The most effective way to teach a student how to study is to talk about it. This reflective, collaborative technique is a skill students will carry with them for life. It is a way to discuss thinking and goes beyond learning. To have students make meaning out of ideas is one of my primary goals as an educator. Jerrid Kruse writes about this in his article "Learning Theories: Pillars of Teacher Decision Making." In it, Kruse states that learning theories (behavioral and cognitive) must complement and support one another. Teachers must therefore make use of extending students' understanding through supportive steps in which she/he considers individual students' developmental levels, what they already know, and diverse ways to represent concepts.
According to B.F. Skinner, the teacher should improve the learning process by supplying immediate feedback to students and provide a feeling of increased accomplishment through positive and negative reinforcement. One of the most interesting thoughts I retained from our group discussion on Skinner was that it is not only the students who are receiving these reinforcers and, rather, the teacher receives a reward, too, when students answer questions correctly. It will therefore be my aim to never call on the students who always answer "correctly." Giving everyone a chance to answer questions in-class will be an important way to ensure that everyone understands the material and that I am teaching it in a comprehendible way.
Furthermore, Bloom's Taxonomy is a useful assessment tool that teacher's can use in order to provide a well-rounded education. This is because it reinforces various levels of thinking, from simple understanding to analysis to evaluation. If students are given different objectives of learning then they will be challenged to think in different ways as they apply their knowledge to various modes of synthesizing information.
In conclusion, "knowing about knowing" is a huge motivator of a well-rounded educational experience. Metacognition can take on many shapes and at its basis is a challenge to the mind. Metacognition inspires the mind to see patterns, solve problems, and self-reflect. With this reinforcement learning exists almost unconsciously as we learn to think, and then reflect, on our own thought-processes.
Kaitlyn,
ReplyDeleteOverall your reflection is robust and clear. I especially appreciate how you are delving into understanding the role of "going meta" to understand how you learn. You wrote:
"Metacognition inspires the mind to see patterns, solve problems, and self-reflect. With this reinforcement learning exists almost unconsciously as we learn to think, and then reflect, on our own thought-processes."
Yet we know that going meta actually means "outing" our cognition by verbalizing it or even creating a concept map. This last statement seems to say that you believe going meta to be a sub/un conscious act. I disagree.
Convince me otherwise. Or restate to further delve into the not only into how you believe meta cognition helps learning, but also how you plan to employ meta cognitive strategies in your teaching--maybe with an example.
Keep pressing!
GNA
I like the idea of metacognition, something introduced to me in our class, as we talked about "going behind" our own learning to understand how we learn. I think that metacognition helps learning, especially for special education students, because it helps learners become aware of their own cognitive processes. This is an efficient way of teaching because it allows students to rely upon, and become alert to, their own mode of thought. Once students realize how they thought of something they can continue doing it, and this becomes a part of their learning process, similar to "muscle memory."
ReplyDeleteAn example of this could be to discuss, out-loud, with students about how they studied for a math test. Students will hear each other's strategies and be cognizant of strategies that sound beneficial to them. As a teacher, I can contribute by speaking about efficient studying techniques, such as flash cards, rewriting the math problem , and double checking. Eventually, and with practice, these studying techniques will begin to be engraved in the student's mind. Rather then thinking about how to study they will have these skills, but it would not have happened without the initial metacognitive understanding.