Metacognition: Supporting a Thinking Classroom Connie Wehmeyer, Ph.D.

The term "metacognition" is most often associated with John Flavell, (1979). According to Flavell (1979, 1987), metacognition consists of both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive experiences or regulation. Metacognitive knowledge refers to acquired knowledge about cognitive processes, knowledge that can be used to control cognitive processes. Flavell further divides metacognitive knowledge into three categories: knowledge of person variables, task variables and strategy variables

24 + 43 Cognition- knowledge or skill to carry out a task.

Objectives: 1. What is metacognition? 2. How do I teach my students about metacognition? 3. What metacognitive strategies should I use?

Student Metacognitive Strategies Which statement best describes you? Assess yourself. I am a Novice I am just starting to learn this and I don’t really understand it yet. I am an Apprentice I am starting to get it, but I still need someone to coach me through it. I am a Practitioner I can mostly do it myself, but I sometime mess up or get stuck. I am an Expert I understand it well and I could thoroughly teach it to someone else.

Learners can think before they enter a classroom Learners can think before they enter a classroom. Educator’s role is to teach them to think in different ways and to think more effectively.

Under NCLB Teachers and students approached content, not as a mode of thinking, not as a system for thought, or even as a system of thought, but rather as a sequence of stuff to be routinely "covered" and committed to memory. Consequences: no basis for intellectual growth, no deep structures of knowledge formed, no basis for long term grasp and control.

Common Core Standards The Common Core Standards require students to think and communicate their thinking in order to demonstrate understanding of complex text, and conceptual mathematics.

Why: Confronted with Real World Problems

So, what can teachers do to support student thinking? Problem Solvers Critical Thinkers Precise Persevere Think with others Utilize limited resources

Lenoir County Public Schools 4/15/2017 Embed within our Instructional Model? Target Data Analysis Teach all students Metacognitive Strategies Collaboration Management Learning Strategies Engaging Thinking For All Students 4/15/2017 Tezella G. Cline, 2006 Professional Development - 2010

What is Metacognition? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mVE21Qh Y-lI

“thinking about your thinking” What is Metacognition? “thinking about your thinking” Our ability to know what we know and what we do not know; how I think; and what helps me learn. Person variables: What one recognizes about his or her strengths and weaknesses in learning and processing information. Task variables: What one knows or can figure out about the nature of a task and the processing demands required to complete the task. Strategy variables: The strategies a person has “at the ready” to apply in a flexible way to successfully accomplish a task; For example: “I know that I (person variable) have difficulty with word problems (task variable), so I will answer the computational problems first and save the word problems for last (strategy variable).” Knowledge about one's own cognitive system; essential skill for learning to learn The term "metacognition" is most often associated with John Flavell, (1979). According to Flavell (1979, 1987), metacognition consists of both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive experiences or regulation. Metacognitive knowledge refers to acquired knowledge about cognitive processes, knowledge that can be used to control cognitive processes. Flavell further divides metacognitive knowledge into three categories: knowledge of person variables, task variables and strategy variables For example, knowledge that it will take more time to read, comprehend, and remember a technical article than it will a similar-length passage from a novel. for example, using a glossary to look up unfamiliar words, or recognizing that sometimes one has to reread a paragraph several times before it makes sense

“how to regulate your thinking” What is Metacognition? “how to regulate your thinking” What I do to help me think and learn: plan a strategy for producing what information is needed monitor the steps and strategies during the action of problem solving; and reflect on and evaluate the productiveness of our own thinking. (Dirkes,1985) Knowledge about one's own cognitive system; essential skill for learning to learn

Who practices Metacognition? Plan the lesson (content, instructional strategy, checking for understanding) to keep you on track. Monitoring the plan over a period of time –to make adjustments. Reflect back to make judgments Evaluate the plan upon its completion to determine future changes.

Who else?

Not everyone John Flavell, 1979 50% to 66% of the world’s population engage in metacognition John Flavell, 1979 Some children have no ideas of what they should do when they confront a problem and are often unable to explain their strategies of decision making Sternberg and Wagner, 1982

The result of not thinking before we attempt to solve real world problems

Not everyone Teacher asks “How did you solve that problem? “ What strategies did you have in mind? “Tell us what went on in your head to come up with that conclusion? “What part do you not understand? Student response “I don’t know, I just did it.”

