Two articles this week from Mind/Shift, (an educational blog from California's public radio/tv station KQED) discuss how a few easy-to-prepare questions can improve lesson effectiveness.
Something as simple as: "what do you think the answer will be?", "what makes you think that?", or "what will you do to remember today's key ideas?" can make a difference, particularly for lower-ability students.
The first article reports on research using student predictions in intermediate maths classes. The second looks at metacognition for successful learning and provides a list of questions that can be simply dropped in to your pre-existing lessons at appropriate times.
Below is a synopsis of each article so you can decide if you want to have a further look.
What’s Your Best Guess? Predicting Answers Leads to Deeper Learning
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/02/whats-your-best-guess-predicting-answers-leads-to-deeper-learning
The Idea:
The act of making predictions prompts students to understand the material more deeply as they engaged in reasoning and sense-making instead of mere memorization.
The Method:
Pupils wrote down a prediction, along with explanations supporting their guess, and then discussed their responses. After telling the students that it was their reasoning that was important, not the correctness of their predictions, the teacher went on to teach them. Students then revisited their initial predictions.
The Theory of Why It Works:
In venturing a guess, we discover what we know and don’t yet know about the subject. We activate our prior knowledge on the topic, readying ourselves to make connections to new knowledge. We create a hypothesis that can then be tested, generating curiosity and motivation to find out the answer. Most of all, making predictions leads us to think deeply, to “explore the ‘why’ that underlies challenging problems.” Students who only memorize facts are often unsure of when or how to apply what they have learned. Making predictions requires students to actively grapple with new concepts instead of passively receiving them.
Do Students Know Enough Smart Learning Strategies?
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2012/03/do-students-know-enough-smart-learning-strategies/
The Idea:
Low-achieving students show “substantial deficits” in their awareness of the cognitive and metacognitive strategies that lead to effective learning—suggesting that these students’ struggles may be due in part to a gap in their knowledge about how learning works.
The Method:
Teachers drop proactive questions into the lesson on a “just-in-time” basis—at the moments when students need promping to use the metacognitive strategies. This helps to ensure that children know not just what is to be learned, but how.
Some proactive questions:
- What is the topic for today’s lesson?
- What will be important ideas in today’s lesson?
- What do you already know about this topic?
- What can you relate this to?
- What will you do to remember the key ideas?
- Is there anything about this topic you don’t understand, or are not clear about?
Children can also be surveyed for awareness and encouraged to use metacognition strategies with a questionnaire similar to:
- I draw pictures or diagrams to help me understand this subject.
- I make up questions that I try to answer about this subject.
- When I am learning something new in this subject, I think back to what I already know about it.
- I discuss what I am doing in this subject with others.
- I practice things over and over until I know them well in this subject,
- I think about my thinking, to check if I understand the ideas in this subject.
- When I don’t understand something in this subject I go back over it again.
- I make a note of things that I don’t understand very well in this subject, so that I can follow them up.
- When I have finished an activity in this subject I look back to see how well I did.
- I organize my time to manage my learning in this subject.
- I make plans for how to do the activities in this subject.
The Theory of Why It Works:
The article didn't say much in this regard but both articles do have links to research papers they are based on.
Here is a link to a nice lay-person's overview of metacognition and how to teach it.
Metacognition Introduction:
http://imaginationsoup.net/2012/01/teach-kids-to-think-about-their-thinking-metacognition/
For a very thorough read on metacognition and the teaching structures that support it one of the best resources I've come across is Harvard's Visible Thinking page:
http://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/02_GettingStarted/02a_GettingStarted.html
Happy questioning everyone!
