Excellence in Education:
Metacognition
It’s vital that we give students opportunities to reflect on
their own learning. This year I’ve seen tons of examples that encourage
students to be reflective, evaluative and strategic about their work. Each of
these activities help students identify their own strengths and weaknesses
resulting in improved learning that impacts how students learn in that class
AND how they learn once they leave your classroom.
Below are some of the examples of metacognitive strategies
I’ve seen this year:
·
Students reviewing their work and determine what
the strengths and weaknesses are in their work.
o
Self-editing and proof-reading their work
·
Requiring students to reflect on their own
learning and determine how well they have learned something.
o
Students review their notes/class materials and
judge themselves using fist of five
o
Quizzes or other formative assessment strategies
that are evaluated but NOT graded allowing students to continue to grow
o
Having students review tests and quizzes and
reflect on them by asking questions like What
sections did I do well on? Where did I do poorly? Why is that the case? How can
I better prepare next time?
o
Asking questions at the end of the unit like I feel most comfortable and knowledgeable
about __________ because ________. I feel least comfortable about ___________
because ______________.
·
Having students select
what strategies are useful for a given task.
o
Provide with the
learning objective, students choose a way to show their understanding of the
material.
o
Directing students
that they will be completing a graphic organizer and allowing/requiring them to
determine what type of graphic organizer would fit best
·
Continual
Revision/Not Yet
o
Peer editing
o
Allowing redos and
retakes (requiring a reflective assignment)
o
Not excepting less
than satisfactory work and providing students with multiple opportunities to
revise until the standards are met
·
Modeling
metacognition and reflection in your own work
o
Having students
complete surveys
o
Having students
reflect on your teaching and lessons and having them provide feedback
·
Students write
questions before, during or after class about things that they are unsure about
(this works well with lectures that build on the previous night’s reading or
when students downloaded the notes the night before or in having the students
review the previous day’s notes). Students are given time to ask a classmate
their questions or by holding a Q-n-A session at the beginning or end of class
or have students write down their unanswered questions as an exit activity.
How awesome is it that
I easily was able to list all of the above strategies! Keep up the great work
and try some of the other strategies used by your peers.
Administrative Notes
Great job with the quick turnaround on grades! We greatly appreciate it. I
know the shear volume of grades in a short period of time leads to multiple
choice tests; for those of you who included short answer, essay questions
and/or differentiated your exams, an extra tip of the cap to you!
Tuesday is a FLEX day.
Positive Referral
Link: http://goo.gl/s0KXRB
Work Order Request
Form: http://goo.gl/H7hFwK
Comment Box: http://goo.gl/forms/KAHNoGf5D2
What I’m Reading
How Teachers Can Motivate Students of Any Age : Lots of information that matches up with
several of the books from our book studies
Veteran Teacher Turns Into A Student,
Sobering Lessons Learned :
Several of you forwarded this to me, THANKS! Grant Wiggins’ blog is worth
bookmarking; always good stuff.
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