“ Students without metacognitive approaches are essentially learners without direction or opportunity to review their progress, accomplishments, and future directions.” O’Mally, Chamot, Stewner-Mazanaares, Russo, & Kupper, 1985, p.56

Benefits to Students with Learning Disabilities When metacognitive strategies are explicitly taught they can support students information retrieval. (Lenz, Ellis, & Scanlon, 1996). Moreover, students possess a powerful learning tool that builds learning independence. Confronted with a problem-solving situation, students can implement metacognitive strategies when they have difficulty remembering how to solve a particular problem. As students learn, practice, and independently use metacognitive strategies, these strategies often become integrated into these students’ learning repertoires. (Mercer & Mercer, 1993 For many students who have learning problems, their inability to efficiently retrieve information previously stored in memory negatively impacts their ability to accurately express what they know.

Reading Comprehension and Metacognition Awareness and monitoring are in itself what it means to be metacognitive during the process of reading.

Reading Task Reading a passage and our minds wander from the pages. We see the words but no meaning is being produced. Suddenly we realize that we are not concentrating and that we've lost contact with the meaning of the text. How do we recover? The inner awareness and the strategy of recovery are components of metacognition. What do you do? Who taught you to do those things?

Capacities of a Literate Individual They demonstrate independence. They build strong content knowledge. They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline. They comprehend as well as critique. They value evidence. They use technology and digital media strategically and capably. They come to understand other perspectives and cultures. Refer to your list

The National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000), Effectiveness of systematic direct instruction of multiple metacognitive strategies designed to assist students in comprehending of expository text and vocabulary. Binomial Effect Size Display 40% difference in gains in vocabulary between the two groups and a 20% difference in gains in reading comprehension in just five weeks. This research project took place in six third-grade classrooms in two urban elementary schools in the southwest United States that were deemed demographically and academically equal by the school district's research department. One school was selected as the intervention school and the other school was the comparison school. The students in both schools were pretested before the five-week study and posttested at the end of the study. the effect size of .40. Anything above such an effect size has more of an impact than just a typical year of academic experience and student growth. And an effect size of 1.0 or better is equivalent to advancing the student’s achievement level by approximately a full grade.

Visible Learning For Teaching John Hattie rank orders factors that have the greatest effect size in student achievement. Meta-cognitive strategies taught and used have an effect size of .69 the effect size of .40 the effect size of .40. Anything above such an effect size has more of an impact than just a typical year of academic experience and student growth. And an effect size of 1.0 or better is equivalent to advancing the student’s achievement level by approximately a full grade.

How do we teach students to use metacognition How do we teach students to use metacognition? Teach the Metacognitive Process: Plan for thinking Clear about the task Determine strategies: graphic organizer, take notes, draw a picture or diagram, identify what you already know Set goals Determine a sequence Set deadlines Identify possible distract actions Determine how to overcome distractions

Metacognitive Process: Monitor and adjust plan: Am I making progress on the task thinking about the learning and identify the problem comprehending what I read or is said and identify the problem if you are not making adjusts to help me

Metacognitive Process: Self Reflect and Evaluate : How well did I accomplish my task manage my time stay on task use strategies to help me

Behaviors and Disposition of Successful Students: Using Metacognitive Strategies Evaluating work - recognizing strengths and weaknesses of their work helps them to improve Self-assessing - students think about how well they did learning this particular lesson Self-questioning - students ask themselves questions to deepen their understanding during a lesson Selecting strategies - students determine which strategies would be most appropriate for a task Selective thinking - students follow only one determined line of thinking to solve a problem Critiquing - students provide constructive feedback to classmates Revising - students improve their own work after receiving the constructive feedback By showing them how to think about their thinking, teachers change the dialogue in students' heads into a constructive, empowered and problem-solvinbased on the work of Kim Austin, Melissa Cheung, Linda Darling-Hammond and Daisy Martin: g mindset, and this is reflected in their increased success at school.

College and Career Anchor Standard for Reading 1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Process Steps support Metacognition

For teachers to help students become self-regulated learners teachers need to make the students aware of: What the student knows about the subject (use KWL) What is the goal of the lesson or project What are the resources available to the student When is the work to be complete What is the student’s anxiety level (how does the student feel about learning or doing this assignment or taking this test) Monitor Teacher needs to help monitor progress and then to help the students reflect on the assignment What is working – are the students on task Change strategies if needed – give students different strategies if students experiencing difficulty with task Self test on what is being learned – teacher needs to encourage students to self test their knowledge

Preparing for an exam

Post- Exam Reflection of Exam Preparation

Direct Instruction of Strategies Many researchers have tried to foster better metacognition and comprehension through direct instruction of strategies (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). What can teachers do?

