metacognition and student learning - do your job better - the chronicle of higher education

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5/31/13 1:Metacognition and Student Learning - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Do Your Job Better

January 17, 2012

Metacognition and Student LearningBy James M. Lang

This evening, my family will sit down on the couch together to

enjoy the opening episode of America's favorite spectacle of poor

metacognition. Along with millions of others, including some of

you, we will marvel at the sight of so many human beings eager to

put their deficient cognitive skills on display for the world.

I'm talking, of course, about the season premiere ofAmerican Idol,

where lousy metacognition will join lousy singing for two

cringeworthy hours tonight and another hour tomorrow night, as

amateur musicians audition for the opportunity to win fame,

fortune, and a recording contract. The opening two episodes of

each season have become notorious for featuring the worst singers

who auditioned for the show, encouraging viewers to engage in

some gentle schadenfreude as Idolparticipants make fools of

themselves on national television.

What makes so many of those atrocious singers laughable to us

excepting the ones who put on deliberately bad performances in

order to get on cameraturns out to be a problem that plagues

many undergraduates, especially the weakest among them: an

inability to judge accurately their own level of skill or knowledge in

a specific area.

Poor metacognition means that some terrible yet hopeful singers

onAmerican Idolare unable to assess their own weak vocal talents.

And it means that some students have a mistaken sense of

confidence in the depth of their learning.
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Cognitive psychologists use the term metacognition to describe

our ability to assess our own skills, knowledge, or learning. That

ability affects how well and how long students studywhich, of

course, affects how much and how deeply they learn. Students with

poor metacognition skills will often shorten their study time

prematurely, thinking that they have mastered course material thatthey barely know.

I was introduced to this concept by Stephen Chew, professor and

chair of the psychology department at Samford University, who

wrote to me in response to my column last month on teaching and

human memory. Chew's credentials in this area immediately

caught my attention: In 2011 he was named one of four outstanding

professors of the year by the Council for Advancement and Support

of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of

Teaching. His work focuses specifically on the implications of

cognitive research for learning and instruction.

As a part of his work in this area, Chew has produced a series of

videos for students on how to study effectively. After watching all

five of the videos in his serieswhich I highly recommend to all

administrators and faculty members who work with first-year

studentsI thought it worthwhile to devote one more column to

drawing out a principle from cognitive psychology that could help

many of us do our jobs better.

I asked Chew to give readers a basic definition of metacognition,

with some illustrations of the concept both from education and

everyday life. "Metacognition," he explained in an e-mail, "is a

person's awareness of his or her own level of knowledge and

thought processes. In education, it has to do with students'

awareness of their actual level of understanding of a topic. Weaker

students typically have poor metacognition; they are grossly

overconfident in their level of understanding. They think they have

a good understanding when they really have a shallow, fragmented

understanding that is composed of both accurate information and
http://www.samford.edu/how-to-study/http://chronicle.com/article/TeachingHuman-Memory/130078


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misconceptions."

That leads weak students, he said, to make poor study decisions:

"Once students feel they have mastered material, they will stop

studying, usually before they have the depth and breadth of

understanding they need to do well. On exams, they will often

believe their answers are absolutely correct, only to be shocked

when they make a bad grade."

As for examples outside of education, Chew had no trouble

pointing them out in a variety of areas, including reality television

shows.

"Poor metacognition is a big part of incompetence," he explained.

"People who are incompetent typically do not realize how

incompetent they are. People who aren't funny at all think they are

hilarious. People who are bad drivers think they are especially

good. You don't want to fly on a plane with a pilot who has poor

metacognition. A lot of reality shows likeAmerican Idolhighlight

people with poor metacognition for entertainment. Everyone

knows people who are seldom in doubt but often wrong."

Yes, I know quite a few of those people. I'm related to at least one ofthem.

But let's assume that I want to help people with poor metacognitive

skills, instead of just trying to avoid them at our next holiday

gathering. I asked Chew what faculty members can do to assist

students do a better job of assessing their own skills and

knowledge.

