning
Metacognitive Knowledge and Skills
Aware of one’s own learning and memory capabilities are, and of
what learning tasks can be accomplished
– You can’t do it all at once, learn to segment larger assignments
Knowing which learning strategies are effective and which are not
– How do you learn, what’s the best way to commit information to longterm memory
Plan an approach to learning that is likely to be successful
– Limit distractions, find your natural learning time of day
Use effective learning strategies
– Note taking, recording lectures, memorization, hands-on lab work
Monitor your present learning state
– Take time to review and double-check what you have learned
– Find and address areas of weakness
Know how to retrieve previously stored information
– Tie-in past knowledge to newly gained information
– It’s all about association
Metacognition….
Still confused?
It’s all about
thinking about
thinking
So just how should the students
think about thinking?
say in reading?
Clarify the purpose for reading something
–
Ask yourself, “why do I hope to learn from this text passage?”
then stop talking to yourself
Determine what is most important and focus on that
–
You only have so much time, get the facts, the big facts
Bring your prior knowledge into play, and associate possible examples
of the ideas presented
–
If you’re reading about Roman history, imagine how you would have made the
decisions to invade and conquer the world, what would you have done
differently?
Ask for clarification on ambiguous or unknown words or points of
interest
–
If you don’t know it, don’t skip it; write it down and look it up
Critically evaluate what you read, then stop…check for consistency,
review, and move on
Metacognitive thinking requires
-FOCUSIf you get distracted, STOP, reorganize or take a break
Don’t try fooling yourself, you can’t trick the mind past exhaustion
Better to learn it right once slowly then quickly learn it wrong over
and over again
Self-Regulated Learning
The process of setting standards and
goals for personal success
– Setting personal goals
– Controlling motivation
– Handling emotion
The process of self-regulated learning
1.
2.
3.
4.
Goal setting: identify, from the start, a desired end result for
the learning activity.
Know what you want to accomplish
Planning: determine how best to use the available time
Plan ahead!
Self-motivation: maintaining intrinsic motivation to complete
the task
It takes a variety of strategies to stay on task, use several
learning tools, don’t just stick to one
Attention Control: give the task at hand your full attention
Focus, clear your mind of distracting thoughts
Tune out the static
The process of self-regulated learning continued
5.
6.
7.
8.
Application of learning strategies: select the appropriate
approach to the type of learning to be committed
Passively reading about model trains doesn’t need the same level
as reading up on heart surgery -especially if you’re a doctor.
Self-monitoring: Creating check points to see whether any
progress is being made
Modification midway through the goal is OK, if you’re on the
wrong track, change it
Self-evaluation: assess the final outcome of one’s efforts
“Is what I have learned sufficient for the goals I have set?”
“Do I need more, or have can I streamline with less?”
Self-Reflection: Was all this work successful, have you satisfied
the goal, were there any areas of concern, how efficient was the
process?
Effective Learning and Study Strategies
So what’s a Strategy?
– A strategy is the intentional use of one
or more cognitive processes to
accomplish a particular learning task…
– In other words: knowing that in order to
be effective you’re going to have to
apply some of learning tools
– You can’t just “wing it”
In order for learning to be meaningful
you’re going to have to get
-TACTICAL!-
Learning strategies
are more
general/overall strategies of accomplishing a
goal.
Example: building a skyscraper requires planning to hire a
architect to design a model (you’re going to need to know
what to build)
Tactical learning
involves specific
tangible acts
-actually putting on a hardhat and stamping rivets
Tactical Techniques
Meaningful Learning
– Relating new material to knowledge
already stored in long-term memory
Elaboration
– The process of using prior knowledge to
interpret and expand on new material
Both techniques work hand-in-hand with
each other
Organization is Key
Organization is more than simply listing unrelated facts
Organization needs
-Structure-
Organization techniques
Start simple:
outlines
are a great way to chronologically
order a series of events.
great for lectures and textbook readings
However-if you can function without an outline, don’t bother
some people do perfectly well without them
Organization continued.
Graphic representations:
Maps
Flow Charts
Pie Charts
Matrix
Visual learning=great tactic
100
80
60
40
20
0
North
East
1st Qtr
2nd
Qtr
3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
Organization continued.
