Metacognitive awareness can really blossom if we begin to reframe our relationship with students through the lens of an apprenticeship. Such reframing creates the right social environment for modeling the patterns and standards of reasoning (Martinez, 2006) associated with a given discipline, as well as facilitating students’ acquisition of those ways of knowing. Yet the real challenge of such work resides in supporting teachers as they make their tacit knowledge more visible to themselves. Then and only then, will teachers be positioned to demonstrate to their students the practices and processes valued in the discipline under study. For so long, content-area teachers have understood their work in terms of supporting students in developing the requisite content knowledge to demonstrate mastery on a given task. As the Reading Apprenticeship Framework suggests, making the invisible processes of reading more transparent repositions subject-area classrooms as spaces to support the reading and comprehension of text, thereby deconstructing the complex processes of reading and meaning-making (Schoenbach, Braunger, Greenleaf, & Litman, 2003) Perhaps most importantly, it helps teachers provide access to academic discourses, or particularized ways of knowing, that extend both power and privilege in our society. Through my experience at Project READI, I learned to move beyond notions of metacognition as “thinking about thinking” to really negotiate the nuts and bolts of how and why we read. Opening up those lines of inquiry for my students has helped them develop a sense of ownership when it comes to reading Literature, even though many of my students have shared that Language Arts was their least favorite subject. Framing Literature as a way to understand the human condition, to interrogate the human experience, has invited them into the landscape of literary analysis and critique.
Metacognition moves the learning away from understanding the other and toward understanding how to examine the self. Developing one’s own self-awareness is a formidable challenge; teaching others to be self-aware can seem to be an insurmountable challenge. Yet Martinez offers the reader a small nugget buried deep in the article: “on the self-regulatory side, persistence in the face of difficulty can be crucial” (pg. 699). Establishing a classroom culture that normalizes struggle and provides strategies for students to successfully grapple through the challenges they will encounter is critical. Speaking from my own experience, I try to establish this culture from day 1. After the students and I have worked collaboratively to negotiate classroom norms and expectations, I explain that I have a final rule, the Golden Rule, which is non-negotiable. It states, “You may opt for help, you may opt for a break, and you may opt for a second chance, but you can never, ever opt out!!!” The words are just that, but the actions required on my part to bring this rule to life are another. It’s a promise, put in writing and posted prominently, that serves as a reminder to the students and myself. It requires me to be mindful of the fact that the supports and scaffolds needed by students vary according to each individual. It means that I provide second chances. It requires me to understand that sometimes students aren’t feeling it on a particular day. It means that I don’t foreclose on my students, even when they have repeatedly failed to make due on their responsibilities. It allows us to recognize our shared humanity, and the moments where we will undoubtedly come up short in meeting each other’s every need. Martinez does well to bring up the point but falls short in fully fleshing out what it means to teach students persistence in some legitimate and meaningful way.
Finally, I’m reminded how essential dialogue is to metacognition, in terms of engaging with more knowledgeable others (Vygotsky, 1978) as well as engaging with our own ideas and thinking. Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin argues that everything that has been said is in response to what has been said or in anticipation of what will be said (Bakhtin, 2010; 1984). This idea resonates for me as a classroom teacher on so many levels. Dialogue allows us to pilot our ideas, surface our misconceptions and widen our lenses, to include the perspectives of others as we formulate our own ideas. While metacognition is a cognitive theory, I do appreciate Martinez’s acknowledgment of social contexts and how they work to inform and influence learning. I do believe he could have also included cultural realities, which have tremendous influence in how we come to know and understand our worlds. Being mindful of embedding opportunities for students to engage in dialogic interaction with one another is critical. However it’s simply not enough. As educators, we must also have handy our rationales for the types of participation structures (e.g pair-share, small group, triads) we’re employing, as well as clear paths to facilitate students as they work toward the goal of the particular lesson. Constant mindfulness toward each element of instruction we design and implement helps us reflect and grow as teachers. It puts us on a pathway to orchestrate those periodic moments of magic in the classroom.
I am glad that you brought up the importance of tone, Professor. Going back to Martinez’s article and skimming through it to familiarize myself with his tone made me reevaluate the information that he presents, as well as the way he intends for it to be perceived. The conclusion and paragraphs leading up to his final statement suggest a cure-all that has been found for struggling students and the teaching system as a whole. Martinez suggests what is essentially a three-part solution set “for the development of metacognition in the classroom” (Martinez, 699). This guide of his proposes that students should be given the opportunity to practice metacognition, teachers must make their own mental processes audible for students in order to forge the apprenticeship relationship and third, promotion of social interaction in order for students to not only voice their own ideas but to learn from the ideas of others in order to widen their cognitive lens which dictates their outlook upon the world (Martinez, 699). Martinez highlights that fulfillment of these three steps merely requires “enough effort” (Martinez, 699), and while I do not disagree with his proposed steps, Martinez implies that teachers simply have not put forth the effort to try to implement these methods that seem to appear fairly obvious to him.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Cziko, et al., however, convey the opposite tone, in which they implore their audience to consider the impediments surrounding the cultivation of metacognition in students. Cziko et al. shine a light on the “constraints of curriculum coverage and the impositions of standards and exams that value student ‘absorption of knowledge’ over ‘student construction of meaning’” (117). One element that these authors “lament [is] that secondary subject-area teachers are resistant to teaching reading as part of their content, or…face organizational and curriculum constraints that are powerful deterrents to taking up this work” (Cziko et al. 85), thereby expanding the readers’ concept of the obstacles facing teachers and students alike. This observation especially lends itself to a question that Martinez brings to the table about whether context is critical for metacognition and whether students’ repertoire of skills needs to adjust from subject to subject (Martinez, 697). Martinez quotes Ann Brown, where Brown posits that “self-interrogating one’s own knowledge during problem solving is an essential skill in a wide variety of situations”, but couldn’t the tools of metacognition conversely be used to unlock knowledge? Cziko et al. present their study with the young Hispanic student Rosa, where Rosa is presented with a passage full of words that she does not understand and a historical excerpt that she is not familiar with, but repeatedly references skills and processes that she has gained and built upon throughout the reading apprenticeship program to unravel the information buried in the text.
