How do we inspire metacognition?

WHAT is metacognition

• active control and awareness of the learning process

• knowledge of how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving.[1] There are generally two components of metacognition: knowledge about cognition, and regulation of cognition.[2]Metacognition

WHY is it important?

• proven to accelerate student progress
• improve self confidence
• improve self esteem
• engage every learner (especially learning support)
• creates a community of learners
• wider range of support network
• acknowledges learning is hard work
• promotes active learning rather than passive
• less teacher work
• reflects future focused pedagogy
• skills for life long learning

HOW could I teach it?

1. Teach children about how the brain learns new information (fixed, growth)
2. Own the learning - is this my best, did I seek new ideas, research, am I showing respect in my learning, did I seek ideas from others to build on my ideas?
3. Seek emotional connections to promote more learning - how does that make you feel? what can you now do? how could you now help someone else?
4. Reflective questioning - questioning that will help them recognise the part that required new learning - what was the tricky part? what do you now know that you didn’t know before? how can you use this is a different way? Who has learnt something new from (student sharing)?
5. Teach the language of critical thinking at the top end -  analysis, synthesis, evaluation,
6. Creative expression of reflections - Scaffolding questions that support the how rather than the what they learned, considering what conditions supported their learning.
7. When requiring active listening for new information set the conditions - share 3 main points, share what your buddy tells you,
8. think about their own thinking / beliefs - pose provocations / conjectures that challenge their current beliefs, relevant and purposeful
9. Think, Model, and Apply inquiry mindset - team teaching is a great opportunity to model this process in context
10. Thinkers keys - great srl activities
11. Value and believe that children can learn how to learn, that their voice empowers and inspires new learning - when and how does this happen in your learning space? PP wonder wall, question wall for peer support,
12. Consider ways you can capture student voice, thinking, beliefs, ideas at every opportunity - guided teaching groups, SRL, modelling books, video diaries, collaborative activities online -

WHEN can I fit it in?

• in everything you do
• it is what we do it is not another thing to do

Why do online conferencing?



sourced from: revolutionaryonline.wordpress.com

Geographical distances can make professional development and engaging with other professionals expensive, time consuming and tiring. I have recently become more aware of the power of online conferencing as an alternative and while it may have some disadvantages there are many powerful advantages.

1. You get support when you need it, by others who are facing similar challenges.
2. You can share everyones experiences to create a broader range of examples.
3. Working together achieves more than one individual. Each idea which is valued, respected and worthy of development, sparking more ideas. The space in between these ideas is where the best idea is created sharing understandings and using deeper levels of thinking.
4. For many people talking is a better way of learning than reading or listening.
5. The best way to check your own understanding is to explain it to others. It will assist in clarifying your ideas and challenge your understandings as you know it.
6. Your voice is heard and valued - you can finally have your say. You have time to carefully consider your responses without offending or upsetting other participants.
7. Arguments cannot happen without evidence and data that will support a different view.
8. Free to go on line anytime, anywhere during the conference time frame. No set meetings and sitting in a conference room.

If you are lucky enough to be part of an online conference the best things you can do is be confident enough to share your ideas. Your idea is not only expected and respected but also needed as a different perspective to challenge everyone's thinking. This is where the best ideas are lurking.
Get involved and make a commitment to advance your understanding and that of others.

For even more information this is a great read: Plumpton, B. (n.d.) How students can make conferencing work. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/pc4study/documents/how-students-can-make-conferencing-work-scr.pdf

What is productive knowledge and why is it important?

What do you do with the knowledge you learn? More importantly what do you expect your students to do with the knowledge they are accessing. Pulling it to bits from all angles will not only create a deeper level of meaning but also will produce some knowledge that very well may advance a community.

Sourced from a reading:
Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (2010). Can children really create knowledge?

Productive knowledge has replaced the concept in schools of 'mastery' challenging that no one can ever know everything in one discipline.

Productive knowledge is new knowledge which must be used in different contexts, explored, challenged with links made to other ideas, intuitions and habits.

Creating productive knowledge will change your persepctive of the world, your thoughts will be structured differently and therefore your intuitions and habits of mind undergo a shift. Therfore it is very powerful learning and can not only create understanding for the learner but can also create new knowledge for our world.

So can children really create new knowledge for our world?


sourced from 123rf.com

 Do you believe that they can because this will make the  difference.

Applying productive knowledge concept in classrooms involves students participating in arguement, exposition, reflection, as well as using the knowledge in a variety of fun, constructive, problem solving activities.

However collaborative knowledge building is the most powerful. In a knowledge building community participants use knowledge to create new knowledge therefore are productively using the knowledge.

What is an epistemic agency?



sourced from monochrom.at

A very powerful concept if you can get your head around what it means. A simplistic and efficient explanation of an epistemistic agency is really important because it underpins a large part of the philosophy of the knowledge building pedagogy. 

This was the best explanation I could find sourced from http://ikit.org/fulltext/2002AERAAnn.pdf

Socio-cognitive dynamics : Participants set forth their ideas and negotiate a fit between personal ideas and ideas of others, using contrasts to spark and sustain knowledge advancement rather than depending on others to chart that course for them. They deal with problems of goals; motivation, evaluation, and long-range planning that are normally left to teachers or managers.
Technological dynamics: Knowledge Forum provides support for theory construction and refinement and for viewing ideas in the context of related but different ideas. Scaffolds for high-level knowledge processes are reflected in the use and variety of epistemological terms (e.g., conjecture, wonder, hypothesize, and so forth), and in the corresponding growth in conceptual content.