Teaching Metacognition

image from keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

I have a sign up in my 4th and 5th grade literacy room that says this...Talk Less and Listen More. Originally when I bought it, I chuckled a bit thinking of how this poster would be a great reminder for my more talkative of students. However, it hasn't been until my fourth, almost fifth year of teaching, that I realize that the poster that hangs in my classroom, is for me.

What a humbling realization.

Is my role as a teacher to give information about varying topics, or is it for me to teach students how to learn? I am realizing it is more of the latter. Educators always say that the reason that we are in this business is to promote lifelong learning...but do we practice what we preach? Are we teaching our students about a topic or how to discuss a topic? As I was reading articles from Clarke (Discussing Shiloh: A conversation beyond the book) and excerpts from Vacca & Vacca's Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum, I felt shame in the fact that I am not facilitating discussions, but rather running the whole show while not giving my students self-regulation strategies. While I am disappointed in this fact, this only makes me strive to do better.

Metacognition is the act of thinking about thinking. Sounds silly, but that's really what it is! Numerous studies have been conducted on metacognition in education and all conclusions of these studies show that metacognition is a great stepping stone to all types of learning.

Jim Wentworth of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (my undergrad alma mater...go ILLINI!!) has created a presentation of the research done and commentary on metacognition in college students:

Teaching Metacognition from JimWentworth

It's amazing to me that even in college, metacognitive skills are hard to wrap your brain around! Therefore, it is imperative that we teach our students to make a plan to achieve a goal, monitor their thinking while enacting that plan, and evaluating if they did or did not succeed in achieving that goal.

I say, the earlier we teach our students metacognitive skills, the better.

If you're so smart, how do we do that at the elementary level, Jen? You may ask. This is what I have for you:

Teaching Metacognitive Skills using the Boston Massacre/Riot

Recently, as you can tell by my earlier posts, my 4th & 5th graders and I have been delving into the American Revolutionary War. We recently explored the Boston Massacre...or Boston Riot. (Depends on what perspective you take...American or British! Oh, reading across multiple texts, how well you lend yourself to this lesson!) After students took notes using a synthesis journal on firsthand and secondhand accounts from Patriot perspectives and British perspectives, I had my students stand on a line on the floor (that I made out of tape) and told my students to stand on one side of the line if they felt that the event truly was a massacre or if the British were just acting out of self defense. I then told my students to talk about what they thought with the people around them using evidence from their notes.

Great first try! 

However, if I could do it over, I would embed more metacognitive strategies within the construct of that lesson, which demands more planning on my part.

The use of discussion stems, discussion protocols and discussion webs could have easily been planned into this lesson. Dr. Manderino & Dr. Wickens from Northern Illinois University talk about cultivating academic conversations in an excerpt that appeared in the Illinois Reading Council Journal in Spring 2014. More information can be found here on that discussion. 

Careful planning of use of these instructional resources could enhance this lesson immensely! Instead of just having students talk to the peers around them (who have similar view points if they're grouped homogeneously according to opinion), it could be beneficial for students to have a discussion with vertical articulation (pairing students of opposite view points together). 

This is just one, small example of adding the component of metacognition into a lesson. It's not something that you have to overhaul your lesson with, but can be seen as more of an additive. Yes, there may be more lessons that occur beforehand and after the fact with explicit instruction on metacognitive strategies, but the pay off is that students will be able to think for themselves, defend their own opinion with evidence, and be able to critique (respectively, of course) others opinions.