Different contexts may require modification of the skills required for comprehension of different subject-area content, however, once a strong basis is established for students to build upon then it paves a much smoother road for teachers of subjects outside of the realm of language arts for incorporation of skills critical to evaluation of information pertinent to their field. Scientific inquiry is absolutely going to be different in nature than the approach one takes to analyzing historical phenomena, but that does not mean that the two fields cannot be tackled with the same kind of metacognitive conversation as in basic reading comprehension.
The discussion of tone in any kind of discourse lends itself back to an element in metacognition—that of gaining cognitive dimension and “getting the big picture”. It is of crucial importance for students of any field to approach expository academic writings with a healthy dose of caution…to contemplate where a writer is coming from in his beliefs and what he or she wants their audience to believe. The development of metacognition in students, especially in struggling adolescent readers, is a multifaceted problem that will require a dynamic approach.
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by your rationale Margaret. I too believe students should approach expository texts with caution and gauge their understanding of the author before formulating a stance. As an elementary teacher, I find my students often view a piece of writing as almost "authorless". They seem to take the piece for face value rather than noting who wrote the text and more importantly why they chose to write the text. I continually pose this question of author's purpose throughout the school year, so students begin to think about their own reasoning and opinions of author's works.
DeleteI do agree that Martinez seems to insinuate that teachers do not do enough in order for their students to read beyond the surface level of a text. It takes time and training to be able to read a text as more than just your eyes going over the pages and your brain processing the words at a basic level of understanding. Teacher preparation programs have a lot of aspects to them in order to adequately teach students in order for them to succeed in school. Metacognitive awareness is not a number one priority because first we need students to be able to read and write at a high enough level before we can help train to them to question the author's text and understand the message beyond its face value.
ReplyDeleteMetacognitive awareness is a wonderful part of reading and understanding because it allows the reader to delve deeper into a text's message and bring out new ideas of their understanding and other people can learn from that understanding. As someone who loves to read, I know that when it comes to novels and books about history, I become in enthralled and it makes me think about what was happening in the world during those times. When texts have a message or give something to the reader that they want to know more about, readers, such as myself, will think about what I am reading beyond just processing the words in my brain. As a future teacher, I want my students to be able to question what they read and find topics they find so interesting that they find books they do not want to put down. I want my future students to be able to have intelligent discussions about articles and books and question why the author(s) chose to write about that topic and maybe write certain information in and leave other information out. Metacognitive awareness brings reading and comprehension to a whole new light. It is not just about tests with questions asking 'what did this person do in this scene?'. It is about knowing the background of a text and being able to take something out of reading that text that could open doors for the reader to want to know more and broaden their understanding.
I do agree with Martinez on his point about students practicing their metacognitive skills. He writes, "First, and most obviously, students must have the opportunity to practice and so must be placed in situations that require metacognition" (Martinez, 2006). I do think students should have time in the classroom in which they learn how to take the time and hone their skills of reading and comprehension in order to improve their metacognitive awareness. This is a skill that is needed for a lifetime and it makes learning and understanding the world even more essential because these students are the future. As teachers we need to show them how to expand their education as much as possible in order to bring about new understanding in the future.
Metacognition also helps the readers understand themselves in a new light because once they find subjects they are passionate about, that opens doors to expanding their self-understanding. I also agree that metacognitive awareness about oneself helps people bring about awareness in those around them. When people have the skills and tools needed to understand ideas beyond face value they see into a world of issues that are understood and discussed by few due to the lack of metacognitive awareness. In order to spread this awareness there does need to be a dialogue because that is how ideas are spread and how other people can train to be aware and understand beyond the surface level. The more people develop this awareness overtime, the more the classroom will bring about a world of people who are able to make changes and bring about those times when you see students understanding an idea and are able to take that idea another step further.
Bess,
DeleteI'd like to quote you, if I may:
"When people have the skills and tools needed to understand ideas beyond face value they see into a world of issues that are understood and discussed by few due to the lack of metacognitive awareness."
This sentence really struck me as an important one, as I believe it gestures toward the broader benefits of focusing literacy education around metacognitive thinking. Martinez mentions the (philosophical) origin of such thought in the works of Socrates, who famously assumed a posture of "knowing nothing," in order to forces his students to assess their own knowledge claims; but Socrates also used this strategy to allow his own perspectival paradigms to shift.
Of course, the true benefit of the Reading Apprenticeship model and a metacognitive focus is that students acquire the skills, experience, and confidence to learn the language and schema necessary to navigate various disciplines effectively. But beyond the academic implications of this approach are deeper ones, I think, regarding our ability to function effectively as human beings – both socially and personally. Greenleaf et al. acknowledge this dimension in the context of academics on pages 90-91 of their article; they focus on the agency and cultural exchange inherent in this process.
But the “meta” perspective can be utilized outside academics in the way we examine our perspectives of the world at large. For the sake of brevity – and because I am nowhere near skilled enough as a writer to paraphrase this notion elegantly – I am going to supply a link to David Foster Wallace’s speech/essay about this idea: “What is Water?”
Here are a few versions for you to check out, based on how you want to experience it:
FULL TEXT: http://bulletin.kenyon.edu/x4280.html
YOUTUBE, FULL: https://youtu.be/8CrOL-ydFMI
YOUTUBE, SHORT, VISUAL: https://youtu.be/pfw2Qf1VfJo\
Notice how Foster Wallace remains utterly (even painfully) self-conscious throughout the speech. He is aware of his nervousness as a speaker; his appearing “pompous” if students construe him as the wise, old fish, and so on. I think his argument – that by becoming aware of all the perspectives we can assume, we become better able to assume that which makes our world most beautiful to us – is inspiring, and probably also at the heart why this orientation holds the most promise for us as educators. If we succeed here, we can make not just better students, but people who are better equipped to find meaning in the world and the people around them.
