KAITLIN BARNES
METACOGNITION
Being aware of your own thoughts, strategies, feelings and actions and their effects on others.
When students practice metacognition, they are thinking about their thinking. Research suggests that when students increase their metacognitive abilities, they achieve higher levels of academic success (Weil et. al, 2013). Having students reflect on their thinking process and their performance has multiple benefits. First, students are forced to slow down and really think about how they arrived at an answer or conclusion. Doing so can help them identify places where they may have rushed or messed up. Second, metacognition helps me as the teacher because I am able to identify trends in my students' thinking. Having students reflect on their effort and performance helps me see how they are feeling about my class and how I can further support them. Finally, metacognition helps students realize the importance of being deliberate in their work. Instead of rushing through an assignment and being disappointed when they get a poor grade, metacognition helps students think about their thinking from the minute they begin an assignment to the minute it is returned to them.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
One of the first things I do after assigning my students a large project or assessment is teach my students how to reflect on their performance and mindset during the assignment. I explain to my students that metacognition is just a fancy word for thinking about their thinking, and that practicing metacognition has several benefits. I teach my students that we reflect on our performance because it:
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helps us understand our strengths and weaknesses
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helps clarify things that confused us
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helps us understand our thinking process
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helps us internalize the new information we have learned
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helps us create a plan of improvement.
I also find that giving students a chance to think about and explain their thinking and working process gives me valuable insight into how students were feeling about the assignment. Assignment reflections give me a chance to understand why a certain student's project may be less-than-stellar, or if a student is feeling particularly proud of his or her work. I include many guiding questions on my assignment reflections as a way of providing scaffolding for my English Language Learners, my students who receive special education services, and my students who are below grade-level in reading. I find that asking specific questions helps students be more detailed and purposeful in their responses.
I introduced the concept of metacognition with this anchor chart and refer back to it whenever we complete a reflection activity. This visual helps remind students of why we reflect and why it matters.
After completing large projects, such as their Holocaust Inquiry Projects, students reflect on their personal work habits and performance. Having students practice metacognition this way helps me understand what students' work processes were like, and informs my future planning of similar projects. This type of reflection also helps students think about what they found easy and difficult about this project process, which will help inform their future work.
After completing their Holocaust/World War II inquiry projects, students complete a project reflection form. This form helped them practice metacognition by asking them what was the hardest and easiest parts of their thinking and working process, among other questions. This reflection form tells me that this student is particularly proud of her letter and why she feels that way.
This reflection form helped me understand why this student was not able to complete both of her projects. She recognized that she spent too much time completing her first project, which articulates her newfound understanding of the importance of time management. In addition, this student was felt proud about how much information she was able to include in the project she did complete because she normally struggles with that task.
I also have students complete reflections to help them practice metacognition after participating in hands-on or experiential learning activities. During our unit on the American Revolution, students worked with a group to complete a STEM challenge related to the Boston Tea Party. They were given a limited amount of materials and tasked with building a container that would hold a tea bag in a container of water without any leakage. Completing a reflection after that activity helped students reflect on the design process and the struggles that come with working with a group under pressure.
Students had a variety of materials to create a container that would hold a tea bag in a container of water. This group chose to create a raft for their tea.
The reflection sheet for this activity asked students about the most difficult part of the challenge and what they thought their best idea was. Differences in answers among group members helped me see the variety of ideas my students thought were most important.
Another example comes from our unit on the 19th century. When learning about the wave of immigrants to America during the 1830s and 1840s, students participated in a privilege walk that helped them visually understand how different groups of people were treated during this time period. After that activity, students reflected on their experience and connected their place in line to broader topics of equality and fair treatment.
During the privilege walk, students were given an identity and moved forward or backward, depending on the statement read. Students were able to see the differences in how different groups of immigrants were treated.
The reflection after the privilege walk helped students connect their own experience to the historical content. Although the students above have different reading levels and different levels of comfort with the English language, they are both able to connect the activity to treatment of different groups of people. This reflection helped me check for understanding and ensure that students walked away with the comprehension I wanted them to have.
In addition to having students practice metacognition with their projects and activities, I also incorporate this Habit and Mindset into our tests. After taking large district or benchmark tests, students complete a test reflection sheet. This sheet helps them identify and articulate how they were feeling during the test, and how they feel about their score. It also helps them identify action steps they can take to improve in the future. I also incorporate metacognition into test corrections. Instead of just having students correct their mistakes, I also have students reflect on why they missed a particular question. This helps them understand why they missed a question (Did they read it wrong? Did they rush? Did they misunderstand what it was asking?) and it helps me identify trends across my classes related to why students are missing certain questions.
After taking a District Level Assessment (DLA) in December, students reflected on their mindset during the test, set a goal for their 5th grade STAAR performance, and identified three reasonable action steps they could take to improve their performance going forward. This reflection document revealed that this student is still feeling insecure in her reading abilities, which prompted me to have an individual check-in and pep talk with her.
These reflection sheets are from our mock STAAR benchmark exam, taken in February. The student on the left reflected on the fact that she would have felt better during the test if the passages were more interesting, while the student on the right admitted that she has not been following the action steps that she identified back in December. Reflecting on their mock STAAR performance helped students identify if they have been putting forth their best effort and what reading skills they need extra practice with.
Incorporating metacognition into test corrections helps students identify why they missed certain questions. Students are given six options to explain their mistake, or they can choose the seventh option and explain their mistake in their own words. This activity helps me see if I need to reteach any mini-lessons related to test strategies--for example, if I notice that many students are picking option 3, I know that I need to remind my students about the importance of reading all available answer choices before choosing one.
TEACHER REFLECTION AND REFERENCES
Since incorporating strategies and classroom activities to help my students practice metacognition, I have noticed students being more thoughtful and intentional about their work. If they know they are going to be examining their mistakes after a quiz or test, they are more likely to slow down while taking the assessment and be more intentional about selecting the correct answer. In addition, after implementing project reflection sheets, I have noticed students putting forth more effort into their projects. I think this is because students feel good when they are able to truthfully write about how they put forth their best effort into an assignment, and they want to experience that feeling again. Going forward, I would like to increase my metacognition instruction to include strategies that students can use to monitor their thinking while reading, because research has shown that metacognitive strategies can have a positive impact on a student's reading comprehension (Cross and Paris, 1988).
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Cross, D. R., & Paris, S. G. (1988). Developmental and instructional analyses of children's metacognition and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(2), 131-142. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.80.2.131
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Weil, L., Fleming, S., Dumonthiel, I., Kilford, E., Weil, R., Rees, G., Dolan, R., and Blakemore, S. (2013, March). The development of metacognitive ability in adolescence. Consciousness and Cognition, 22(1), 264-271. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810013000068