Readings Links and Ideas

Self-awareness plays a critical role in improved learning because it helps students become more efficient at focusing on what they still need to learn. The ability to think about one's thinking increases with age. Research shows that most growth of metacognitive ability happens between ages 12 and 15(PDF, 199KB). When teachers cultivate students' abilities to reflect on, monitor, and evaluate their learning strategies, young people become more self-reliant, flexible, and productive. Students improve their capacity to weigh choices and evaluate options, particularly when answers are not obvious. When students have difficulty understanding, they rely on reflective strategies to recognize their difficulties and attempt to rectify them. Improving metacognitive strategies related to students' schoolwork also provides young people with tools to reflect and grow in their emotional and social lives.

7 Strategies That Improve Metacognition

1. Teach students how their brains are wired for growth.

The beliefs that students adopt about learning and their own brains will affect their performance. Research shows that when students develop a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset, they are more likely to engage in reflective thinking about how they learn and grow. Teaching kids about the science of metacognition can be an empowering tool, helping students to understand how they can literally grow their own brains.

2. Give students practice recognizing what they don't understand.

The act of being confused and identifying one's lack of understanding is an important part of developing self-awareness. Take time at the end of a challenging class to ask, "What was most confusing about the material we explored today?" This not only jumpstarts metacognitive processing, but also creates a classroom culture that acknowledges confusion as an integral part of learning.

3. Provide opportunities to reflect on coursework.

Higher-order thinking skills are fostered as students learn to recognize their own cognitive growth. Questions that help this process might include:

• Before this course, I thought earthquakes were caused by _______. Now I understand them to be the result of _______.
• How has my thinking about greenhouse gases changed since taking this course?

4. Have students keep learning journals.

One way to help students monitor their own thinking is through the use of personal learning journals. Assign weekly questions that help students reflect on how rather than what they learned. Questions might include:

• What was easiest for me to learn this week? Why?
• What was most challenging for me to learn? Why?
• What study strategies worked well as I prepared for my exam?
• What strategies for exam preparation didn't work well? What will I do differently next time?
• What study habits worked best for me? How?
• What study habit will I try or improve upon next week?

Encourage creative expression through whatever journal formats work best for learners, including mind maps, blogs, wikis, diaries, lists, e-tools, etc.

Reflection Link to article

• comment on why specific samples were selected or
• comment on what they liked and did not like in the samples or
• comment on or identify the processes involved in developing specific products or performances or
• describe and point to examples of how specific skills or knowledge improved (or did not) or
• identify strengths and weaknesses in samples of work or
• set goals for themselves corresponding to the strengths and weaknesses or
• identify strategies for reaching those goals or
• assess their past and current self-efficacy for a task or skill or
• complete a checklist or survey about their work or
• some combination of the aboveReflection sheets

Probably the most common portfolio reflection task is the completion of a sheet to be attached to the sample (or samples) of work which the reflection is addressing. The possibilities for reflection questions or prompts are endless, but some examples I have seen include

Selection questions/prompts

• Why did you select this piece?
• Why should this sample be included in your portfolio?
• How does this sample meet the criteria for selection for your portfolio?
• I chose this piece because ....

Growth questions/prompts

• What are the strengths of this work? Weaknesses?
• What would you work on more if you had additional time?
• How has your ______ (e.g., writing) changed since last year?
• What do you know about ______ (e.g., the scientific method) that you did not know at the beginning of the year (or semester, etc.)?
• Looking at (or thinking about) an earlier piece of similar work, how does this new piece of work compare? How is it better or worse? Where can you see progress or improvement?
• How did you get "stuck" working on this task? How did you get "unstuck"?
• One skill I could not perform very well but now I can is ....
• From reviewing this piece I learned ....

Goal-setting questions/prompts

• What is one thing you can improve upon in this piece?
• What is a realistic goal for the end of the quarter (semester, year)?
• What is one way you will try to improve your ____ (e.g., writing)?
• One thing I still need to work on is ....
• I will work toward my goal by ....

Evaluation questions/prompts

• If you were a teacher and grading your work, what grade would you give it and why?
• Using the appropriate rubric, give yourself a score and justify it with specific traits from the rubric.
• What do you like or not like about this piece of work?
• I like this piece of work because ....

Effort questions/prompts

• How much time did you spend on this product/performance?
• The work would have been better if I had spent more time on ....
• I am pleased that I put significant effort into ....

Overall portfolio questions/prompts

• What would you like your _____ (e.g., parents) to know about or see in your portfolio?
• What does the portfolio as a whole reveal about you as a learner (writer, thinker, etc.)?
• A feature of this portfolio I particularly like is ....
• In this portfolio I see evidence of ....

As mentioned above, students (or others) can respond to such questions or prompts when a piece of work is completed, while a work is in progress or at periodic intervals after the work has been collected. Furthermore, these questions or prompts can be answered by the student, the teacher, parents, peers or anyone else in any combination that best serves the purposes of the portfolio.

Other reflection methods

In addition to reflection sheets, teachers have devised a myriad of means of inducing reflection from students and others about the collection of work included in the portfolio. For example, those engaging in reflection can

• write a letter to a specific audience about the story the portfolio communicates
• write a "biography" of a piece of work tracing its development and the learning that resulted
• write periodic journal entries about the progress of the portfolio
• compose an imaginary new "chapter" that picks up where the story of the portfolio leaves off