Metacognitive strategies Teacher action that prepares students for learning or elaboration through self-reflection regarding what was learned. Teacher modeling of problem solving steps Think-pair-share Goal setting Journal Writing Activation of Prior Knowledge Cues and Questions Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34, 906-911. Teacher Strategies

Metacognitive Strategies Brainstorming Webbing Task-specific graphic organizers Think Aloud Problem Solving-- Self- questioning Debate Role Play Story map Story retelling Story frame Semantic mapping

Graphic Organizers K W L A graphic organizer for students to use as they are doing a project (KWL) K What I Know W What I Want to Learn L What I Have Learned

Student Metacognitive Strategies Which statement best describes you? Assess yourself. I am a Novice I am just starting to learn this and I don’t really understand it yet. I am an Apprentice I am starting to get it, but I still need someone to coach me through it. I am a Practitioner I can mostly do it myself, but I sometime mess up or get stuck. I am an Expert I understand it well and I could thoroughly teach it to someone else.

Thinking Maps

Tree Map

Think A loud One of the most effective way to teach metacognitive strategies is the think-aloud. This involves teacher talking the class through his/her thinking as he/she tackles a task, like a piece of text with new vocabulary or a new math concept.

Modeling Metacognition with Students   Predict What do the pictures tell me about what I will read? What do the heading tell me about what I will read? What do I predict is the author’s purpose? Summarize So far, I know this about what I read: I think I will read more about __________ as I continue to read. I think what might happen next in this text is …. Connect Does this remind me of something I already know? How does this fit into what I already read so far?

Modeling Metacognition with Students   Clarify I didn’t understand …. , so I reread, figured it out, and read on and now I know what it means /how it connects. Visualize The main thing I see on the page is …. I can draw or represent this concept in another way that makes sense to me.

Modeling Metacognition with Students  Question I am wondering about I need someone to help me understand… Something I will ask my teacher or another student to clarify is…. Evaluate As a result of reading, I know these three things about what I read. As a result of taking notes, I can explain these concepts.

THINK ALOUD PROBLEM SOLVING Pose challenging problems then: Invite students to describe their plans and strategies for solving the problem. Share their thinking as they are implementing their plan. Reflect on/evaluate the effectiveness of their strategy.

Foods http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GksvunWPEk&list=PLmOKj_YOWrC0HI NNUYO9Ve6TaiWp-o7rb

Cooperative Learning Cooperative leaning is an effective method for metacognitive exchanges as students discuss and interact in a shared reading environment. It provides opportunities to reduce anxiety, and provide positive support among peers. (Paris et al., 1990; 1991).

Teacher Questioning: prompt students to think about their task and how they're doing 1. Describe what kind of thinking you did 2. Describe how you did your thinking 3. Evaluate your thinking 4. Check for accuracy 5. Data Gathering Questions 6. Reflective and Reasoning Questions adapted from Schwartz & Parks (1994) Posting a list of metacognitive questions on the wall can help to remind children of the sorts of questions they can ask themselves, for example questions that assess awareness of learning (What have you learnt? What have you found out? What did you find hard? What did you do well? What do you need to learn/do next?), assessing attitudes and feelings (What do you like doing/learning? What do you feel good/not good about ...? What do you feel proud of?) and in setting targets (What do you need to do better? What would help you? What are your targets?)

Metacognitive Thinking Questions Teacher Response "Describe the steps you took to arrive at that answer.” "What goes on in your head when you compare?“ "Describe your plan of action." Student Statement The answer is 36 dollars, 7 cents I am comparing… I am ready to begin writing

Evaluate the Curriculum: What kinds of thinking did your curriculum unit require? How did you encourage your students’ thinking about their thinking? Did you include ways for students to regulate and monitor their own learning in your plans? For example, were students asked to articulate their learning process and what they had learned? Did students share strategies and solutions with each other? Did students have opportunities for revision and for self- or peer assessment? What aspects of the unfolding events increased or decreased the opportunity for students to reflect on and regulate their learning in this learning event? How do you think this may have influenced what occurred?