This chapter focuses on metacognition which means thinking about your own thinking processes. Metacognition can be divided into two main categories. The first of these categories is known as metacognitive knowledge which is knowledge about your own knowledge. This category can also be broken down into three smaller groups; Person knowledge, task knowledge, and strategy knowledge. Person knowledge is understanding your own capabilities. Task knowledge is how we perceive the difficulty or ease of a task. Strategy knowledge is the capability to use strategies to learn information. The second main category of metacognition is known as metacognitive regulation. It is the purposeful act of trying to regulate and control our own cognition, beliefs, emotions, and values. Another big focus of these chapters is thinking. The chapter discusses the different ways of thinking, such as lower-order thinking and higher-order thinking. Higher-order thinking requires more complex cognitive processes than lower-order thinking. Lower-order thinking only requires shallow cognitive processes, while higher-order thinking will require someone to think harder and come up with new thoughts and ideas and do more than simply recall facts.
Some parts of this chapter focused on learning strategies. It talks about note taking, studying, and other effective strategies. My question is how can you apply these strategies to a younger group of students? Most students don't use studying and note taking as a learning strategy, but is there a way to modify them to fit with a younger classroom?
In an older classroom setting, metacognition can be applied by having weekly self-evaluations. Students can reflect on their behaviors and academics of the week and fill out a self-evaluation form. This is a tool that will help students to take a step back and really look at what they have been doing and forces them to monitor their actions.
For younger group of students, I think it would be effective to use lower-order thinking. It would be best for students to have fill in the blank notes and worksheets to help the younger students be prepared for tests.
ReplyDeleteFor younger students, I think that guided note taking is really helpful. If you are working with a small group of younger elementary students then guiding these students would be the most beneficial for their learning. If you could provide the students with a younger form of a handout with colorful concepts and pictures and make it more relatable to them, then this would be the equivalent of note taking for older students.
ReplyDeleteI definitely wouldn't agree that only lower order thinking is appropriate for younger children. Try thinking about ways of higher order thinking that don't require writing (since children at this age can better express themselves through talking or drawing). They can talk about their own thinking and emotions, guess at what others are thinking, or self question. These are all things you can teach and model in a classroom.
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