metacognition and students' learning process

This article from the Teaching Professor website discusses how active learning - engaged learning - needs to go hand-in-hand with students' meta-cognition of their own learning process. This is why I have been advocating the use of ePortfolios (or a learning portfolio) to enable students to think about how they learn in addition to why and what they learn. How did they come to a particular decision? How did they solve a particular problem? Why did a particular concept in the course give them difficulties and how did they overcome it? These are some of the issues that students need to consider in order to become actively engaged in their own learning and which, I believe, will produce deeper learning in students. Another way to think about this, is that students need to be supported in developing their own learning philosophy.

Resource

Weimer M. 2013. Three ways to help students become more metacognitively aware. Faculty Focus, Oct 10. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/three-ways-to-help-students-become-more-metacognitively-aware/

McCalla Professorship and learning philosophies

This year I was awarded a McCalla Professorship by the University of Alberta. So, for the next year I am carrying out a study that will investigate whether or not developing students' learning philosophies have an impact on their intellectual development and the learning outcomes for the first year biology course I'll be teaching in Fall 2015. Many of you have requested more information about the study, so I have posted below the rationale for the study that I submitted to the awards committee.

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Developing Students’ Metacognition through Learning Philosophies:
Impact on Student Learning Outcomes

Neil Haave

"We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience" - John Dewey

A McCalla Professorship will allow me to investigate whether developing students’ learning philosophy enhances their intellectual development and course learning outcomes.

While I was Divisional Registration Officer for Augustana in the 1990s, I met with students to discuss their programs and advise them which courses to take in the coming year. Their Program Planning Form nicely organized their courses into the different requirements for graduation. However, students seemed to view their education as a list of boxes to be checked. Students did not understand the overarching coherence in their major and general education requirements. Curricular coherence was present but Augustana never explicitly explained it to students. As a result students collected a pile of bricks without assembling them into a home¹.

I subsequently served as Chair of Science for ten years and my accumulated curricular experience later enabled me to effectively chair the ad hoc core curriculum review committee which produced Augustana’s current core. We constructed a general education that met the breadth needs of our students, inculcated in our students the particular values held by the Augustana professoriate, and developed students’ communication, thinking, and research skills. In the late 2000s then Augustana Dean Roger Epp noticed that students displayed difficulties articulating their skills to potential employers. Similarly, I had noticed students having difficulty applying prior learning from pre-requisite classes. Students engaged in a learning cycle of memorize-regurgitate-purge as a result of not integrating their learning experiences into an interconnected and robust knowledge structure.

Dean Epp appointed me Associate Dean (Teaching) from 2010-13 to consider how to better engage students’ in their education so they could articulate their learning and skills to themselves and others. This resulted in the 2012-13 Augustana e-portfolio pilot during which I realized students were not asking questions about their own learning. I had inappropriately assumed that students were metacognitively engaged in their learning processes².

During the e-portfolio pilot I began having my students consider the what, why, and how of their learning while they reflected on the artifacts they collected in their e-portfolio. Each of these questions metacognitively engaged students in their learning through development of their own learning philosophy³ enabling students to make connections among their different learning experiences in addition to their own personal lives.

Developing students’ metacognition has been suggested to improve students’ academic achievement^2,4,5 possibly by developing students’ critical thinking⁶. A lack of metacognition has been correlated with students’ inability to assess their own knowledge and academic abilities^7,8. Evidence exists that student learning outcomes may be improved by attending to metacognition through activities that use personal response systems⁹, in-class writing and discussion assignments¹⁰, and correlates with students’ mastery goals¹¹. Long term benefits of using metacognitive prompts during students’ learning have been shown for primary and secondary school students¹² but not for post-secondary students. Other studies have indicated that metacognitive prompts on their own, without cognitive prompts, have no impact on student learning outcomes¹³, and that their usefulness decreases as student skill increases¹⁴. In addition, one Australian study has shown that metacognitive and self-efficacy abilities are not correlated to student learning outcomes as measured by GPA¹⁵.

There are theories and practices that consider students’ intellectual development¹⁶, but the impact of developing students’ intellectual level has been assessed by considering general education learning outcomes (critical thinking, citizenship, intercultural competence, communication) not students’ understanding of their major subject, although this has been proposed to improve¹⁷. My proposal considers whether the development of students’ metacognitive ability through the creation of their own learning philosophy is able to positively impact students’ content mastery in a course. I will use AUBIO 111 – Integrative Biology I as my lab. My aim is to show that as students consider their own thinking and learning processes, they will also be engaged in the epistemology of science¹⁸. Thus, by performing the metacognitive task of asking themselves what, why and how they know something, they will also begin their intellectual development as scientists asking themselves how we know what we know about biology: what is our basis for the knowledge claims we make in biology? Thus metacognition about their own learning may aid their cognitive development as biologists and scientists.

