Metacognition Readings
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Metacognition Readings
Excerpts from the Focusing on Learning CD
Table of Contents
Discussion of Metacognition in How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and
Discussion of Metacognition in Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced
Discussion of Metacognition in Knowing What Students Know: The Science and
NRC Report:
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2000)
Chapter 2: How Experts Differ from Novices: pages 29-50
Chapter 3: Learning and Transfer: pages 51-78
Chapter 4: How Children Learn: pages 79-113
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NRC Report:
Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools (2002)
Center for Education
Recommendation 3: Learning Principles
Programs of advanced study in science and mathematics must be made consistent with findings from recent research on how people learn. These findings include the role of students’ prior knowledge and misconceptions in building a conceptual structure, the importance of student motivation and self-monitoring of learning (metacognition), and the substantial differences among learners. (page 13)
Principle 3: Metacognition
Learning is facilitated through the use of metacognitive strategies that identify, monitor, and regulate cognitive processes.
To be effective problem solvers and learners, students need to determine what they already know and what else they need to know in any given situation. They must consider both factual knowledge—about the task, their goals, and their abilities—and strategic knowledge about how and when to use a specific procedure to solve the problem at hand
(Ferrari and Sternberg, 1998). In other words, to be effective problem solvers, students must be metacognitive . Empirical studies show that students who are metacognitively aware perform better than those who are not (Garner and Alexander, 1989; Schoenfeld,
1987).
Metacognition is an important aspect of students’ intellectual development that enables them to benefit from instruction (Carr, Kurtz, Schneider, Turner, and Borkowski, 1989;
Flavell, 1979; Garner, 1987; Novak, 1985; Van Zile-Tamsen, 1996) and helps them know what to do when things are not going as expected (Schoenfeld, 1983; Skemp, 1978,
1979). For example, research demonstrates that students with better-developed metacognitive strategies will abandon an unproductive problem-solving strategy very quickly and substitute a more productive one, whereas students with less effective metacognitive skills will continue to use the same strategy long after it has failed to produce results (Gobert and Clement, 1999). The basic metacognitive strategies include
(1) connecting new information to former knowledge; (2) selecting thinking strategies deliberately; and (3) planning, monitoring, and evaluating thinking processes (Dirkes,
1985).
Experts have highly developed metacognitive skills related to their specific area of expertise. If students in a subject area are to develop problem solving strategies consistent with the ways in which experts in the discipline approach problems, one important goal of advanced study should be to help students become more metacognitive. Fortunately, research indicates that students’ metacognitive abilities can be developed through explicit instruction and through opportunities to observe teachers or other content experts as they solve problems and consider ideas while making their thinking visible to those observing
(Collins and Smith, 1982; Lester et al., 1994; Schoenfeld, 1983, 1985). Having students
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construct concept maps2 for a topic of study can also provide powerful metacognitive insights, especially when students work in teams of three or more (see Box 6-2 for a discussion of concept maps). It is important to note that the teaching of metacognitive skills is often best accomplished in specific content areas since the ability to monitor one’s understanding is closely tied to the activities and questions that are central to domain-specific knowledge and expertise (NRC, 2000b). (pages 122-23)
BOX 7-2 Principles of Instruction for Understanding
Teaching for conceptual understanding in advanced mathematics and science courses:
• Maintains students’ focus on the central organizing themes and underlying concepts of the discipline.
• Is based on careful consideration of what students already know, their ideas and ways of understanding the world, and the patterns of practice they bring with them into the classroom.
• Focuses on detecting, making visible, and addressing students’ often fragile, underdeveloped understandings and misconceptions.
• Reflects an understanding of differences in students’ interests, motivations, preferences, knowledge, and abilities.
• Is designed to provide the appropriate degree of explicitness for the situation and the abilities of the learners.
• Recognizes students’ preferences for and varying abilities to process different symbol systems, such as language (written and spoken), images, and numerical representations, by employing multiple representations during instruction.
