Sunday, September 25, 2016

WOW~ It is the first time for me to read this word so I looked up in the dictionary. It says "metacognition" is a psychology term which means awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes. When I go back to the article, I found out an explanation that is more friendly for us to understand the term.  We can regard "metacognition" as a self-checking procedure while one's learning. It is a mental activity that we realize whether or not we understand the texts that we read or a statement that we heard. 

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There are three categories under metacognition: 1) Metamenory and metacomprehension (It is amazing to see that all these "meta-" words are underlined when I typed them!): referring to an understanding of one's own knowledge state (What do you know?).  2) Problem solving: persuiting of a goal when the path is not clear (What would you do to reach the destination?). 3) Critical thinking: evaluating and judging if ideas make sense.

My mentor teacher uses reading log a log. I think it is a very good way to use metacognition. Students in my class are required to read for 30 minutes for any books they want every night. And they have different reading logs to fill out after they finish reading. There are questions like: who are the main characters in the story? what is their relationship? what is the setting of the story? ,etc. I think it is an effective way to make students think about their own thinking. They will be aware of whether or not they understand the texts after reading. 
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I think the picture above is a good example of using metacognition. All these questions can be used as self-check questions for students to think back whether or not they understand what they have learned. We can use it in any grade levels and any subjects.

My question for you guys is :
Have you ever seen any examples about this topic in your field work?
Under what situations did your mentors apply it to their teaching?

Thank you for reading! Have a good night! :)

From Bing :)

12 comments:

  1. Hey Bing!

    My mentor teacher uses metacognition strategies in her classroom mostly during reading. She implements it most during read to self first thing in the mooring. She thinks it's a good way to start the day a bit more calm and let the students engage themselves in their reading. I think that it would be a great idea to implement this in math too, because it can allow students to express their reasoning and give more inside to the teacher as to how the students solve problems.

    Becca

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  2. this is a cool idea.

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  3. this is a cool idea.

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  4. Bing, you bring up some great points as to why metacognition is an important aspect of your students that you should be exploring, as well as having them explore themselves.

    My teacher uses a strategy like this at the very beginning of each day, called a journal topic. Students respond to a given prompt, and then (at least on days that I'm there) they are allowed to share what they wrote to the class. This allows them to actually hear out loud what they wrote, as well as practice their pubic speaking skills.

    Something I see a lot with my 5th graders is that those who read their entries out loud often time stumble upon words that they wrote down themselves. This should be something that prompts them to use their own metacognition as they are writing and trying to get ideas down on paper.

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    1. Hi, Andrea! Thank you for your comment! I think reading out loud is a good way to self check for writing. For myself, I like to read my essay out loud when I finished one section (a few paragraphs, is it weird? LoL~ I need emoji here~) so that I can fix grammar and kind of get some ideas about what to write next.

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  5. Bing,

    I like the idea of your teacher using a very involved reading log. My teacher has the students read part of the novel by themselves, then read with a group and then we will re read certain sections as a class. Loved your visuals!

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  6. Bing,

    I really liked your blog! I love the 6 different thinking hats picture. It was a great way to represent metacognition. I do see metacognition being used in my classroom now at Wells Prep. Like Andrea, we start out the day by having the students respond to a journal topic in their journals. Then they share out their responses with the class which allows them to think about what they wrote. We just began using metacognition in math right now as well because we got new math textbooks. These new math textbooks challenge the students to think about their reasoning as to why they are solving the math problem the way that they are. They have to explain their reasoning behind each step that they are choosing to do when solving the problem.

    Great Job!

    Resilda

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    1. Hi, Resilda! I am happy that you like my post! Actually I typed a paragraph to reply you but I deleted it by accident!! (I need an emoji here!!!) Anyway, I am going to retype! I think metacognition will be helpful when students learn math. My classroom is a reading classroom but I go with my students to math everyday. I really like how the teacher always asks students to proof their results by working backward to their steps. This does not only give students a sense of checking their results but also encourage them to learn another method to solve the related problems.

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  7. Hi Bing. I really enjoyed your visuals. Sadly, I do not see metacognition used in my classroom. I am in a math classroom and kids do not find metacognition easy in that enviroment. I have tried to ask them questions like, "Why do you think that the answer is _____?" and they just assume that they got the question wrong. I am working on trying to make defending an answer a norm in the classroom. Good job!

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    1. Hi Kim! Thank you for your comment! I had this situation too. When I asked students how did they think about their answers, they always thought they got it wrong. So I changed my way of asking, "Can you show me the steps that you solve this problem"? They would go back and explain to me from the beginning. If the answer was wrong they would realized and found out where was the wrong step.

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  8. Hey Bing!
    Love the pictures! Well one things for sure my teacher does a lot of self-monitoring during math class. Each student has a math journal that they use to problem solve in and explain what their thought process is when they are solving the math problem. It's kind of like CGI! So it's really neat to see students thinking beyond "math rules."

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  9. Hi Bing,

    You did such a great job! I love all of your visuals that you included. We use a lot of metacognition in my classroom because we have a lot of different discussions. When we talk about different topics, I ask my students to elaborate on their thoughts when asked about their personal opinion.

    Whitney Jean

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