Have you ever thought about your strengths (and weaknesses, too) as a learner? Do you know how you learn? Do you have strategies that you use to learn? These strategies are ways to help students learn about learning and learn about knowledge. These are called metacognitive strategies, and they are playing an increasingly important role in science teaching. I will briefly discuss them here, but will return to them again in Chapter 6.
There are several definitions of metacognition. One view is it is our ability to know what we know and what we don't know. We might also think of metacognition as the ability to plan a strategy:
1. for producing what information is needed;2. to be conscious our own steps and strategies during the act of problem solving; and
3. to reflect on and evaluate the productivity of our own thinking.
Teaching metacognitive strategies is a potentially new goal for science teachers. Given that student learning styles influence the way students process and perceive, metacognitive strategies can be useful in helping students understand their unique learning patterns. What are some metacognitive strategies (skills) that students might learn to help them understand their own thinking, thereby increasing their ability to learn science?
Mind Mapping. Introduced earlier as cognitive mapping, mind mapping is a powerful metacognitive tool. For example, Joseph Novak has reported high school biology students using concept maps were more on task in laboratory experiments, and reported being very conscious of their own responsibility for learning. Novak also reports that some teachers are teaching "how to learn" short courses designed to teach students metacognitive strategies. Novak suggests that using cognitive maps as a metacognitive strategy increases meaningful learning over rote learning for students in a variety of science situations.
Illustrating and Drawing. Some learners are visually attuned to looking at things in pictures. There are many opportunities in which students could create an illustration or a drawing to explain their thinking, or to show how they understand a concept.
Brainstorming. "List a many observation of this burning candle as you can." "What are as many ways that one individual can differ from an other? What are as many hypotheses to explain the phenomenon? Brainstorming, a strategy used to help students creatively solve problems, can also be used a metacognitive strategy. Brainstorming should proceed without censorship. If students are working in a group, all ideas should be accepted. If the students are working alone, they should be told to consider all ideas that "bubble up." Teaching students not to censor their ideas at the beginning of a process is an important metacognitive tool.
Planning Strategies. Students can be shown, prior to an activity (short term or long term) how to go about solving or completing it, special ways that might be helpful for attacking the problem, any rules and directions to follow (especially if working with equipment, chemicals or other science materials). Asking students during a learning activity to share their progress or how they are proceeding with the activity or problem enables them to perceive their own thought processes.
Generating Questions and Other Inquiry Strategies. Another metacognitive strategy is to Teach students to pose questions regarding some material they will read in their science textbook, homework assignment, research project, or science laboratory investigation. The process of asking questions is the heart of scientific inquiry. Not only does questioning help focus thinking strategies, but the questions themselves show an understanding for the subject matter, and can, if students are asked to read information, help them with comprehension. In the next Chapter, we will explore other science inquiry strategies (processes of science), and it will be shown that these are indeed metacognitive strategies, as well.
Evaluating Actions. Some teachers ask students to evaluate what they like or didn't like, or what were the pluses and minuses of a science learning activity. This process enables students to reflect upon and evaluate their actions, and perhaps apply this learning to future actions.
Teaching Capability. Some teachers have a rule in their class: "Outlawed: I can't do it!" Instead these teachers help students focus on what information, material or skills are needed to do it. Earlier, I mentioned that teaching students that intelligence is not fixed, but a developing ability, based on experience. This position gives students a sense of personal power in that attempting a challenging problem or activity is indeed a way to improve their ability to think.
Communication Skills. Communication skills are not only important to the teacher, but they are an integral metacognitive strategy. In the social learning theory section, I pointed out that teachers who adopt cooperative learning strategies will need to teach students new social norms and social learning skills. These skills (conciseness,listening, reflecting) are communication skills. An important metacognitive communication skill is reflection. Having students consider other students' ideas, as well as their own, or having students rephrase what they just said, are ways of building upon and extending ideas.
Journal Keeping. Keeping a diary or log of learning experiences is not new to the science education community. Many scientists have kept logs of their thinking, not only as a record, but more importantly as a haven for synthesizing and analyzing their thinking. The log is a place where the student can revisit ideas and review thinking processes used in an activity. Combining some of the other strategies, especially mind mapping, illustrating and drawing and brainstorming, can enhance the quality of logs.
Metacognitive strategies are tools for the science teacher to help students understand their own thinking. Throughout this book you will be introduced to many strategies. Teaching students about their own thinking might be as important as exposing them to the content of science.