These two chapters focused on how students think and how to accelerate their thinking abilities. Metacognition is thinking about thinking as well as the strategies used to improve one's thinking. Metacognition breaks down further into knowledge and regulation. Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about one's own processes and tendencies. Metacognitve regulation involves understanding that one needs to regulate and assess how well the metacognitive processes in use are as effective as they should be. Critical thinking involves thinking about the worth of information and being able to manipulate it and connect it to things that have been learned previously. There higher and lower level ways of thinking about new information. Lower order thinking involves just being able to recall and reproduce information as well as basic understandings about the concepts. Higher order thinking is when children are able to manipulate the information and create new things using the new knowledge. This also includes having a very deep understanding of the material being presented. Metacognition and critical thinking are not skills that young children are able to come up with on their own; these ideas must be taught and nurtured in order for children to even be aware of these kinds of ideas.
The chapters claim that these ways of thinking are not things that children know intuitively, it is something that must be taught and fostered. Does this mean that if it is not taught when they are young they will not be good at the critical thinking required when they reach higher grades?
I think this idea of young children not being capable with thinking about their thinking on their own connects to Vygotsky because they are capable of critical thinking with the scaffolding of a teacher or wording of questions. It also connects to Piaget because children need to be of a certain age before they are capable of this kind of thinking on their own.
To incorporate these ways of thinking in my own classroom I would ask children questions with words that would foster higher thinking such as discuss, analyze, and evaluate. I would also ask children to talk about what goes on in their mind when they come up with certain answers so they understand that they have a thought process and they should be thinking about it.
You answered your own question! It's true--if children are never taught how to evaluate their own thinking processes, they have no understanding of how to do this once they graduate or enter college. It's surprising that some studnets have never been asked to do this. That's why practicing it and expecting it in elementary grades is so important!
ReplyDeleteI like your examples, especially asking students to describe how they're thinking. If teachers do this in class discussions, it will become natural within that particular classroom, and students will continue the process later on (hopefully).
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