Track
Non-research Project / About SoTL
Abstract
Most of us work hard to build our students’ discipline-specific skills, content knowledge, and even that elusive goal, critical thinking. Rarely, though, do we train our students in how to reflect on their learning practices and current level of understanding, or how to change their practices to deepen understanding. Lacking such skills, they often exhibit shocking (to us!) failures to make connections among what they have learned, improve ineffective study behaviors, or see what they’re learning in a broader context. The research in cognitive science now demonstrates the importance and value of metacognition and reflection in formal learning, and fortunately for us, our fellow educators have developed and tested many specific techniques that we can use to teach our students how to effectively reflect on their learning and understanding. I’ll describe several techniques, applicable to a variety of disciplines, that you can apply right away in your classroom, ranging from simple to complex, and provide the evidence base for each. By choosing approaches that help our students become both more self-aware and self-regulating learners, we can achieve the deeper understandings that we, and many of our students, yearn for.
Session Format
Presentation Session
Recommended Citation
Leupen, Sarah, "Beyond Navel Gazing: The Evidence Base for Employing Reflective and Metacognitive Practices in our Teaching" (2016). SoTL Commons Conference. 7.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2016/7
Beyond Navel Gazing: The Evidence Base for Employing Reflective and Metacognitive Practices in our Teaching
Most of us work hard to build our students’ discipline-specific skills, content knowledge, and even that elusive goal, critical thinking. Rarely, though, do we train our students in how to reflect on their learning practices and current level of understanding, or how to change their practices to deepen understanding. Lacking such skills, they often exhibit shocking (to us!) failures to make connections among what they have learned, improve ineffective study behaviors, or see what they’re learning in a broader context. The research in cognitive science now demonstrates the importance and value of metacognition and reflection in formal learning, and fortunately for us, our fellow educators have developed and tested many specific techniques that we can use to teach our students how to effectively reflect on their learning and understanding. I’ll describe several techniques, applicable to a variety of disciplines, that you can apply right away in your classroom, ranging from simple to complex, and provide the evidence base for each. By choosing approaches that help our students become both more self-aware and self-regulating learners, we can achieve the deeper understandings that we, and many of our students, yearn for.