My specific question is do first year biology students score higher on the Perry Scheme of intellectual development^19,20 when they have produced a learning philosophy to develop their metacognition, and does this enhance their content mastery of the course as indicated by their course grade and exam results?

The research carried out will directly impact my own teaching and potentially the way that others teach. By guiding students in the development of their own learning philosophy my aim is to metacognitively engage students with course material at a deeper level and avoid the unengaged learning cycle of memorize-regurgitate-purge. Funds from the professorship will be used to hire undergraduate students who will aid in the organization and analysis of the collected data. The proposed research aligns with the University Academic Plan by attending to the student experience. By promoting students’ metacognition through the development of their own learning philosophy I hope to show that they more deeply engage in course material by moving them to a higher level of intellectual development as measured on the Perry Scheme as a result of a transformative learning experience²¹.

Proposed Project

In Fall 2015 I have the opportunity to teach two separate lecture sections of AUBIO 111 – Integrative Biology I. I will use these two classes to investigate the impact of developing students' learning philosophies on student learning outcomes as indicated by their general intellectual development and more specifically on their ability to understand the particular course content. The impact of the metacognitive exercises on student learning outcomes will be assessed by using a mixed-methods approach (a qualitative student self-assessment + quantitative effect on ability to answer final staged exam questions) comparing student understandings of their learning philosophy at the beginning and end of the course using an assessment index to determine students’ level of intellectual development^22–24. One course section will encounter activities designed to explicitly develop their learning philosophy and metacognitive ability whereas the other will not. A staged question on the final exam and on a pre-test at beginning of term tiered according to Bloom’s taxonomy will determine if developing students’ metacognitive ability impacts their ability to perform at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of learning²⁵. This will be compared to students’ metacognitive ability as mapped on to the Perry Scheme of learner developmen ^19,20.

This study will thus answer two questions. Does developing students' metacognitive ability/learning philosophy impact their: 

1. intellectual development as mapped by the Perry Scheme, 
2. depth of learning the course content as mapped by Bloom’s taxonomy of learning.

References

1. Smith, B. L. (1998). Curricular structures for cumulative learning. In J. N. Gardner, G. Van der Veer, & Associates (Eds.), The Senior Year Experience: Facilitating Integration, Reflection, Closure, and Transition (pp. 81–94). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers.

2. Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How do students become self-directed learners? In How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (pp. 188–216). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

3. Haave, N. (2014). Developing students’ learning philosophies. The Teaching Professor, 28(4), 1,4. 

4. Girash, J. (2014). Metacognition and instruction. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M.Hakala (Eds.), Applying Science of Learning in Education: Infusing Psychological Science into the Curriculum (pp. 152–168). Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

5. Tanner,K. D. (2012). Promoting student metacognition. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11(2), 113–120.

6. Magno,C. (2010). The role of metacognitive skills in developing critical thinking. Metacognition and Learning, 5(2), 137–156. 

7. Bell, P.,& Volckmann, D. (2011). Knowledge surveys in general chemistry: Confidence, overconfidence, and performance. Journal of Chemical Education, 88(11),1469–1476.

8. Dunning,D., Johnson, K., Ehrlinger, J., & Kruger, J. (2003). Why people fail to recognize their own incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12(3),83–87. 

9. Brady, M., Seli, H.,& Rosenthal, J. (2013). “Clickers” and metacognition: A quasi-experimental comparative study about metacognitive self-regulation and use of electronic feedback devices. Computers & Education, 65(July), 56–63. 

10. Mynlieff,M., Manogaran, A. L., St. Maurice, M., & Eddinger, T. J. (2014). Writing assignments with a metacognitive component enhance learning in a large introductory biology course. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 13(2), 311–321.

11. Coutinho,S. A. (2007). The relationship between goals, metacognition, and academic success. Educate~, 7(1), 39 – 47.

12. Adey, P., & Shayer, M.(1993). An exploration of long-term far transfer effects following an extended intervention program in the high school science curriculum. Cognition and Instruction, 11(1), 1–29.

13. Berthold, K.,Nuckles, M., & Renkl, A. (2007). Do learning protocols support learning strategies and outcomes? The role of cognitive and metacognitive prompts. Learning and Instruction, 17(5), 564–577.

