Waching daily Jan 29 2019

What is metacognition, and why should I care?

Hi! I'm Dr. Patrick Cunningham,

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology,

and I am passionate about teaching and learning.

Welcome to the Skillful Learning series on metacognition.

As I have studied how we learn and process information

I have found that it requires being aware of and regulating, or controlling, our thinking processes.

We call this metacognition.

Developing your metacognitive skills will help you take control of your own learning –

helping you become a more successful student now and a successful professional in your future.

Metacognition will enable you to navigate and prosper

in these complex, challenging, and ever-changing environments.

My goal is to support your success by helping you to become an efficient, effective, and intentional learner

now and throughout your lives.

How can awareness and regulation of your thinking help you become a more successful learner?

It's kind of like knowing about sailing, your sailing abilities,

and executing a successful sailing trip.

In preparation for the trip you consider your abilities and your crew's abilities.

You consider the type of trip you plan to take, different boats, potential routes, and seasonal weather patterns.

This represents knowing yourself and others (or knowing persons in general),

knowing the task you are trying to accomplish, and knowing appropriate strategies for the task

and that you are capable of executing.

This is similar to knowing about yourself as a learner and about how learning works for people in general,

i.e., metacognitive knowledge of persons.

For example, knowing your abilities and preferences for processing information

and how we form long-term memories.

It is also like knowing what it takes to complete a particular type of assignment,

i.e., metacognitive knowledge of task.

For example, knowing the different cognitive demands of an essay, a lab write-up, or a homework problem set.

It is also like knowing how to complete an assignment effectively and efficiently,

i.e., metacognitive knowledge of strategies.

For example, knowing that recalling and organizing the main concepts in your notes

is more efficient and effective for ingraining them in your memory than just re-reading your notes.

However, knowing about these things will only help you if you put them into practice as you study and learn.

Just as executing a successful sailing trip requires translating your sailing knowledge into practice.

Successful sailors do this through planning, monitoring, controlling, and evaluating their trips.

Planning requires integrating knowledge by setting goals for the sailing trip, picking a boat,

organizing supplies, selecting a route, and selecting a crew – all in line with your goals and abilities.

During the trip, successful sailors constantly monitor their course

and make adjustments for deviations from their intended route.

They also keep track of the weather and alter their plans to accommodate it.

Finally, they identify new knowledge about sailing that they gained from the experience by replaying it

and processing it. This is a form of evaluation.

In the process they are building knowledge from their experiences, which they can use on future sailing trips.

In the same way we become more skillful and successful learners

as we put our metacognitive knowledge into practice. We can do this by purposefully planning for our learning

(e.g., by setting goals for homework/study sessions, gathering the right resources, allotting sufficient time,

and selecting efficient and effective strategies).

We also do this by keeping track of how we are doing

(e.g., by testing ourselves on material or tracking time and progress on an assignment)

and then by taking action basedon what we find

(e.g., by either reinforcing, refining, or changing our approach).

And we become more skillful and successful learners by evaluating our learning experiences

(e.g., by examining our preparation, analyzing our mistakes

and taking note of our successes when we get assignments or tests back

or grades at the end of a course.

These processes help us know ourselves better, (i.e., more accurately see ourselves

or discover something new about how we learn and process information),

understand the task better, and broaden and refine our learning strategies.

Now metacognition is messy stuff.

You don't just plan or just use knowledge of a task.

Rather, you integrate multiple elements together as you engage in learning.

Our metacognitive knowledge informs our practice, i.e., our regulation of our thinking,

and our regulation of our thinking throughout a learning experience builds new and more accurate knowledge.

This interplay between metacognitive knowledge and regulation

is depicted by the cyclical arrows in the diagram.

You can develop your metacognitive skills and abilities,

and just like anything you excel at, it will take intentional focus, effort, and persistence over time.

Sometimes it will feel hard and you will have to push yourself to stick with it and see it through.

Just as skillful and successful athletes push themselves.

Athletes push themselves, training day after day regardless of whether they feel like it or not,

in order to perform at a higher level.

Accomplished musicians push themselves

to rehearse for hours on end in order to perform fluidly and flawlessly.

To become a more skillful learner, you will have to push yourself.

You might try a new learning strategy and not see the immediate benefit.

But don't give up. Keep at it. Refine it and improve it.

If you do persist and persevere, you will become a more skillful and successful learner.

Once you experience this success, I think you will be hooked!

I have a personal experience of how these cycles of practice are beneficial.

I have learned how to write effectively with a team, but it wasn't always so.

Early in my undergraduate career I was working with a team to put together a group report for a class.

We had assembled all the main components of the report, but we hadn't written the executive summary,

the one-page summary at the beginning of the report.

Somehow we had decided to all gather around a single computer to try to complete that part of the assignment.

It ended up being a very stressful experience that took longer than it needed to take.

I was sitting at the computer typing.

People were offering their ideas as I was trying to think and type my own ideas.

And some of the people weren't engaged at all. It was terribly inefficient.

The processing of multiple ideas in a convoluted way wasn't effective. It took longer and it felt stressful.

As a result of that experience and my evaluation of it I decided not to do that again.

It improved my knowledge of myself and what it took to write an executive summary and to write as a team.

Now when I write with a team, someone in the team writes a draft of whatever it is,

and then all of us read it before we meet together to evaluate it.

We evaluate the organization and the content and then we make assignments of who will write or refine what.

Then we individually go off and do those assignments

and share them with one another, before we come back together

to do another round of evaluation as a group.

We complete these cycles of individual work

and group evaluation until we have refined it to an appropriate degree.

We have found this to be efficient and effective use of everyone's time.

So you can see that I too am continuing to grow and develop as a learner.

Becoming a skillful learner is a lifelong process.

I want to leave you with three thoughts.

I want you to know that you have control over your learning – regardless of the class or instructor.

I want to help you become a more effective, efficient, and intentional leaner now and throughout your lives.

I want to set you up for success now and throughout your careers.

Authors Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek, in their book, The New Science of Learning, state

that, "Becoming a skilled and efficient learner will be one of the most important determinants of what you can

and will achieve in your lifetime."

Thank you for your attention.

I look forward to working with you as we explore metacognition together.