Kevin I would like to quote you if I may. In your blog you stated, “Of course, the true benefit of the Reading Apprenticeship model and a metacognitive focus is that students acquire the skills, experience, and confidence to learn the language and schema necessary to navigate various disciplines effectively. But beyond the academic implications of this approach are deeper ones, I think, regarding our ability to function effectively as human beings – both socially and personally. “
DeleteI think you struck a cord by acknowledging the importance of metacognition as a life skill rather than strictly an academic skill. Further, I believe this parallels a crucial void between adolescents and academic expectations. It is important to recognize that a child needs to understand his or her own thinking before analyzing the thinking and opinions of another. Often times I believe educators view a student weakness as knowledge unretained from previous years of schooling. However, I beg to differ, I wonder if that child struggles to understand the connection between the academic material and their own thinking. Perhaps the child’s prior knowledge or experience doesn’t span enough ground to bridge those two concepts.
I believe all the ideas you brought forth are absolutely true, Professor Coppola. After reading Martinez’s article at first, I just focused on the main ideas and what he was trying to relay to the reader, but I did not really think about his tone. After reading your blog post, I went back and looked at his article again and noticed the exact tone that you were speaking of. Once I saw this, it became clear to me that I was not “thinking about thinking” or monitoring my thoughts. I was not critically thinking about the reading. As college students, we sometimes forget to take a deeper look in what we are reading or what we are supposed to be thinking about. Martinez then discusses critical thinking and problem solving in his article which are large components of cognitive activity and metacognition (Martinez, 2006).
ReplyDeleteI agree that as teachers or soon to be teachers we need to create a classroom culture that shows that people struggle, but at the same time be able to provide strategies and ideas to overcome that. Your Golden Rule is absolutely correct. It made me think about a past experience of mine in elementary school where my math teacher provided this classroom culture you are speaking of and at the same time taught us to never give up. Whenever the students were struggling in class and she could tell they did not want to ask questions, she always told us that even Einstein asked questions, but never gave up or else we wouldn’t have had his discoveries. She always told us to keep thinking about the problem and think about it in multiple ways. She was teaching us problem solving and critical thinking. And if you had gotten a problem wrong, we had to evaluate how and why it was wrong. At such a young age, students are taught the operations of metacognition.
Martinez discusses that students need to be in situations where they need to use metacognition and that students should know the meaning and importance of it (Martinez 2006). In all honesty, I have not heard of metacognition until I reached my college classes. I believe that students can think about their own thinking critically and problem solve without knowing what metacognition is. As someone who has been a student majority of my life, it has been ingrained in my head to think critically, evaluate ideas, etc. Just as Martinez discussed in his conclusion, the practice of metacognition is old, but the term is new. Martinez believes that it is better to now have this term to define these operations. In my opinion, students will use metacognitive operations if they are given the environment and scaffolding to do so from the teacher and their peers.
In discussing metacognition and its operations, it is important to see that these operations take place in all subjects in one’s schooling. Metacognitive operations are crucial in reading. Students need to understand how, why, and what we read. In order for students to see this, teachers can model metacognition by making their thought processes audible. This will then help the students and hopefully they will be able to model the problem solving and critical thinking.
Metacognition as a whole is very complex, but like you stated above in your post that dialogue is very important. Dialogue is important in making thought processes audible not only from the teacher, but the student’s peers. Students learn a lot of information from their peers as well as with the social interactions with them. As soon to be teachers or teachers we definitely need to take all this information into consideration in helping ensure our future students are thinking critically and problem solving not only in school, but in everyday life.
Along with the previous commenters, I agree that Martinez attempts to pin educators as the ones at fault for the lack of proficiency that students exhibit. However, with limited resources and the move towards standardization it has become increasingly harder for teachers to cater to the needs of the children in their classrooms. Martinez claims, “students must have the opportunity to practice and so must be placed in situations that require metacognition” (Martinez, 2006). However, I can speak from personal experience that students are only seldom given that opportunity.
ReplyDeleteI attended Gladstone Elementary from second grade to fourth, a school that would later become UIC College Prep. During my time at this school there was a program called Direct Instruction (DI). The program would split students up by reading proficiency, and have them work with other students who were on the same level of proficiency. As far as I remember, it did not matter what grade you were, if you were reading at 5th grade level and you were in 3rd grade you would be placed in a classroom doing 5th grade reading. The program would first have you read from a text full of different stories. After the text was done you would work in a workbook and answer questions about what you had read with the help of the teacher. For me, this was a wonderful program. It was where I developed my reading, what I would consider to be my strongest subject in part because of this program. I believe that this was a great way to get students to practice their metacognitive skills. It allowed time for the students to fully understand what the author was trying to convey through the text. However, after I transferred out of this school I never again encountered anything like this. I would be hard-pressed to expect teachers to do anything like this at the elementary level, and even more so at the high school level today. There is little time in the year to stray off from the curriculum and standardized testing preparedness goals already set in place.
However, I strongly agree with the second point that Martinez gives regarding metacognition in the classroom. Thinking aloud as a teacher opens the door for students to understand how to arrive at an answer regardless of what content area class they are in. It allows for the comparison of their own ideas against the ones of someone who has a greater grasp of the ideas being presented. Thinking aloud can help students build their own framework of thought, something that they can later use to expand their understanding of a topic. Martinez’ third point meshes well with his second. Martinez claims, “Social interaction among students should be used to cultivate their metacognitive capacity” (Martinez, 2006). Thinking aloud can help to encourage students to speak up and present their own ideas to the class. The more students bounce around their own ideas the easier it is for other students in the class to incorporate those ideas in their own thinking. Martinez mentions that emotions are also a big part of metacognition. Metacognition involves “emotions that often accompany difficulty, uncertainty, and the possibility of makes and failure” (Martinez, 2006). The social interaction of working as a whole inside a classroom can help students overcome the emotions that might come from working on a problem or topic that some students might find to daunting or demanding.
Martinez presents his three points as almost a one size fits all sort of way. While sometimes these points might not be able to nicely fit into a classroom they are a good starting off point to help students expand their metacognitive abilities. With greater proficiency a book that was boring to a student might suddenly become their favorite book after they are able to really digest what the author was trying to convey. Of course metacognition goes beyond just a better understanding of texts and their true meanings.
Jaasiel,
DeleteYou say, "if you were reading at 5th grade level and you were in 3rd grade you would be placed in a classroom doing 5th grade reading. The program would first have you read from a text full of different stories."
