Metacognition TIPR

I think that the main thing the teacher does in her classroom to encourage student's metacognition is that she doesn't regulate how students take notes or organize the information they get in class, she decided that that is the responsibility and decision for the students to make on their own. This decision requires that students use their procedural and conditional metacognitive knowledge to decide what strategies and skills they have and when to use them to best help their learning in class. The teacher encouraged declarative metacognitive knowledge by providing the students with bell ringers that allowed them to think about what they already know about the topic for the day and what their preconceived notions are. There was one assignment in particular that I observed being assigned where I saw some of the metacognitive skills being used. The students were assigned to make a video presentation of their Natural Highs and pledge to live naturally high and avoid substance use. The first step of the assignment was planning their video: how long they wanted it to be, what they wanted it to look like, who they were going to get help from, and how they would turn it in. The next couple times when I went back to observe, the teacher had the students revisit their plan and contemplate their progress on the assignment, which is an example of monitoring. Up until the due date she had them think about where they were and if they were heading in the right direction with the project which I thought was super helpful for the students.

The biggest needs I saw in the class as far as metacognition goes is first, that if students didn't have a solid foundation of procedural knowledge they might get lost in her class. The students probably needed a refresher crash course on note taking and reading strategies that would help them in the class. Also, along with that, it would be helpful for them to get an assignment to discover what strategies would be most helpful in certain situations to help them develop that conditional knowledge. Second, I never observed any sort of evaluation after assignments or tests. I think that would be very helpful for students to think about what they accomplished and how it affected them and their learning and how they might change the way they approach completing learning tasks for future assignments.

Should I have the chance to teach my lesson again, I would start by telling the students what the lesson would look like for the day and then give them the opportunity to think about what strategies they wanted to use to best help them be successful in class that day. During a break in the lesson I would have the students give me a thumbs up or thumbs down about whether or not their strategies were working for them and encourage them to rethink their strategy if it isn't working for them for this lesson. Then at the end of the lesson as an exit slip I would have them evaluate the strategy they used and whether or not they found it effective and if they would use it again in a smilier lesson, if not what they would do differently the next time. That exercise would give them the chance to practice all three of the metacognitive knowledges and skills.