14. Nuckles, M., Hubner, S., Dumer, S., & Renkl, A. (2010). Expertise reversal effects in writing-to-learn. Instructional Science: An International Journal of the Learning Sciences, 38(3), 237–258. 

15. Zeegers, P. (2004). Student learning in higher education: A path analysis of academic achievement in science. Higher Education Research and Development, 23(1), 35–56.

16. Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2006). Intellectual development in the college years. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 38(3), 50–54.

17. Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and assessing. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 219–225.

18. D’Avanzo,C. (2003). Application of research on learning to college teaching: Ecological examples. BioScience, 53(11), 1121–1128.

19. Kloss, R. J. (1994). A nudge is best: Helping students through the Perry Scheme of intellectual development. College Teaching, 42(4), 151–158.

20. Allen, R. D. (1981). Intellectual Development and the Understanding of Science: Applications of William Perry’s Theory to Science Teaching. Journal of College Science Teaching, 11(2), 94–97.

21. Bramming, P. (2007). An Argument for Strong Learning in Higher Education. Quality in Higher Education,13(1), 45–56.

22. Moore, W. S. (1989). The learning environment preferences: Exploring the construct validity of an objective measure of the Perry Scheme of intellectual development. Journal of College Student Development, 30(6), 504–514.

23. Baxter-Magolda, M., & Porterfield, W. D. (1985). A new approach to assess intellectual development on the Perry Scheme. Journal of College Student Personnel, 26(4), 343–350.

24. Meijer, J., Sleegers, P.,Elshout-Mohr, M., van Daalen-Kapteijns, M., Meeus, W., & Tempelaar, D.(2013). The development of a questionnaire on metacognition for students in higher education. Educational Research, 55(1), 31–52.

25. Crowe,A., Dirks, C., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2008). Biology in bloom: Implementing Bloom’s taxonomy to enhance student learning in biology. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 7(4), 368–381.

transformation an ontological condition for learning?

Nope, I changed my mind about this article - it really is getting at the idea of students' developing their own learning philosophy. The first time I read this article I thought it was another article that was conflating teaching philosophy with learning philosophy discussing what the educator does for the learner. A teaching philosophy to my mind is an educator's philosophy for how to set the learning environment for students and thus takes into consideration a philosophy of learning - how do students in general learn? In contrast, a learning philosophy is something the learner develops for themselves. Learners, when taking a course, do not design the educational environment; that is the work of the teacher. A learning philosophy, in my opinion is something that a student discovers and constructs for themselves.

However, the argument that Bramming is making here is that transformation of the student is an ontological condition for learning. If transformation does not occur, then true learning really has not happened. This actually makes sense to me - if learning does not change a student, then what has happened in the process? Nothing, it has not impacted their knowledge structure - they have memorized without processing. Transformative learning will alter students' learning structure - they should see their world in a new way as a result of their education.

Bramming makes an interesting appeal to Nietzsche's acting and reacting forces linking it to Piaget's assimilative (surface) and accommodative (deep) learning. The author, notes however, that Nietzsche did not denigrate one over the other - both are necessary for learning: the actor is the accommodative force (interior) and the social learning structure being the assimilative force (exterior). Learning requires encouragement and the establishment by mentor (authority) of the degree to which skills will be mastered whereas the will/desire to master derives from within the student.

So Bramming is suggesting that we should be considering strong and weak learning experiences rather than strong and weak students. Has the educational environment set the challenge such that students must be actively engaged in their learning? Students need to transform their expectations and desires for learning from passive to active engagement with the course material and consider what the material means for themselves rather than memorizing what it means for an author or instructor - they must construct their own meaning. To do that students must question why and how they are learning something and not only what they are learning. These are the basic questions that undergird my understanding of developing one's own learning philosophy.

The analysis of Nietzsche's strong and weak learning forces is counter-intuitive because the weak forces can actually negate strong learning - they interfere with students' active engagement with the educational experience.

Thus, the argument here is to not allow the nature of the educational experience be determined by students' satisfaction, because for transformation to occur, frustration, anger, and loss may be part of the learning process as students experience a deconstruction/reconstruction of their knowledge structure which forms the filter through which they view their world. Thus real learning - deep learning - alters the way we see the world.

Resources

Bramming P. 2007. An Argument for Strong Learning in Higher Education. Quality in Higher Education 13(1): 45-56. DOI:10.1080/13538320701272722