I'm wondering if the converse were also true: if you were in 5th grade reading at a 3rd grade level, would you be placed in the 3rd grade classroom? How would a student feel if this were his/her reality?
I have a question about your insight regarding reading comprehension workbooks. In Greenleaf et al., Rosa, the girl in the case study, mentions that she did not get much out of such activities. She explains that one could just use the questions and their order to go back through the text, find the right answers, and avoid reading entirely. Did your teacher do something different - offer more guidance, or "meta" questions - to ensure that your reading comprehension was progressing? It seems that it might rely on students already buying into the program to be effective, lest the less invested students resort to the "wasteful" fake reading that Martinez describes.
DeleteThroughout my education, terms like problem solving, critical thinking, metacognition, etc.….have been thrown around without any in-depth conversation of the importance of each. I believe our education system has lost sight of the important foundations; the roots of the problem linking back to the quality of education that is offered in our society.
ReplyDeleteRick offers a fantastic quote in his blog post, “For so long, content-area teachers have understood their work in terms of supporting students in developing the requisite content knowledge to demonstrate mastery on a given task;” yet teachers do no put an emphasis on the WHY and HOW.
As a mathematics student, I never asked why, until a professor posed the question to me. This really made me think about what a quality education consists of. "First, and most obviously, students must have the opportunity to practice and so must be placed in situations that require metacognition" (Martinez, 2006). Yes, we all know that teachers SHOULD provide the opportunity for students to be placed in situations where metacognition is required, but how do we as educators do that? The juicy part of Martinez’s article, as Rick points out, is that “Metacognition should be modeled” and “Social interaction among students should be used to cultivate their metacognitive capacity” (Martinez, 2006). Teaching needs to incorporate the thinking involved in forming solutions as this can allow students to start creating a “tool kit” for solving problems.
Metacognition takes place in all aspects of schooling. It is important for students to learn these terms and understand them for their roots. This can help students build their own understanding of material taught in class and evaluate their own comprehension of the course work.
I am going to just jump in in medias res style because that's how we do. What resonated with me from the reading, from Prof. Coppola's blog post, as well as with a few of the replies thus far is the notion that a teacher working through her/his own thought process out loud is super beneficial to students. Because, yes. Of course we want to show how we do things in our own brains because 1) we are the "experts" in the class room and 2) the more times we share our thought processes out loud with the class, the more and more different strategies will be exemplified out loud in front of the class. I want to add to this by getting extra-meta and say that even stopping and identifying and/or naming these strategies in real time in front of the class would be a good idea. This would help build a list of literacy comprehension strategies from which students can draw, and from which you as the teacher can also draw in the form of name dropping. Name dropping strategies will reinforce the idea that they exist, and are useful and here is an "expert" using them.
ReplyDeleteI also am coming from literacy and thinking-out-loud from a slightly different perspective than was presented in the readings so far, because I am studying to be a math teacher. However, I believe in it just as much and maybe am even pushing it to the forefront of my tool box more so because of my own personal experience. As I pointed out, I am studying math at the university level. When I was in high school, I went from good to decent to bad at math. That was my progression of achievement in mathematics from freshman to junior year (senior year followed suit, and I just "nope'd" on a math course altogether.) When I reflect back on what I did not know in high school regarding math, or more specifically, what tool I didn't have it is this: a poor concept of the processes and reasons behind each individual step during mathematical goal or process we did in class. My teacher was the head baseball coach and so he had other priorities for sure but he would write a problem on the board, and he would ask what the first step was and the smartest kid in class would give the first step and the teacher would write it and then he would ask for the second step and the second smartest kid in class would give the second step and so forth... It is probably a recognizable circumstance to many of you. And for those of us who were NOT the first, second or third smartest kids in class, we didn't know why they were doing the steps they were doing, or how they were allowed to, or what the point was. Explaining each step out loud every time would have helped so much. Maybe we could have even learned enough about the problems that going home and working them out ourselves would have been easier. Maybe we could have had the tools to fix a dismantled equation.
In a field such as math where kids question "Why do we have to do this?" and "What use is this to my life?", a teacher must have some sort of retort ready that he or she believes in. That is, if the teacher wants the students to possibly change their tone at all. My retort (and I do fully believe in it) is that while every person may not necessarily make use of geometry or advanced algebra or pre-calculus in their daily lives, they WILL certainly need to problem solve. And mathematics is wonderful practice exercise your brain and get it into shape for problem solving. More importantly, it is like stretching your brain, too, because it teaches flexibility and creativity to your neurons (so to speak). Like a coach or personal trainer must be there many steps of the way to teach a client good form in exercising or stretching, so too must a teacher and there is no better way than by explaining thought processes out loud to the class, asking them to share their own thought processes, and letting this all reverberate amongst the kids.
When reading, What is Metacognition?, I wasn’t aware of the tone throughout the reading I simply tried understanding the ideas behind the article. But after reading your post, I went back and reread the article and yes I agree the tone is quite different than expected. Like you mentioned, his thoughts on the ways teachers use metacognition is quite different but I believe the school should teach its teachers the correct way of using metacognition within the classroom. As more teachers are going into the field, I believe metacognition should be taught in depth. I wasn’t really aware of metacognition until I took my education courses and even though we learned a bit about it and how the use of it in the classroom is beneficial to the students. It should be taught more to others in order to understand that metacognition can be used at any level class classes not just high school or college. I always thought of metacognition as thinking about thinking but Martinez gave a better definition about metacognition as “the monitoring and control of thoughts” (Martinez, 2006).
ReplyDeleteIt’s all about thinking about oneself and trying to overcome our own barriers. As teachers and future teacher, we should be able to incorporate that part into the everyday lesson of each student. Students should feel comfortable approaching teachers and finding ways to improve themselves. Like you mentioned when beginning a classroom it’s always best to set out the expectations of the class because students will then be able to have the confidence to ask themselves question about reading, math, or any subjects they take. The article Reading for Understanding gives a better insight of the use of metacognition when it comes to reading. Using metacognition as stated “enables teachers and students to reflectively analyze and assess the impact of their thinking processes” (The Reading Apprenticeship Framework, 26). We should be able to create a classroom where students feel confident questioning themselves about certain readings or any other subject then students are working to achieve a greater goal. Each students should have goals they want to achieve and therefor enabling them to seek help when needed. Reading Apprenticeship Framework gave many great thoughts on how to start such a safety place in were students can talk about their thoughts and questions without any judgement. Such as working with the students to come up with rules in the classroom, discussing what makes it sage or unsafe for students to engage, etc. (Reading Apprenticeship Framework, 27).