"The best way to reduce the impact of poor metacognition," Chew

said, "is to use formative assessment during teaching. Formative

assessments are brief, low-stakes activities that students do in

order to give both themselves and the teacher feedback about their

level of understanding. There is a wide assortment of assessments

that faculty can use, such as think-pair-share activities, minute


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papers, and so-called 'clicker' questions."

"I like to use ConcepTests, developed by Eric Mazur, in which I

present the class with a multiple-choice question similar to ones

that will be on the exam," he added. "Students select their answers

individually, and I poll the class. They can then discuss their answer

with other students, after which I poll the class again. Finally, we

discuss the answers as a class. This gives me a sense of how well

students understand the material. I can identify and address

problem areas."

Most important, he said, these ConcepTestswhich can be used

quite simply even in the most overcrowded lecture courseshelp

give students a more accurate assessment of their own

understanding.

"I emphasize," Chew said, "that the question I use is similar in

difficulty level to questions they will see on exams, so if they did not

answer correctly or were confused, they need to improve their

understanding. Formative assessment helps students study and

learn more effectivelybeforeexams, and they are less likely to feel

'tricked' by questions they didn't expect. The actual exam should

never be the first time the faculty or the students get feedback about

the actual level of student understanding."

Chew's recommendation for the frequent use of "brief, low-stakes"

assessments echoes a key pedagogical principle that came out of

last month's columnand that corresponds with what just about

every expert in learning theory and pedagogy will tell you. An

understanding of metacognition, and the influence it has on our

students, gives us one more reason to shift our courses away fromproviding students with a steady diet of lectures, punctuated by a

few high-stakes exams.

Lectures do have a place in the college classroom of course. Just

about every teaching strategy we can imagine may have its place

over the course of the semester. But I know from my own


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experienceas I am gearing up to teach a literature survey course

in the springhow easily we can allow lectures to become the sole

or dominant mode of instruction, especially as the semester wears

on, and we feel the urge to cram as much material into the course as

possible.

A 40-minute lecture, followed by a 10-minute formative-

assessment activity, may help our students learn much more

effectively than a 40-minute lecture followed by weak discussion

starters like "Any questions?" And, as Chew pointed out in

response to an early draft of this essay, students frequently don't

ask questions precisely because their poor metacognitive skills

have convinced them that they understood the lecture perfectly.

Incidentally, formative-assessment activities can be even simpler

than the one Chew describes. The most basic activity a faculty

member can use to check understanding at the end of a class is the

now-classic "minute paper," described in Thomas K. Angelo and K.

Patricia Cross' Classroom Assessment Techniques. At the end of a

lecture or discussion, ask students to pull out a half-sheet of paper

and answer some variation on the following two questions: "What

was the most important concept you learned in class today?" and

"What concept did you find the most difficult or confusing?"

When students identify a throwaway example you used as the most

important concept they learned, you know you have more work to

do. And when you point that out to students in the next class

session, they should know that theyhave more work to do as well.

For readers interested in learning more about metacognition, and

its influence on what we experience in our classrooms, begin by

checking out the first episode in Chew's video series. In addition to

his clear explanation of the topic, he provides an interesting

example from one of his own courses, in which he graphs out the

test scores his students expected to receive and the scores they

actually received.


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meets. These assignments show me which concepts need further attention anttp://chronicle.com/article/MetacognitionStudent/130327/

Chew also supplied me with a list of additional reading materials in

this area. If you wish to delve deeper into the subjects of both

metacognition and formative-assessment activities, visit my Web

site at http://www.jamesmlang.com, where I have posted his

reading recommendations and brief overviews of each source.

James M. Lang is an associate professor of English at Assumption

College and author of "On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your

First Semester of College Teaching" (Harvard University Press, 2008).

He writes about teaching in higher education. He welcomes reader

mail directed to his attention at [email protected].
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