Metacognition

1
Metacognition

• Cognition, Metacognition, and Teaching

2
Metacognitive Knowledge and Regulation

• The literal definition of metacognition would be
  cognition about cognition or knowledge about
  knowing and learning
• We use metacognitive knowledge, then, to monitor
  cognitive processes such as reasoning,
  comprehension, and problem solving
• According to Brown, Brnnsford, Ferrara,
  Campione (1983), differences in metacognitive
  knowledge and skills can affect how well and how
  quickly people learn
• Metacognition involves three things
• Declarative knowledge about yourself as a learner
  and about strategies, skills, and resources
  needed to perform a task
• Procedural knowledge about how to use those
  skills, resources, strategies, etc
• Conditional knowledge about when and why to use
  them

3
Metacognitive Knowledge and Regulation

• Metacognition is used to regulate thinking and
  learning
• Planning in the planning stage, the learner
  determines how much time to apply to a task, what
  strategies he/she will use, how to start the
  task, what resources he/she will need, what to
  read carefully vs. what to skim, etc. (Brown,
  1987 Woolfolk, 2005)
• Monitoring in the monitoring stage, the learner
  constantly is aware of how he/she is doing in the
  learning process. They ask questions and
  determine whether what they are learning/doing
  makes sense.
• Evaluating in the evaluating stage, the learner
  determines whether he should change strategies or
  get help or give up, or be finished, etc.
• When is metacognition most useful?
• Metacognition is not useful when tasks are
  routine. It is most useful when tasks are
  challenging, but not too difficult!

4
Individual differences in Metacognition

• Metacognitive abilities begin to develop around
  age 5 or 7.
• They continue to improve throughout school years.
• Stu
• Developmental
• Two questions that kids can ask themselves or
  that teachers can ask students can help students
  become more metacognitive (see Perry, et al.,
  200)
• What did you learn about yourself as a
  reader/writer/learner today?
• What did you learn that you can do again and
  again and again?
• Students, however, vary greatly in their
  metacognitive abilities - some differences are
  probably biological or variations in learning
  experiences

5
Individual and Working Memory (Developmental
Differences)

• Young children have limited working memories this
  improves with age either because there is a
  change in memory capacity or in improvements of
  strategy use
• Young children have to learn to execute basic
  operations in addition to other things, which may
  take up some of the space in their memories
• Once an operation is mastered, they can store the
  process in long term memory and working memory is
  not needed to complete that task
• As children grow, they develop more effective
  strategies for remembering information (Woolfolk,
  2005)
• Rehearsal strategies (such as repeating
  information) seems to develop around age 5 or 6
• However, we can also teach students rehearsal
  strategies but, unlike their older counterparts,
  they may need to be reminded to use strategy and
  then the often use the wrong strategies to solve
  problems
• Some developmental differences in strategy use
  are that around age 6, students discover
  organizational strategies but these strategies
  are not used spontaneously until ages 9 or 10

6
Individual Differences

• Some people have more efficient working memories
  than others
• Differences in working memories may be associated
  with giftedness in math or verbal areas
• The major individual difference that affects long
  term memory is knowledge
• Think about the module on cognitivism to come up
  for a reason why this might be the case

7
Development of Declarative Knoweldge

• In addition to probably the best strategy of
  making the learning/lesson meaningful, there are
  many systematic procedures for improving memory
  (otherwise known as mnemonics).
• Loci Method?
• Chunking Technique
• First Letter Association Technique
• Rhyme Technique
• Peg-type mnemonics or pegword mnemonics
• Acronym
• Chain mnemonics
• Keyword method

8
Rote Memorization

• Rote memorization very few things need to be
  learned by rote rote memorization is remembering
  information by repetition without necessarily
  understanding the meaning of the information
• However, on the occasion when things need to be
  memorized, there are several strategies that
  may/may not be effective. This is especially
  important because where there are long lists,
  there is a serial position effect or a tendency
  for learners to remember the beginning and end
  but not middle of a list
• Part learning is when we break lists into shorter
  lists in order to make the memorization easier
• Distributed practice is practicing the
  information in brief periods with rest in between
• Massed practice (not very effective) is practice
  of information for a single extended period (this
  leads to fatigue)
• Consider this question In educational
  psychology, there are differing positions on rote
  memorization. Some researchers are in favor of
  it. Others are not. To which of these positions
  do you most relate?
• Rote memorization creates inert knowledge
• Rote memorization can be effective