• Engages students in worthwhile tasks that provide access to powerful mathematical and scientific ideas and practices; moves students to see past the surface features of problems to the deeper, more fundamental principles; and develops their conceptual understanding and skills.
• Structures learning environments in which students can work collaboratively to gain experience in using the ways of thinking and speaking used by experts in the discipline.
• Orchestrates classroom discourse so that students can make conjectures, present solutions, and argue about the validity of claims, thus helping them explore old understandings in new ways, reveal misconceptions, and generalize and transfer their learning to new problems or more robust understandings.
• Provides explicit instruction in metacognition as part of teaching in the discipline.
• Uses various kinds of formal and informal formative assessments to monitor students’ understanding and target instruction effectively.
• Creates expectations and social norms for the classroom that allow students to experience success and develop confidence in their abilities to learn.
(page 139)
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METACOGNITION
Advanced study courses present a significant opportunity for providing students with instruction in metacognition, or self-monitoring of learning (Mintzes, Wandersee, and
Novak, 2000). Research has shown that strong metacognitive skills are characteristic of experts in any field, as well as of effective school-age learners, and that they are developed most effectively in the context of a discipline. For example, White and
Frederickson (1998) demonstrate that teaching students metacognitive strategies in physics improves their understandings of the concepts of that discipline. Similarly,
Schoenfeld (1983, 1984, 1991) shows that a metacognitive approach to instruction improves students’ heuristic methods for mathematical problem solving. Minimally, AP and IB course materials should recognize proficiency in metacognition as a goal of advanced study. Teachers should elicit metacognitive activity in classroom discourse by posing questions and modeling reasoning. In addition, suitable opportunities for students to demonstrate metacognitive strategies should be built into curricular materials and assessments. The goal should be to help students become proficient in monitoring their own thinking and learning.
Although the AP course outlines and professional development programs for mathematics and science teachers currently pay little explicit attention to metacognition, the teachers’ guides suggest that teachers help students develop skills that are important components of metacognitive strategies. For example, according to the teacher’s guide for AP chemistry (Mullins, 1994, p. 8), “It would be unreasonable to expect that all AP students come into the class with strong analytical and critical thinking skills; therefore the AP teacher must strive to strengthen these skills within the students. A process of problem solving should be continually modeled and reinforced.” Likewise, the teacher’s guide for AP calculus (Kennedy, 1997, p. 48) suggests that “teacher modeling of questioning and exploration, multiple approaches to problem solving, correct use of terminology, clarity of work, and openness to the ideas of others are all essential.” The committee views these suggestions as positive steps toward addressing the important role of metacognition. However, the statements in the teacher’s guides are isolated, and the committee believes the importance of metacognition currently is substantially underrepresented in both the teacher’s guides and the types of questions students encounter on the final AP examinations in science. As is the case for principled conceptual knowledge, an instructional emphasis on metacognition will not be realized until that emphasis is reflected in the assessments.
The committee views as promising the fact that in future AP calculus examinations, students will be required to justify and explain their solutions to all calculator problems.
Scoring rubrics will consider both the correctness of the solution and whether the reasons for using the selected procedures are justified. Given the strong influence of the assessments on the content and structure of curriculum and instruction, it is likely that AP calculus teachers will provide frequent opportunities for students to make their thinking visible.
The committee commends the AP calculus development committee for its attention to this important principle of learning and encourages other AP development committees to
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follow suit.
The IB program also provides significant opportunities for students to learn and develop metacognitive skills. As discussed in Chapter 4, the IB Theory of Knowledge course 9 is designed to provide students with knowledge about cognitive processes and strategies, practice in using those strategies, and opportunities to evaluate the outcomes of their efforts. “It encourages students to become aware of themselves as thinkers, to become aware of the complexity of knowledge, and to recognize the need to act responsibly in an increasingly interconnected world” (IBO, 2000b, p. 3). (pages 164 – 166)
9This course is a requirement for students seeking an IB Diploma (see Chapter 4, this volume, for other requirements).
