nd differences between these two important collections of skills.
John Draeger expands his Aristotelian conception of metacognition. He argues that “learning well is a holistic endeavor that requires cultivating various interlocking intellectual and emotional traits, such as curiosity, courage, and patience. Moreover, a holistic conception of metacognition suggests that learners must cultivate honest self-scrutiny and discerning vision alongside their efforts to improve self-monitoring and self-regulation.”
In this post, John Draeger considers what Aristotle would say about metacognition and the pursuit of learning excellence. Aristotle would remind us, for example, that learning is a holistic endeavor that requires the cultivation of various intellectual and emotional habits.
In this post, John Draeger describes his efforts to promote metacognition through just-in-time teaching assignments in his philosophy classes.
Todd Zakrajsek considers the importance of focusing on the process of learning and looking for opportunities exercise our understanding.
Tesia Marshik considers widespread misconception that effective learning depends on a particular learning style.
In this post, John Draeger explores the relationship between awareness, self-regulation and metacognition. He considers whether awareness and self-regulation are necessary for metacognition as well as whether there are advantages to focusing on elements individually en route to strengthening their interaction.
John Draeger explores the conceptual nature of metacognition. Appealing to a model developed in legal philosophy, he concludes that the term ‘metacognition’ is vague, but this is actually desirable because it promotes dialogue about all the elements in the metacognitive constellation.
John Draeger argues that higher-order thinking and metacognition questions can be built into to pre-class assignments typically designed to gauge basic comprehension. By making these prompts a regular part of weekly assignments, instructors provide students with multiple opportunities to practice these skills. They simultaneously signal that higher-order thinking and metacognition are part of the ebb and flow of the education experience.
Mynlieff, Manogaran, St. Maurice, and Eddinger discuss the use of metacognitive writing exercises in large biology classes. Students were asked to explicitly consider why they made mistakes on exams and discuss why another answer would have been more appropriate. Students completing these assignments showed marked improvement in subsequent course assessments. Mynlieff, M., Manogaran, A. L., Maurice, M. S., & Eddinger,… Read more »
John Draeger discusses five sources of discomfort he has observed through years of teaching moral philosophy. He argues “that all of us (instructors, students, those outside the classroom) need to be aware of our own sources of discomfort with moral matters if we hope to move beyond them and towards a healthy engagement with these important issues.” I believe that these sources of discomfort will apply to many topics outside of the moral philosophy classroom – hot topics abound across the disciplines!
In this post, John Draeger shares some of the approaches he uses when teaching his philosophy course. I especially like his summary of the outcome, “students can begin to ‘think like a philosopher.’ It puts them in a position to move beyond mere coffee shop conversation and the rehash of media pundit drivel towards a more careful consideration of the issues.”
In Part 2 of this two-part post, John Draeger and Lauren Scharff further explore responses to WHY it might be useful for both instructors and students to learn about and incorporate metacognition. Faculty and student responses qualitatively fell into two categories of responses: metacognition was reported to be beneficial because it “improves student learning” and “improves teaching.”