In the end, as teachers we have to really understand the concept of metacognition and even though it has been around for some time, we should be able to create an environment in where students are comfortable with each other and the teacher as well. But as Professor Coppola mentioned a classroom can have various structures such as pair-share, small group, etc. and once that is established it can then be geared towards students using their own thoughts to guide the class. All in all, metacognition can become a useful tool in the classroom when used in the correct way and can be used to make students think about the classroom critically.
Martinez makes an excellent argument about the importance of metacognition and how necessary it is to restructure our student-teacher relationship and create environments where metacognition is required, modeled, and social dialogue is conducted to cultivate metacognitive capacity. I did not, unlike Professor Coppola and Margaret Dziemianko, get a complete sense Martinez’ tone of why more teachers are not employing metacognition strategies. But I did notice that while he makes a compelling argument, the strategy is certainly not a “cure-all” for literacy ails in today’s classrooms, especially when explained in a four-page article. Luckily, the subsequent articles “Apprenticing Adolescents to Reading in Subject-Area Classrooms” and Chapters Two and Four of The Reading Apprenticeship Framework go much more in-depth and provide not only greater insight into Martinez’ points, but provide practical examples to illustrate and even use in a classroom. During my previous experiences in education classes at UIC, I was struck by how theories were touted and lectured, but never backed up with readings or demonstrations of how they were to applied effectively.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me about the readings on metacognition and literacy was that I had an understanding that I do these things in my classroom without a structured and formal knowledge of what the practices and their associative terminology were called. For example, I was coaching and teaching students literacy strategies without realizing it was called Reading Apprenticeship. The framework that is given helps me better understand how to better refine my literacy strategies and understand other related strategies.
I agree with Bess Abramovitz’s about teacher preparation being key, but metacognition is not a high priority as training teachers have many more aspects to learn as part of their preparation. Professional development focusing on literacy strategies can certainly help teachers, however, in my experience, such professional development in literacy strategies was too diffuse, disorganized, and never had any follow-up. They lacked a coherent, organized structure, preferring, instead, to dole out little activities that teachers could employ in a classroom without an overall knowledge framework. This is one of the primary reasons why I have decided to return to graduate school and update my instructional methods rather than rely on professional development in my district. At least with my classes there is an overall framework to structure what we are learning and put it into an overall context. We are also given practical examples and new ideas to bring into the classroom once a course is completed. When I graduated from UIC in 1995 with an M.A.T. in history, we were never required to take CI 504. I feel by taking this class as part of my degree in curriculum helps me stay up to date with instructional strategies since my district is not doing an effective job with our professional development.
Time seems to be a teacher’s worst enemy. In my World Civilizations classes, we are expected to follow a schedule as laid out in our curriculum mapper. The units take anywhere from two to four weeks to complete. In that time, we have much to cover, not only in content knowledge but other skills as well, such a teaching (and re-teaching) all of the following: timelines, geography, map interpretations, comparison charts of all types, political cartoons, pie charts, and bar graphs. This also includes reading and writing activities as well. Even though I have taken the steps over the years to adopt best practices that worked very well in my classroom and streamlined many things, I am still battling with time to finish into the modern era of history at the end of the school year. So when the second article said “…many teachers have told us that, when they slow reading down at strategic times to model productive comprehension processes, their students gradually develop the capacity to read longer, even more challenging texts more independently and with greater understanding.” (Schoenbach, Braunger, Greenleaf, & Litman, 2003) it resonated with me. I have found in my practical experience that at key points, it does help to identify certain crucial readings and slow it down to work through the reading together, devise and teach strategies to the students, and discuss the reading’s multiple meanings.
ReplyDeleteTo summarize, Martinez promotes an excellent argument. But the article is too brief (but a good stepping-stone), therefore we must rely on further research and practical applications of metacognition (not to mention our dialogues inside and outside the classroom) to gain further understanding, and to learn about not only the potential success and problems, but also obstacles that can hinder our ability to effectively employ metacognition in our classrooms.
I believe that as future teachers it is crucial to teach metacognition in the classroom. I agree with Martinez and believe that "metacognition is important and consequential for learners of all ages" (Martinez, 699). However , how exactly do we as teachers teach students metacognitive skills? Is it enough to simply model these metacognitive skills by thinking aloud? Or should we simply emphasize in creating social interactions among our students in order to guide them to think critically together? I believe that in order for students to be able to gain metacognitive skills they must have the opportunity to practice using them. As soon as, I finish reading this article I began to think of ways teachers can help students develop these skills. Something that came to mind was having students keep learning journals in which they reflect on their own learning. The focus on these journals should be on what they learned and how they learn it. For instance, a student can be ask to write down something new they learned and what was challenging about learning it.This way students can actually reflect on the way they learn and hopefully make this a habit that they can continue using throughout their lives.
ReplyDeleteAnother great way for teachers to help students develop metacognitive skills is by having Pre- and Pro assessments. Having Pre- and Pro assessments is a great way for teachers to evaluate what the students already knows and what they learned. It is also a great way for students to see their own growth and discover their own weaknesses and strengths as learners.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAngelica,
DeleteThank you for your post. I think you are right to point out that the methods teachers use to promote the metamemory, metacomprehension, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills Martinez outlines is key. Especially in schools like those of CPS, engaging students from culturally diverse backgrounds, and who are learning in large classrooms that complicate the implied intimacy of the "master-apprentice" relationship, is problematic.
Clearly, as Greenleaf et al. point out, establishing a safe space for students to make mistakes, offer up ideas for discussion, and exchange perspectives is essential. But for assessing and measuring students' individual needs, CPS teachers might find themselves having to choose between factors of time, cost, and effectiveness.
