November « 2014 « learntolearn

Some Meta Videos

by Fran

Meta links courtesy of Caitlin Bianchi, Williston Central School

The Journey to Excellent: Scotland
Thinking and Metacognition: Carroll McGuinness (7 Minutes)
An excerpt from the Transcript

Transcript (Three Stages: Plan, Monitor, Evaluate)
There is another kind of thinking that has been increasingly recognised as being important in this effort to teach thinking. And it’s a thing we call metacognition or thinking about the thinking, because as well as doing the thinking all of those good things that I have outlined – we also have to recognise that we are doing it. And we are back to trying to be able to use those ways of thinking in new contexts. And unless those ways of thinking are made fairly visible and explicit to us – either just after we have done it or while we are doing it, we may not even know we have done it. So, therefore, we are not equipped to use it again in a new context, and that is really what this thinking about thinking is for.
http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/videos/expertspeakers/metacognitioncarolmcguinness.asp
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Metacognition: Stephen Heppell (3 Minutes)
Follow Stephen Heppell’s views as he explores how metacognition can help a young person to become a co-producer and explorer of their learning, rather than a consumer.
http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/videos/expertspeakers/metacognitionstephenheppell.asp
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Dyland William: Metacogntion (2.5 minutes)
Watch Dylan Wiliam talk about the importance of young people being able to reflect on their learning and how teachers can utilise these insights.
http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/videos/expertspeakers/metacognitiondylanwiliam.asp
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Note that this last video focuses on the affective dimensions of “Metacogntion” sometimes referred to as “Hot Cognition” (more later)

Dyland Williams: Learning About Learning : Self-Efficacy(2 Minutes)
Hear Dylan Wiliam describe the impact and the dangers of implementing strategies aimed at raising the self-esteem of young people without increasing their self-efficacy.
http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/videos/expertspeakers/selfefficacydylanwiliam.asp

Frameworks/Research Learning How to Learn Learning Process (Operations) Metacognition Remembering (R)

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When Does Metacognition Begin?

by Fran

I’d like to take 3 points of departure on this topic: Defining Metacognition, Expanding the concept, One other related concept.

First, when does the concept of “metacognition” first appear in the literature?

The earliest work (theory, research, writing) on metacognition began with the work of John Flavell, a student of Piaget, when he published an article in 1971 and used the term “metamemory.” Here’s the link and a few brief excerpts:

http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/constructivism/flavell.html

“John Flavell of Stanford University is regarded as a foundation researcher in metacognition.”

“Flavell (1971) used the term metamemory in regard to an individual’s ability to manage and monitor the input, storage, search and retrieval of the contents of his own memory. Flavell invited the academic community to come forth with additional metamemory research, and this theme of metacognitive research has continued more than thirty years later…..”

“In his 1976 article, Flavell recognized that metacognition consisted of both monitoring and regulation aspects. It was here that the term metacognition was first formally used in the title of his paper….”

“….In the 1979 paper, Flavell proposed a formal model of metacognitive monitoring to include four classes of phenomena and their relationships. The four classes included (a) metacognitive knowledge, (b) metacognitive experiences, (c) tasks or goals, and (d) strategies or activities….”
Second, I’d note an updating of the concept in the form of a much broader concept “Theory of Mind.”

Second, has the concept been expanded?

In 1999, Flavell published an article on Cognitive Development: “Children’s Knowledge About the Mind” that took a much broader look at what children understood about their own minds, tracing development from infancy. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1999. 50:21.45
Copyright © 1999 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/pylyshyn/Proseminar08/Flavell.pdf

Third, I’d like to reference a narrower concept that addresses how children think about and “control” their own learning: Executive Function. Here I offer a 5 minute video from Harvard’s

Center on the Developing Child that looks at young children and what they know about learning.

Frameworks/Research Learning How to Learn Learning Process (Operations) Metacognition Theories of Mind Uncategorized

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Meta Connections online

by Fran

I came across a blog on my email and thought it was a good match for my work on Metacogntion.

I believe that the following blog post on Edutopia of Giving Student Voice and Choice by Rebecca Alber reflects many of the Meta Learning Foundations:

Meta Learning Foundations: Learning to Learn Blog
This P.O.R.T.A.L.S. Lesson Plan format is based on five foundational beliefs.
(1) Students are capable of learning to direct their own learning.
(2) Learning is situated in particular contexts and is best when motivated by authentic goals and outcomes.
(3) Learning is most successful when it addresses both the strengths and challenges of individual learners.
(4) Students learn about something (concept/idea/skill/process) and use a variety of cognitive and affective processes to accomplish that learning.
(5) Building a learning community in the classroom/school benefits all learners.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/five-strategies-more-voice-choice-students-rebecca-alber
“Two educational theorists who inform my thinking about co-constructing knowledge are Vygotsky and Freire. Both saw learning as a social act, where teachers and students dialogued and all created knowledge together, rather than teachers filling the students with content and information as if they were empty vessels”
(5) Building a learning community in the classroom/school benefits all learners.

#1) Stuff We Want to Know About
“Brainstorm an on-going class list of “stuff” they want to know about and are interested in — a phenomena, an event, a law, for example. If you are a science, math, or history teacher, you can ask that it be about those topics, but I also encourage you to have it be about anything (and then you can find connections to content later). Inquiry is a skill all teachers should build regardless of content..”
(1) Students are capable of learning to direct their own learning.
(2) Learning is situated in particular contexts and is best when motivated by authentic goals and outcomes.

#3) Assessing Their Needs & Wants
”We should never underestimate the power of the five-point Likert scale as a quick, quantitative measure to see where students are. You can create several statements for a unit of study to gauge student interest first, and then their understanding and experience with the content, materials, activities….”
(3) Learning is most successful when it addresses both the strengths and challenges of individual learners.

#4) Think-Alouds
Model for students your learning as you read aloud an article on a current event or a topic of study. For example, as you read, pause, asking questions and making comments and connections to things you already know or even things you’ve explored as a class. Then have students do the same with a partner, then eventually in groups of three or four. For high school students, I like Kelly Gallagher’s Article of the Week he uses with his high school students. Building the prior knowledge of students is also part of our job — and not just knowledge about the content we teach, but also about the world.
(4) Students learn about something (concept/idea/skill/process) and use a variety of cognitive and affective processes to accomplish that learning.

#5) Project Options & Self-Grading
“When we think about how this sounds, “You will have several projects to choose from,” instead of, “You will create a tri-fold poster…” it might remind us that no matter the age, we all like to have choices especially when it comes to demonstrating our skills and abilities….”
(1) Students are capable of learning to direct their own learning.