Home > Blogs + Podcasts > LibLog

LibLog

November 11, 2009

Metacognition in First-Year Studies
By Rachel G. Ragland, Lake Forest College

The “Pod” Project
As John Ottenhoff noted in last week’s Liblog, member institutions of the Associated College of the Midwest have found real strength and interest in working together on assessment. Participating in the ACM-Teagle Collegium on Student Learning has led to the development of a practical application of the Collegium’s work on metacognition with a group of First Year Studies (FIYS) courses at Lake Forest College. Three faculty members in different departments (anthropology, chemistry, and education) are currently teaching a “pod” of three first-year studies classes that have come together, along with college co-curricular staff, in an intellectual, social, and support community.

Our thinking is this: small as Lake Forest College is, first-year students still find it daunting to find their niche. This is part of why we have small FIYS classes with an enrollment limit of 15 students. At the same time, however, a group of 15 people is often too small to really help people connect to the campus. A group of 45 has more diversity and more opportunities to connect, especially since students have also been assigned across classes as roommates in the college residence halls. In short, we want to create in miniature what the campus is at large: a community of purpose. In order to provide this overarching structure, we have incorporated the concept of metacognition into the “pod” as both a theoretical framework in the courses and a series of practical applications both outside and inside the course structure.

Metacognition: Theoretical Framework
Intentional thought about one’s own thinking (metacognition) is generally regarded as an essential component of successful thinkers and learners. In order to move our first-year students from a novice learner stance to a more expert learner stance in all our courses, we have shared with them a document called the “Learning to Learn” document, which we adapted from work that Karl Wirth of Macalester College had shared at an early Collegium meeting. Students were assigned to first read over the document before an initial pod meeting, and later in the semester were assigned to read it again with a more in-depth set of reading guide questions to focus their reading.

Metacognition: Practical “Pod-wide” Applications
Students have taken part in a series of pod activities mixing social interaction with metacognitive reflections at various points during the semester. Our initial meeting occurred during orientation week, and the pod has continued to meet monthly over dinner to consider situations particular to that stage of the semester. A timely session was held just before midterm warning grades were to be distributed to help students better interpret these grades and form a plan of action. Our most recent pod activity was a visit to our campus by Karl Wirth to share with the students some of his additional research on the impact of metacognitive reflection on student success. Students have commented that these social connections, included living together, provide needed support for their academic success and adjustment to the College.

Metacognition: Practical Classroom Applications
Faculty members have integrated the metacognitive framework into their courses in varying ways. In my course on “Exploring Adolescence,” students write a series of reflective papers and in-class activities regarding their characteristics as successful or struggling students, as well as exercises in which students look at course activities according to the levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and Fink’s Learning Categories. We also discuss how metacognition relates to our course topics, including the impact of schools on adolescents, self-concept, and self-efficacy. This integration has reinforced that doing this kind of metacognitive reflection doesn’t displace content coverage but, in fact, enhances it.

Finally, I have instituted another idea learned from Karl Wirth’s presentations at the Collegium: the use of an “exam “wrapper.” This is a reflective exercise that students are asked to do after graded exams are returned in order to reflect on their preparation for the exam and set goals for future improvement. I also created a “paper wrapper” for students to complete after two graded papers were returned. I shared the aggregated “wrapper” results with the class, and we reflected on their developing academic and writing skills the assessment of which is a primary goal of the FIYS course.

Impact of Collaboration
The power of collaboration around this framework has also strongly supported faculty in taking risks to incorporate new ideas that have changed the environment of these classes for students and their teachers. And the “pod” idea has captured the imagination of others in the consortium, including a group of faculty, coaches, and administrators gather for a conference about “The Intentional Integration of Academic and Athletic Programs.” At this stage of the project, one of the clear benefits has been the excitement of working with faculty in different departments in substantive collegial interaction over pedagogical and intellectual issues. We as faculty are “thinking about our thinking” as we develop and refine our curriculum. And our students are showing growth as we assess student self-knowledge, aided by the faculty member serving as pod coordinator, as well as the impact of the pod experience on student learning across the first-year experience.