I think the strategies proposed in Chapter 4 (Metacognitive Conversation: Making Things Visible) are a good starting point. Students can hone each others’ understanding by exchanging ideas from their reading logs during pair work. Teachers can assess students’ individual abilities for assessing arguments or narrative structure based on their entries in double-entry journals. A lot of these strategies help balance the complexity of assessing metacognitive goals with the simplicity and directly observable data of the activities.
I mentioned during our first class that I felt one of the primary goals or outcomes of improving student literacy should be empowerment. This notion comes from my own experience with students – both in and out of the classroom – who exhibited a lack of confidence in their ability to learn new skills. Whether teaching a lesson on color motifs in The Great Gatsby, or how to position your shoulder when throwing a jab in boxing, I always encountered a student who chose not to participate simply because he or she felt they were not able to learn the new information. What strikes me as the real benefit of Reading Apprenticeship is its ability to address the sources of insecurity in literacy – that looming sense of helplessness that comes from having failed previously.
ReplyDeleteThe approach to refocusing students on their strengths, rather than their weaknesses, is so multifarious that it seems to address all the major sources of insecurity. Is the student afraid to fail? Well, Reading Apprenticeship is structured to provide a safe space for collaboration and discourse, where it is “’cool to be confused’” (Greenleaf, Schoenbach, Cziko, and Mueller, p. 96). Is a student struggling with a preoccupation with decoding the language? Well, there is SSR built into the curriculum so they can practice in a low-stakes setting, and self-selected texts being used in teaching, as to help lubricate their movement from translating to interpreting.
Just look at the language the authors use to describe the goals of each dimension: social, personal, cognitive, and knowledge-building: “developing a sense of agency;” “explorations of the relationships between literacy and different types of power in society;” “develop through personal and social interaction with that text . . . .” The case study of Rosa exemplifies a student who is not fearful of unfamiliarity with a text because she knows she possesses the tools – schema, reading strategies, and experience – to make the text mean something.
That empowerment, too, is evident in Professor Coppola’s description of his students’ reformed conception of their language arts coursework, which reframes the seeming tedium of novels by dead white authors, or the opaque verbiage of Shakespeare, as “as a way to understand the human condition, to interrogate the human experience,” that can transcend time and circumstance and become relevant; as Professor Coppola said, he “has invited them into the landscape of literary analysis and critique” – a landscape that offers new and interesting insights into their own lives – by demystifying the elements of the literary discipline that so often discourages students by telling them (via standardized testing and cursory memory exercises) that they are ill-prepared to sift through it.
I was writing “YES” in the margins of my copy of this article on almost every page, as it is so refreshing to see the deficit models of literacy instruction being displaced by one that meets students where they are (cultural context, woot woot), and allowing students to locate their own strengths and interests in their approach to reading.
I apologize for the exceedingly long post. I clearly had a very visceral and enthusiastic reaction to this text.
So, basically this:
https://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Friends1.gif
I think some of the most pressing arguments Martinez and Professor Coppola make are the necessity of Metacognitive awareness and how metacognition aims to formulate a better understanding of others, but especially of oneself.
ReplyDeleteWhen solving a problem, metacognition can be "a powerful source of cognitive processing that can be internalized" (Martinez,2006). Martinez stresses that this process should be done aloud. Although I agree that this would create a more successful learning experience, I do see the underlying problems as well. There are plenty of children and adolescence who do not have the confidence to think aloud and possibly face public ridicule for an incorrect answer. The same goes for teaching professionals. It is difficult for some to swallow their pride and makes themselves vulnerable in order to gain a better understanding of a subject matter. There should be a mutual understanding between teacher and students that thinking aloud only benefits and as Professor Coppola states "Then and only then, will teachers be positioned to demonstrate to their students the practices and processes valued in the discipline under study."
This goes hand in hand with the argument that metacognition helps us as students and educators to develop a stronger comprehension of each other and ourselves. Martinez argues that "If students are encouraged and guided to think critically together, then their spoken reasoning will ideally make their cognitive tools available to one another." (pg 699) But this is not an easy task. That is why Professor Coppola's Golden Rule is so essential to a classroom environment, “You may opt for help, you may opt for a break, and you may opt for a second chance, but you can never, ever opt out!!!”. This promotes that a classroom will have struggles but those struggles are welcome and only further one's knowledge.
I feel like the topic of metacognition is barley scratching the surfaces of how we can actually push our students to think on their own. One thing that really stuck out to me in Martinez's article is the way he breaks down the idea of metacognition into categories of Metamemeory and metacomprehension (Martinez 696-697). I point this out because i feel like it is a good starting point as to how we relate to students and their own understanding. Are students really aware of their own learning in a way that helps them retain the information given or are they simply reading to read through it? Specifically with metacomprehension i feel like Martinez brings up a very good point of realization. As a student myself and previous CPS student i can easily say that as i studied for an exam or paper i felt like i knew the answer to almost every question but that all quickly ended once i no longer had the book in front of me open to the answer. It would be like day and night, i thought i knew the answer but when it came time to actually test what i knew i went blank. This is where we as students may fall short in education,we do not take the extra initiative to be sure that we are aware of what we read and if we learned it. I feel like most students do this and fail to ask for help in understanding because they actually believe they knew the answer. Which is also why i LOVE your golden rule professor, "You may opt for help, you may opt for a break, and you may opt for a second chance, but you can never, ever opt out!" (Coppola). Having this kind of safety structure with students shows them that they have options to continuously check their progress whether it is on their own or with the help of a teacher. It shows that we the teachers are there for our students as tools of understanding and thinking. It provides the relationship necessary for students to want to go further into their own thought and understanding of most classroom subjects.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMartinez pointed out in the article, “What is Metacognition?”, that students must have the opportunity to practice and so must be placed in situations that require metacognition (page 699). However, such practices cannot be available in my elementary and secondary school in my own country because the classroom was filled with around 60 students; there was no enough time to offer abundant practices for each student to make thinking visible after reading processes, thus, that my literature teacher directly told us what happened to the texts was more common way in my school life. As a result of this, I gradually began to choose the books I have an interest in to read. I think that’s the reason why Chinese education system is changing all the time. Since English is not my first language, it takes me more time to digest an article or any literature. I always treat myself as a slow reader, but I realize that I am also a weak reader after reading the articles Professor gave us. When I read something uninteresting to me or long-paragraphs literature, I would wonder and lose the focus from time to time, just like “reading a textbook page and not understanding it (Martinez, 2006)”, so I have to reread what I have read before to make sense, which takes up my most time on reading. Therefore, math, for me, is my favorite subject. Even though it also concludes reading, the most part is relevant to symbols, numbers, and functions. As the definition of metacognition Martinez claims that “metacognition is the monitoring and control of thought (page 696)”, it shows that our metacognitive awareness is related to our knowledge concerning our cognitive dimension while doing the reading processes. I agree with what Professor refers to the Reading Apprenticeship Framework, and for me I am more thinking of cognitive dimension and knowledge-building dimension, such as developing problem-solving strategies and activating appropriate schema for particular texts (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, & Murphy, 2012). As I am a future math teacher, I think problem-solving skills are one of the most essential thing when dealing with math problems. Each kind of math problems has its own similar methods, and if we can master each method, then every problem seems easier for us. In my high school time, my math teacher told us that when we looked at the solutions, not only just looking at what its answer was but also how it came to the answer, and the logic of the following solutions was the core of problem-solving skills.
