Theories of Learning - Metacognition and Study Strategies

Effective strategies

Define metacognition.

Define epistemological beliefs.

List several examples of metacognitive knowledge and skills.

Explain how metacognitive knowledge and skills can be applied to the task of reading a text book.

Recognize that "meaningful" learning requires making connections between new information and what is already known.

Recognize that outlining, making a graphic representation, and making a concept map are some of the effective ways of organizing material to be learned.

Recognize that effective note taking requires the notes be relatively complete, consistent with the instructional objectives of the lesson, organized in terms of main ideas and supporting ideas, and should include students' personal elaborations.

Recognize that students must be able to prioritize more important versus less information because of the volume of information that they sometimes face.

Recognize that students may focus on the wrong information as most important because of their lack of background and focusing on the wrong signals.

Define comprehension monitoring.

Define "illusion of knowing" or "secondary ignorance".

Explain some of the difficulties involved in developing a good summary of material to be learned.

Development of metacognition

Describe how children from nursery school through fourth grade have been found to estimate their ability to remember up to 10 objects.

Describe how first graders and third graders chose which items to review when trying to learn a list of 36 items.

Recognize that children use strategies such as organizing material in order to help learn it before they consciously realize that this is an effective strategy.

Recognize that epistemological beliefs include beliefs about

• the certainty of knowledge
• the simplicity and structure of knowledge
• the source of knowledge
• the speed of learning
• whether learning ability is fixed or changeable

Why students don't always use effective strategies

Recognize that students sometimes believe that studying for understanding interferes with rote learning and therefore with test performance.

Recognize that students with poor background knowledge have difficulty in using the strategy of identifying important information.

Recognize that use of effective strategies can be hampered by

• teachers' giving learning tasks that do not lend themselves to sophisticated strategies
• students' having goals that are inconsistent with good learning strategies
• students' having low self-efficacy about their ability to achieve in an academic setting

Recognize that effective learning strategies are best promoted by

• teaching them in specific subject domains
• initially providing a sufficient knowledge base
• providing a variety of strategies, situations, and practice tasks
• modelling and scaffolding the strategies
• making use of cooperative learning
• helping students develop better epistemological beliefs, self monitoring, and self-efficacy