Metacognitive Classroom

 

From August 2019's "5 ways to develop metacognition in your classroom" by Dr Tony Cotton:

  • Generalize Narrow-Specific Questions: Understand the possibilities for learning: plan learning objectives that provide a range of possibilities for learning. Use "develop my understanding of equivalent fractions", rather than "write down 5 equivalent fractions for ½ and ¼."
  • Link to Past Knowledge: Draw on prior knowledge: open lessons with activities that get students thinking and talking about what they already know. Ask them to work in pairs to find out what students know about a new topic before you start teaching it. Use this prior knowledge to plan next steps for learning.
  • Be Open & Flexible During Learning: Monitor learning continually: limit the amount of time you spend talking to maximise students' time for discussion. Ask open questions to get extended responses and monitor these discussions for evidence of learning. For example, are they demonstrating critical questioning? Use this evidence to plan what comes next.
  • Summarize What Was Learned at the End: Reflect on the learning that has taken place: don't just ask for answers, ask students to reflect on the learning process they took to come to their conclusions. Ask what they already knew and what they found challenging. Explore ways that students will be able to draw on this learning in the future.
  • Capture Results: Develop a self-regulating classroom: use learning journals to support students in becoming independent, reflective learners. Ask them to write about what they've learnt. What did they find easy and what was challenging? What did they do when they were stuck? What helped them learn?

... and to eat our own cooking and be meta-meta, can we ask ourselves to execute the above 5 steps on this very discussion?

  • how can we develop our understanding of metacognitive learning strategies?
  • what do we already know about teaching metacognition?
  • can we design adaptive real-time strategies to teach metacognition more effectively? (e.g., can the instructor practice constant systems-thinking during the learning-teaching process?)
  • what have we now learned about teaching metacognition?
  • how can we find this again some day?

(rather obviously for #5: write a ZhurnalyWiki page "Metacognitive Classroom"!)

(cf Reflective Students (2004-03-17), Thinking in Systems (2017-11-03), Teach Yourself How to Learn (2018-03-05), Metacognitive Awareness (2018-05-19), ...) - ^z - 2019-09-06