Metacognition
– A
Cognitive Apprenticeship
I loved how the ‘What is Metacognition’
article by Michael E. Martinez started off. He did not give away the definition
at one go but scaffolded the introduction into parts that we could easily
connect to our daily learnings. “Metacognition is the monitoring and control of
thought…” - O yes! This makes sense. The paper talks about the concepts of
Metamemory, Metacomprehension, Problem solving and critical thinking which have
to be incorporated in a lesson together.
After teaching for over two years in
an elementary school, I have learnt that our students need guidance and support
to cultivate thinking skills. Here
is a small story I’d like to share with you;
I
had a student named Harsh in my class while I was teaching the second grade. He
would sit in the first bench, stare at the board, try writing what I have put
on the board and stay quiet. During the first week I failed to realize that
this child was not following anything of what I had said, written or taught. In
the beginning of the second week, I made sure I spoke to Harsh everyday about
his family, his favorite games, and the cartoons he watched and so on. He
started opening up sooner than I thought. We started learning A to Z and
numbers together. Some of the strategies I used while teaching him were –
thinking aloud – saying the letter, the number aloud, providing visuals for
retention and making him say aloud. It was definitely a challenge to support
him when the whole class (of 40) was doing another task. But, we did succeed..
Harsh reads small sentences/beginner level books and does multiplication now.
Knowingly
or unknowingly, we teachers use some of these strategies to teach our children.
We learn them out of our own experiences or support from other teachers or by
reading up on strategies that have worked in classrooms.
This
article really stuck me since, I could reflect on my experience. I plan to
refine my strategies and incorporate differentiated lessons for children with different
cognitive abilities.
The
science inside me wanted to share this image in the blog which focusses on
metacognition research. J
Some of the links you can access for a better understanding are -
Brief introduction on Metacognition
TED video
I really like how you were able to take the reading and relate it a real world situation. I think the overall goal of the education classes we're taking is to give us food for thought as future teachers. However, it may not always be so easy to actually apply these thoughts to our classrooms. You're ahead of the game. I also love how you mentioned differentiating lessons. Using and understanding metacognitive techniques that we've learned about can really aid in doing this.I wonder if special education teachers have taken this idea into account as well.
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