Note Taking: encoding of material
combines visual and verbal learning skills
It’s-za’fact: Students who take notes -but didn’t
review- still remember more!
Effective Note taking depends on:
consistency with overall goal
summarize main ideas
clear understanding to student
include details that support the ideas
Great notes include student
elaborations of material –your thoughts
Identify Important Information
Students encounter more information than can be stored in
long-term memory
“Too much information about nothing, too much educational
rap,” -Bob Dylan.
Filter
the necessary from the unnecessary, the
important details from the trivial
Underline________________ useful information
Highlight the facts, but don’t overdo it.
-it’s a highlighter not a paint roller
Summarizing
Summarize: condense and integrate
Identify super and subordinate ideas
Delete trivial and redundant information
Find supporting information for each main idea
Identify a topic sentence for each paragraph or
section
Summarizing ultimately helps to student learn and
remember classroom material more effectively
Comprehension Monitoring
Effective learners periodically check to be sure they are
understanding and remembering what they hear in class and read
in a textbook –and reread or ask questions when they encounter
difficulty
In other words: check to be sure you have a strong footing
before you jump onto new information.
Ask questions, critically review the material before you move onto
more challenging concepts/ideas
DANGER: If you think you have know something but actually
misunderstand the message you have an:
-Illusion of knowing-
Illusion of Knowing
When students think they know class material, they are less
likely to study it
Students who have the illusion of knowing will stop studying
prematurely
To combat I-of-K
-Draw pictures or diagrams of material studied
-Formulate questions before a lesson or reading assignment
-Self-questioning: who, what, when…
-Test your confidence in the material
short quiz, flash cards, matching, and ol’ memorization
So why don’t students always use
effective strategies
Uninformed/misinformed about effective strategies
Epistemological (what we think knowledge is) beliefs that
tend to underestimate or misrepresent a learning task
Mistakenly believe they already are effective strategists
Little relevant prior knowledge to draw upon
Assigned learning tasks that do not lead to sophisticated
strategies
Goals are inconsistent with effective learning
Assume sophisticated learning strategies require too much
effort to make them worthwhile
Low self-efficiency about their ability to learn in an
academic setting
Promoting Effective Learning and Study Strategies
Students learn strategies more effectively when those
strategies are taught within the context of the specific
subject domains and actual academic learning tasks
– The teacher should suggest/instruct/provide questions to the
class in various ways or effective learning
Students can use sophisticated learning strategies only
when they have a knowledge base to which they can relate
new material
– Engage the students in drawing inferences and clarifying
ambiguities
Students should learn a wide variety of strategies, as well
as the situations in which each one is appropriate
– “different strokes for different folks,” what works well for one
person/situation may not be an across-the-board solution
Effective strategies should be practiced with a variety of
tasks –on an ongoing basis
– Learn to apply to strategy to many different tasks over a
period of time
Promoting Effective Learning and Study Strategies
Strategy instruction should include covert as well as overt
strategies
– The immediate mastery of studying book-work should carry on into
more advanced lifelong learning
Teachers can model effective strategies by thinking aloud about
new material
– Use clever and interesting correlations to help the students associate
learning to memorable references
Teachers should scaffold students’ initial attempts at using new
strategies, gradually phasing out the scaffolding as students
become more proficient
– A.K.A.-when the time comes take off the training wheels
Students can often learn effective strategies by working
cooperatively with their classmates
– Two brains are better than one
Students must understand why the study skills they are being
taught are helpful
– You need to see the value; why go to the extra effort to learn
something new if it has no applicable value
Promoting Effective Learning and Study Strategies
Students should have epistemological beliefs that are
consistent with effective strategies
– Students needs a little push, or rather feel the need to apply
the study skills (epistemic doubt)…a good thing
Students should develop mechanisms for monitoring and
evaluating their own learning
–
–
–
–
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Set specific goals
Keep ongoing records of performance
Provide criteria to judge performance
Delay feedback to first allow student introspection
Encourage and reinforce
Students must believe that, with sufficient effort and
appropriate strategies, they can learn and understand
challenging material
– I think I can…I think I can…I think I can…
Works Cited
Ormrod, J. (2004). Chapter 7 Social
Cognitive Theory. Human Learning 4th
ed. New Jersey. Pearson Merrill
Prentice Hall.