Vera staggered to her feet. She said, "I feel awful. I must go to bed...I'm dead beat."

Part 3:Metacognition

MODULE 9

Act 3: How Can I Close the Gap?

Module 9 completes the Chappuis trilogy.

Have you enjoyed your contact with "cutting-edge" teaching/assessment? Are you enjoying script writing? How's your dramatic play turning out?

Can you see why she presents to education students a superior approach toward classroom instruction, a model locked on to research-supported formative assessment practices, a general strategy for promoting not only academic achievement in the short term but also metacognitive level and habits of self-direction in the longer view?

If you don't, whats wrong with you?

• "It is clear that different ways of using one's time have different effects on learning and transfer. A considerable amount is known about variables that affect learning. For example, learning is most effective when people engage in 'deliberate practice' that includes active monitoring of one's learning experiences...Monitoring involves attempts to seek and use feedback about one's progress."
  
  
• "Transfer (of learning) can be improved by helping students become more aware of themselves as learners who actually monitor their learning strategies and resources and assess their readiness for particular tests and performances."
  
  
• "Metacognitive approaches to instruction have been shown to increase the degree to which students will transfer (learning) to new situations without the need for explicit prompting."

- Chapter 3, "Learning and Transfer", in How People Learn, Bransford, Brown and Cocking, editors, Committee on Developments on the Science of Learning, National Research Council (Online)

How Can I Close the Gap?

Team Project: You have a choice. Your team is to choose only two (2) of three given Chappuis strategies (5, 6, and 7) and apply the established scripts/canned dialogue/play work-up in its entirety.

How many words per example? Surely you remember.

Module 7, Module 8 and now Module 9...same approach, same twisted path to Blackboard critiques, dear students.

If you fared well on the previous two, then why change a thing? Finish like a champion and complete your "play"!

Metacognitive Strategies for Successful Learning

Awareness:

• Consciously identify what you already know
• Define the learning goal
• Consider your personal resources (e.g. textbooks, access to the library, access to a computer work station or a quiet study area)
• Consider the task requirements (essay test, multiple choice, etc.)
• Determine how your performance will be evaluated
• Consider your motivation level
• Determine you level of anxiety

Planning:

• Estimate the time required to complete the task
• Plan study time into your schedule and set priorities
• Make a checklist of what needs to happen
• Organize materials
• Take the necessary steps to learn by using strategies like outlining, mnemonics, diagramming, etc.

  Monitoring and Reflection:

• Reflect on the learning process, keeping track of what works and what doesn't for you
• Monitor your own learning by questioning and self-testing
• Provide your own feedback
• Keep concentration and motivation high

  - Metacognition, Halter (online)

  ---

Team Accountability: Hardcopies, please

(Teams) When I make the request, kindly place a FOLDER containing copies of the following items "on the chair". This is to be perceived as a major student accountability event in ED 235. Thus, prepare your folder well.

• Copies of all Chappuis scripts your team produced from Modules 7, 8, 9. Give me revised copies only, OK? I look forward to reading your team’s “Chappuis play in three acts”.
• Copies of all critiques sent to your team by the assigned critiquing teams.
• Copies of all correspondence members of your teams sent back to your critiquing teams, including critique ratings.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Copies of all the critiques you sent to other teams you were assigned to critique.
• Copies of whatever other teams sent back to you in response to the critiques you sent, including critique ratings.

As time permits, I may request a meeting with the team Captain to discuss how the team and teammates functioned last month of the course. Did the team member make a fair contribution to the team effort? I will put it squarely to the Captain to be frank and and honest. The Captain Knows!

(YouTube) Education Today and Tomorrow

ADDENDUM

Excerpts from Saturday's COMMENTS to ED 235 students 10/13/08...

From sunny Cape Cod...a very good morning to you!

I spend my Fridays in the schools observing my six student teachers teach and then debriefing them on what I saw. I only visit one per week and stay hours. So it takes weeks to complete one cycle of observations.

I never cease to marvel at (no...make that complain about!) how labor-intensive and time-consuming this activity is. It is not unusual for me to set my alarm for about 4:30 or 5 AM (pitch dark in the winter!) and drive for more than two hours to get to an Attleboro High School or a Hyde Park middle school (it's dark outside practically the whole trip frequently, the rush hour traffic is always heavy and the potential for a "fender-bender" is significant!).

(Shouldn't I be pitied?)

But I usually make it to my destination, relatively unscathed and reasonably awake, for the first class of the day...a class starting perhaps at the "un-Godly" hour of 7:25 AM. My cooperating teacher, sipping coffee or water and perhaps even more tired and strung out than I (she has to rise early and endure the morning ritual five days a week!), greets me with a nervous smile and quickly plants me somewhere in the back of the classroom, making me as inconspicious as she can. We both want it that way.

Then we await the arrival of the first stragglers, the students who will reach the period one classroom before the others. These few sit and chat quietly. Within seconds, one of them invariably notices me, hulking... with shaved head, clipboard in hand and only partially hidden by the movable old, blackboard on wheels stored toward the rear. "Who's that dude?", the first inquires of his friend. "Dunno..don't care...I'm soooo 'freakin' sleepy!"... putting chin on desk, a sign of resignation; the long, slow-moving school day is about to get under way.

The sleep-deprived rest of class trudge in. I note a boy who really should pull his britches up higher and a girl who anxiously whips out a pocket mirror and...well, you know the routine.

Teacher greets her motley crew with a quick smile..."Hello everyone, how are you this morning?" She hears a few mumble something in return..but doesn't do anything with or even acknowledge their retorts. Grim smile still on her face, she takes one more sip from her thermos, places it on her paper- strewned desk, and immediately commands them to pull out their journals. First class starts.

For 88 minutes she will strive heroically to keep young minds on Lord of the Flies. Almost all wish they could be someplace else. But...they "gotta do what they gotta do!"

The old "dude" in the back of the room starts taking notes immediately on what the teacher does and does not do this class. He writes very big and fast and his handwriting is so sloppy that only he can read it. He will write up to 40 pages of notes in 90 minutes.

He will then use his notes to debrief the student teacher on her class. He will re-create the class with her, minute by minute, asking her why she did this or that and how she thought her chosen strategy worked. He will suggest alternatives. He will command her gently to improve at... and suggest how to.

Debriefing will last up to two hours. I take pride in that I know I work effectively WITH a student teacher...never "on" a student teacher. There is a difference.

The student teacher works at improving. We maintain email contact. Six weeks later, I visit again. I expect to detect evidence of improvement and development at that time.

The dude heads back to the Cape. "Let's see, now, what shall I write in COMMENTS tomorrow morning for the ED 235 gang?", he ponders while guiding his sleek, slightly souped-up Accord with 17" tires over a bumpy section of Route 495. Hummmm, I know...

Dr. ZuWallack's Home Page