Metacognition

The book Teach Students How to Learn by Saundra McGuire, Ph.D. is incredibly enlightening and has changed the way I think about my students and their success in my classes. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to any educator. (She also have another book Teach Yourself How to Learn for students.) I have implemented her "Intervention Presentation" in current courses and will continue to apply her strategies in my classroom, see below for an example. Dr. McGuire has templates for general and STEM presentations from which I borrowed heavily. You can see those resources for yourself here. Below I have a first day presentation that I use that incorporates some of the metacognitive strategies that Dr. McGuire discusses in her work.

If you are interested in discussing the concepts of growth mindset versus fixed mindset, I recommend the following video, which I show on the first day of classes to set the tone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc

The following video gives another great introduction to growth mindset and some steps a learner can take toward developing a growth mindset: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7XjFTrPl6o

Additionally, encouraging students to reflect upon their study habits is part of their ability to evaluate their learning. Below is a document I give to students after their first exam. They are asked to examine their methods for preparing for this class and for this exam specifically, and then evaluate if they are satisfied with the results. Thinking about their strengths and weaknesses, they are asked to describe what will need to change or stay the same for the next exam, and for the rest of the course, to achieve their goals.