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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Chapter Five in Learning and Cognition - Cognitive Learning Processes

In this chapter, the most thought provoking sentence I read was “Simply knowing what to do and how to do it does not produce success.” I think this statement explains why many students do not feel successful in education. Educators must know how students learn information and how that knowledge is stored, retrieved and then used. Through educators understanding the process, students can learn about metacognition and be aware of their own learning and cognition styles. With self-regulation, students gain a level of personal knowledge they did not have before.



What are some techniques to help students develop metacognition awareness?

3 comments:

  1. Hmmm, I have been pondering this very question Jessica. I really think teaching them how to "back ward plan" might be a good place to start. If they are aware of their goal and can plan several sub goals along the way, then they will be able to stop and check their progress based on these sub goals. What's important, I think, is that they are aware that if they have not accomplished a sub goal, that is fine, they just need to reassess and configure a new plan. It’s through our mistakes that we learn. I believe that as long as these mistakes don’t happen with the main goal, then students will have the opportunity to learn through these mistakes and accomplish the final goal. This will also help improve their self efficacy and motivation!

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  2. Jessica, I found a little cartoon that offers some metacognitive strategies and it may be useful with children in helping them to develop their metacognition awareness. It begins by having student identify that the goal is and how motivated they are about their goal. The second step would be to have students note down what they already know about their topic, often this helps keep their motivation high and will help them feel knowledgeable. The third step is to have them estimate how much time will be needed to achieve their goal. Finally, help them identify strategies that have helped them before like memorization, concept maps, mnemonics, etc. I will post the cartoon in the gifting section.

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  3. Jessica, I think a lot of techniques that we were taught in college really play into how to teach metacognition. Tying the topic into prior knowledge is one very crucial one that a teacher must always do. If there is not any prior knowledge for the child, then they teacher may teach the child other techniques to help the child become successful. Having students go back and reread material, and having discussions about what is read, and what they understood. This way they may gain another students prior knowledge, which will help to humanize the information, and make it easier for the student to understand. I also believe that by having the students use concept maps on what they are learning, helps them to compartmentalize the information into chunks that are easier to remember.

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