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NRC Report:
Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment
(2001)
Center for Education
The Importance of Metacognition
In his book on unified theories of cognition, Newell (1990) points out that there are two layers of problem solving—applying a strategy to the problem at hand, and selecting and monitoring that strategy. Good problem solving, Newell observed, often depends as much on the selection and monitoring of a strategy as on its execution. The term metacognition
(literally “thinking about thinking”) is commonly used to refer to the selection and monitoring processes, as well as to more general activities of reflecting on and directing one’s own thinking.
Experts have strong metacognitive skills (Hatano, 1990). They monitor their problem solving, question limitations in their knowledge, and avoid overly simplistic interpretations of a problem. In the course of learning and problem solving, experts display certain kinds of regulatory performance, such as knowing when to apply a procedure or rule, predicting the correctness or outcomes of an action, planning ahead, and efficiently apportioning cognitive resources and time. This capability for selfregulation and self-instruction enables advanced learners to profit a great deal from work and practice by themselves and in group efforts.
Metacognition depends on two things: knowing one’s mental capabilities and being able to step back from problem-solving activities to evaluate one’s progress. Consider the familiar situation of forgetting the name of a person to whom one was introduced only a few minutes ago. There are simple metacognitive tricks for avoiding this situation, including asking the person for a business card and then reading it immediately instead of putting it in one’s pocket. Metacognition is crucial to effective thinking and competent performance. Studies of metacognition have shown that people who monitor their own understanding during the learning phase of an experiment show better recall performance when their memories are tested (Nelson, 1996). Similar metacognitive strategies distinguish stronger from less competent learners. Strong learners can explain which strategies they used to solve a problem and why, while less competent students monitor their own thinking sporadically and ineffectively and offer incomplete explanations (Chi,
Bassok, Lewis, Reiman, and Glaser, 1989; Chi and VanLehn, 1991). Good problem solvers will try another strategy if one is not working, while poor problem solvers will hold to a strategy long after it has failed. Likewise, good writers will think about how a hypothetical audience might read their work and revise parts that do not convey their meaning (Hayes and Flower, 1986).
There is ample evidence that metacognition develops over the school years; for example, older children are better than younger ones at planning for tasks they are asked to do
(Karmiloff-Smith, 1979). Metacognitive skills can also be taught. For example, people can learn mental devices that help them stay on task, monitor their own progress, reflect
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on their strengths and weaknesses, and self-correct errors. It is important to note, however, that the teaching of metacognitive skills is often best accomplished in specific content areas since the ability to monitor one’s understanding is closely tied to domain-specific knowledge and expertise (NRC, 1999).
Implications for Assessment
Studies of expert-novice differences in subject domains illuminate critical features of proficiency that should be the targets for assessment. The study of expertise reinforces the point made earlier about the importance of assessing the nature of the knowledge that an individual has in long-term memory. Experts in a subject domain have extensive factual and procedural knowledge, and they typically organize that knowledge into schemas that support pattern recognition and the rapid retrieval and application of knowledge.
As noted above, one of the most important aspects of cognition is metacognition—the process of reflecting on and directing one’s own thinking. Metacognition is crucial to effective thinking and problem solving and is one of the hallmarks of expertise in specific areas of knowledge and skill. Experts use metacognitive strategies for monitoring understanding during problem solving and for performing self-correction. Assessment of knowledge and skill in any given academic domain should therefore attempt to determine whether an individual has good metacognitive skills.
(pages 78 – 79)
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OTHER RESOURCES
Billmeyer, R. and Barton, M.L.. 1998. Teaching Reading in the Content Areas - If Not
Me, Then Who?
2nd Edition. Aurora, CO: MidContinental Regional Eisenhower
Laboratory (MCREL).
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