The main idea in these two sections is metacognition. Metacogniton is thinking about your own thinking processes. These thinking processes would include your study skills, your memory capabilities, and your ability to monitor your own learning. Metacognition develops over time. For example, when you are younger you may not fully understand why you study the way you study to do well or why the way you study doesn't work. As you get older you begin to understand the best ways for you to do well in school
I personally believe it is important to teach children how to study and different methods of studying but when would it be appropriate to begin introducing these such methods?
When looking at critical thinking, there is higher-order thinking and
lower-order thinking. Higher-order thinking includes productive
behavior, integrating past experiences, manipulating information,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Lower-order thinking includes
reproductive behavior, repeating past experiences, routine or
application of previously acquired information, recalling information,
knowledge, comprehension, and application. I would tell teachers to aid
their students in study skills such as note taking or time management. I
was never really taught how to take good notes and I still don't
believe I do. It would have been very useful to have been taught this in
school.
I believe that the information in the reading connects well with what we have learned already in the past. this is because many of the theories we have looked at say the development occurs over time. These two modules also seem to say the same thing.
I can see myself providing outlines of texts that include the most important parts of a lesson for the students to be sure they know. I personally wish this had been done for me when I was in school along with why what was on the paper was chosen. This is what I would do. I would hand out the outline and then go over it with the students after they have already read the article or chapter so the students can see how the outline came to be. This would help students to not only get the most important points but also help them to learn how to make an outline of a chapter themselves.
I think exploring a variety of studying methods can begin in middle school, around 5th or 6th grade. I feel that around this time, testing becomes more and more important for the future. As classes become more difficult, tests are given in different ways. In elementary schools, the students might be used to fill in the blank sentences or matching. But in middle school, they may be exposed to short answer and multiple choice questions. In the elementary school version of the tests, students may be using lower-order thinking and just have to recall information. In middle school, they have to apply what they have learned and go through higher-order thinking. The various studying methods can help them retain the information better so they can use it to make connections and answer those short answer questions well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Zahra was saying. In the younger grades, students are asked more lower order thinking questions. Some examples of these would be addition facts or spelling tests. The children need to simply memorize the answers and recall them for the test. In the older grades, high order thinking is used, which is where problem questions, short answer, and even essay questions could appear on tests. At this point, the students should start to develop study skills that work for them because from this point on, school will only become more challenging. If they can learn these skills in middle school, it will help them in the future.
ReplyDeleteThink more about the theory, and when students would be developmentally ready for this information, rather than what is typically done in school (which may or may not be a good idea). Standardized testing complicates the situation, because it requires lower order thinking (a lot of reproductive knowledge).... We get to this in a few weeks!
ReplyDeleteYou can decide what theories feel most intuitive to you, but they do give you some information on how to answer this. Piaget describes when he feels students are ready for particular kinds of thinking. Vygotsky describes HOW to scaffold someone to internalize something past their developmental level. Brain research hints that you can introduce almost any information at an early age.
I think you can start introducing the methods extremely early, as long as you communicate it appropriately. You can do very simple things, like having them think aloud about how they're feeling or thinking about a problem, or practice asking themselves particular questions as they're reading. Those are all pretty simple, and count as metacognition.