As I was reading Professor Coppola’s argument about the author’s tone, I realized that I was not aware about the author’s tone while I was reading. I was focusing only on the dimensions of metacognition that he was discussing in his article and on his ideas about how metacognitive ability can be taught in schools. Therefore, I read the article again in depth while I was monitoring my thought about the author’s tone this time, and I realized that professor Coppola’s argument about Martinez’s tone was true and I agree with it. This made me realize the increase importance of metacognitive skill as an educational out come in schools. However, I think the increase emphasis on standardization tests on our education system makes implementing metacognitive skills in classroom difficult. With the limited time teachers have, they focus on teaching students test-taking strategies instead of cognitive strategies. The idea of the limited time the teachers has to teach the students the content knowledge and test-taking strategies and the insufficient time left to teach students metacognitive skills reminded me of what Martinez said about the limited capacity of the brain’s working memory (Martinez, 2006). If students filled their working memory with reading skills and note-taking skills, there will be insufficient room in the working memory to monitor and control own thoughts. As Martinez suggested in his article, in order to reduce the burden on the working memory, reading and note-taking skills should be automated, so there will be a capacity for metacognition. In order to make more capacity on the working memory to think beyond the metacognition definition of “thinking about thinking” and start to question how we read and why we read the ways we do as Professor Coppola suggested, metacognition ability should become so practiced and automated as a habit. Here comes the role of teachers to develop the metacognitive habit and the capacity for it in their classroom.
ReplyDeleteTeachers have to give their students the opportunity to practice metacognition by providing the necessary activities in their lesson plans. For example, a chemistry teacher can provide students with an inquiry-based lab instead of a cookbook lab. In inquiry-based experiment, students can collaborate to design their own experiment, construct their own question and find the answer through experiment. After collecting the data, they analyze their data and try to find what went wrong and why this happened. Inquiry based lab is a good practice for metacognitive skills in science classes that teachers can emphasize to help students develop metacognitive skills. Teachers also can think aloud about how to approach and conduct an inquiry based experiment for the students, so students can internalize the teachers’ cognitive processes and be able to conduct their inquiry based lab by themselves. After reading Martinez and professor Coppola’s argument about metacognition, I have realized that developing metacognitive skills are important for all ages and can be practice in all subject areas not only science.
What struck me while reading was the emphasis on dialogue through the apprenticeship like relationship between teachers and students. Although I am no stranger to this kind of relationship, this is the first time, at least for me, the concept of dialogue has been that prevalent in this context. And I completely agree with that and actually see the improvement and the changes in my own learning after experiencing it myself. However, I understand that improvement in that aspect could be different for different students. I acknowledge that it worked for me because I also know that I am an auditory learner, I learn from listening and talking to others, especially those more knowledgeable than me. On the other hand, there are many people who do not learn that way at all, and instead learn through visual representation or reading about it. So although I agree an apprenticeship like relationship is always the best, sometimes dialogue may not be the best way to go about that to facilitate the growth of metacognitive skills.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I realized after reading Professor Coppola's blog the tone that comes from Martinez regarding the undermining of professionalism. It was easy to see, then, that Martinez only wrote of the ideals of Metacognition and how to cultivate the growth of it. He did not discuss much of examples of how practical application of his ideas would look like or how certain realities of students and teachers alike would influence its application (i.e introverted students).
Finally, reading this made me remember one something my old Humanities teacher did with us in high school. After turning in some of our bigger assignments such as papers or projects, each of us filled out a quick grade expectation sheet that allowed us to tell the teacher what grade we believe we deserved on that particular assignment. At the time it seemed just like a nice thing to do on the teachers' parts or even a cop-out to grading because sometimes we got grades that were similar to what we asked for. However, I now realize that the grade expectation sheet actually allowed our teachers to understand how much effort we actually put into our assignment and to take into account any difficulties we may have had while getting through it. And it makes me think it was like a manifestation of Professor Coppola's Golden Rule, a certain understanding and acceptance of students' struggles and facilitation of a relationship between students and teacher.
When I initially read the Martinez article, I failed to recognize what you mentioned regarding persistence in the face of difficulty being crucial. But I find it interesting that you relate this to your own classroom and that it goes along with your classroom’s “golden rule.” You also mention that creating “a classroom culture that normalizes struggle and provides strategies for students to successfully grapple through the challenges they will encounter is critical.” I completely agree with this. In my own experience as a student, I have found that support from my teachers and peers as well as feeling comfortable to share my concerns has helped me through academic challenges. Going along with this idea, The Reading Apprenticeship Framework discusses different dimensions of metacognitive conversation. Particularly I think that the Social Dimension plays a very important roll, especially for how I have learned. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework mentions that “some students may be embarrassed by reading comprehension difficulties, believing these difficulties mean they are not as skilled as they should be (pg. 27).” This falls under creating a safe classroom culture. I think creating a culture where students are comfortable to share their ideas and questions regarding a subject is crucial to their overall understanding. I have always found that discussing content after it is read is how I really understand it. I would be interested to hear what types of strategies you use in your classroom or any other teachers use to create a positive social culture and give students the confidence to share their struggles and accept that struggling is part of learning.
