- Are your students at the associates or baccalaureate level? Both
- Do you use different teaching strategies for associate level students than for baccalaureate level students? Why or why not? I don’t differentiate between the two levels. Many of my students are freshman and need the same level of approach.
- What is metacognition and what concept from the chapter resonates with you and why? (identify the page number) Metacognition is essentially thinking about thinking. The topic brings to the foreground the question of how engaged a student is in their own learning processes. Active learning, as described on page 26, is a concept that is key to guiding students towards taking responsibility for the benefits they get from class, or ‘how much they will get out of it’. Encouraging students to take a step back, assess their role in learning, and start to question how they learn best, which strategies work for them and which do not, can be an important tool in changing their narrative from passive to active. Helping students understand how the concepts learned in class can be applied in real life can be critical in starting this process. I find my students are engaged most when discussing real life applications and what type of job they are looking for. I also frame the lecture as learning ‘tools’, which I find is helpful when students feel stuck. Each class the students add to a list of tools they have learned, which is summarized in the presentation, and thus have at their fingertips a toolkit for solving problems. When they are stuck, first I point out that I am there for questions but that I also use F1 and look up problems online, then I point them to our list of tools and ask which one might help solve the problem.
- What are other factors that might influence student learning? As also described on page 26, students relate the information we relay to them back to their own personal experiences. Hence, each student brings something unique to the learning environment. Likewise, each student has their own challenges that they bring to the equation. I’ve had several students that are faced with personal issues that add difficulty to their performance in class in the form of distraction or being absent. These issues are obviously paramount for the student compared to learning how to draw or read plans, which is what I am trying to teach them in class. It is important to be empathetic towards these issues, while helping the student find a path forward where they can take care of their personal needs while meeting their goals academically/professionally.
- How can metacognition help us towards our goal of increasing retention 5-10% starting in the fall? I found the reading very exciting because I’ve seen in my classroom, especially with freshman, that personal habits and approaches to learning have a significant impact on the student’s performance. Introducing students to metacognition and these basic strategies could have a tremendous impact in helping students develop the personal tools they need to be successful, especially those that are struggling.
Chapter 3 Response
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