ReplyDeleteThe following quote from Professors Coppola’s response in terms with the article from Martinez on metacognition formulate a huge connection to exploring the other reading for this week specifically the readings from reading from understanding. “Dialogue allows us to pilot our ideas, surface our misconceptions and widen our lenses, to include the perspectives of others as we formulate our own ideas.” The idea of metacognition as a self awareness to the way you personally think about conceptions, in hand with the idea that dialogue and the way that other people understand information plays a big role into the teaching of literacy throughout multiple disciplines. Additionally, I believe the golden rule you suggested is a good way to tie all ideas together. "You may opt for help, you may opt for a break, and you may opt for a second chance, but you can never, ever opt out!" This golden rule acknowledges the idea that people learn at different rates and that it takes some individuals more than one chance to grasp an idea. This plays into the idea of metacognition that Martinez explains. Additionally, it helps me as a future educator explore notions that within a classroom due to individual background and different experiences students are going to learn at different paces, and therefore helps me become more understanding of the psychological processes that occur within different individuals.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading his piece I had an abundant amount of agreement with what Martinez was speaking about. but one missing aspect on his piece of metacognition that I feel should be addressed is environment. Now with that being said, most will think as to why environment should be spoken about when ones speaking on metacognition, since it is done within ourselves, but it is for that reason it should be spoken about. to clear this up, let us take his point as to students should be able to encourage and evaluate themselves through metacognitive skills, but if the environment, lets say discourages learning and such, then how can learning come to be? the point of this is to say that while metacognition and developing skills from this is important, it is the teachers duty to make sure the environment is ideal and can optimize metacognitive learning.
ReplyDeleteContinuing, I would like to touch on the aspect of automaticity, since in my field of interest, mathematics, some automatic behaviors do not further learning. I am speaking on the use and reliability students have with calculators and even the internet. mathematics is a hard subject if the time to practice the material is not put n, and so the use of calculators and the internet, while a very useful tool, do take away the part of learning how to solve a specific problem. speaking from a personal experience, I once had a teacher who, if we asked a question about a math problem, would advise us to use the internet for help and or use the calculator, when doing either or wouldn't help me--of course it would provide an answer-- it would only confuse me and leave me with no new knowledge for future problems with the material. so I guess my point of this is that teachers and students should be aware of the behavio9rs and habits formed and make sure that the automated skills they pick up on, are skills that matter, meaning skills that show and explain ones own thinking in order to find an answer.
- jose Cardenas
"As educators, we must also have handy our rationales for the types of participation structures (e.g pair-share, small group, triads) we’re employing, as well as clear paths to facilitate students as they work toward the goal of the particular lesson." This is a point that I believe is very important for us, as educators, to keep in mind. I've worked as a tutor for a Differential Calculus course here at UIC, and that has been quite the enlightening experience. Not only was I given the opportunity to observe just how much struggling students can benefit from discourse and the other social aspects of group work (i.e. students would oftentimes solidify their own understanding of an idea while attempting to explain it to someone else), but I quickly realized that the groups of 4 that we were so eager to place everyone into during the workshops were not necessarily the best option for each student (some students flourish when given the opportunity to work one-on-one with the instructor). And so, as our classrooms consist of students that can engage in deep-learning in ways that can vary based on the individual, the importance of metacognition becomes apparent, for a sense of cognitive awareness is crucial for the educator who hopes to help all of his or her students to acquire a deeper understanding of any sort of material.
ReplyDeleteI read the articles and then read the blog and the two responses from Friday and Saturday and began to feel diverted by this word tone. As I reread all I sensed a discomfort toward Martinez’s article. I can somewhat understand how someone can feel challenged or threatened by the introduction to the article due to the pride and effort they may put toward their teaching of students. Some may look at it like shots fired toward their profession. However, I view the focus of this article like I view the problem America is having with police officers. Not all police officers are bad or losing focus but that fact does not negate the fact that some are. I do believe that there are some archaic teachers that believe in the assembly line philosophy that all students can be educated with the same format. That all they need is a Lesson Plan or Instructor’s Guide and they can produce a well prepared student. There is an issue with the literacy of our students and there most likely was one in 2003 as well when this article was written and therefore to refocus or readdress some possible concerns. As an associate professor of education, I am sure Martinez, like the educators in “Apprenticing Adolescent Readers to Academic Literacy” and many educators today; wants to do whatever they can to make their profession better.
ReplyDeleteThe categories given in this article (metamemory, metacomprehension, problem solving and critical thinking) are just a few of many tools to be used in the effort to better prepare our students. These tools may be reminders to those that are familiar with them and an introduction to those that are not. But like most tools in a tool box, these skills may or may not be interchangeable, are not alone and depending on the task may be needed to be used with other tools.
After reading your blog, I was positively struck with your “golden rule!” When thinking of the golden rule, it reminds me of when I was in grammar school. However, the golden rule was different, “treat others as you want to be treated.” I use to always talk to my students about this rule. Since reading your Golden Rule, I will now use this! I believe this will empower my students and let them know they can ask for help, take a break when needed, and ask for a second chance on things during the school year. I want my students to realize that this “golden rule” will benefit them as they continue to grow. They should learn not to be nervous when asking for guidance, learn that everyone needs breaks, and ask for a second chance/forgiveness in their everyday lives.
ReplyDeleteI believe that metacognition is extremely valuable when teaching, because it allows for teachers to have students bring out their own ideas/opinions. Students are then thinking about their own thinking and the world around them. Martinez stated, “Metacognition is important and consequential for all learners of every age.” I try to make my students responsible for their own learning. I explain that I can teach/guide them, but they in the end need to take action for their own learning. For instance, if they are problem solving, I can guide them in the right direction. However, they need to meet me halfway and put in their own thinking on “proving/explaining” on how they are coming up with their solution/answer.