“Is Adolescent literacy truly the ability to manage and monitor student’s own thought processes?”

Are students with proficient adolescent literacy skills really following a process of managing their thoughts? As a teacher, can I teach metacognition in the classroom and/ or is this a result of student independent thinking? In Promoting Student Metacognition, Kimberly Tanner, (2012), (p. 113) notes, “The importance of metacognition in the process of learning is an old idea that can be traced from Socrates’ questioning methods to Dewey’s twentieth-century stance that we learn more from reflecting on our experiences than from the actual experiences themselves”. I was introduced to the concept of metacognition, or thinking about our own thoughts in my graduate Educational Psychology class. Frankly, it sounded interesting but a little obtuse and was this really a process that was innate to the individual student, or as a future teacher can this be taught to enhance learning?

I think I’m thinking about what you mean

Metacognition = Argumentation turn inward

Through a metacognitive process (p. 114), “Students learn to monitor and direct their own progress, asking questions such as “What am I doing now?” “Is it getting me anywhere?” “What else could I be doing instead?” This general metacognitive level helps students avoid persevering in unproductive approaches. . .

In Metacognition: The gift that keeps giving, Donna Wilson (2014) explain that students, who are academically successful “often rely on being able to think effectively and independently in order to take charge of their learning” and “These students have mastered fundamental but crucial skills such as keeping their workspace organized, completing tasks on schedule, making a plan for learning, monitoring their learning path, and recognizing when it might be useful to change course”. She also noted that unsuccessful students “do not learn how to “manage” themselves well, so as they proceed through school, they experience more setbacks, become discouraged and disengaged from learning, and tend to have lower academic performance. (p. 1).

The idea of whether students have the right to think in and outside the classroom is detailed in The Right to Literacy in Secondary Schools, Suzanne Plaut, (2009)” Students have the right to think, teachers can teach thinking by empowering students to see the role thinking plays in the world, giving students material worth thinking about, and giving them time to practice skills and reflect on their own work. “Thinking requires the same skills as literacy”. Teachers need to teach content through text, not around it” (p.13). Plaut further notes that to engage students in text, “we help them learn to think and provide them with content to think about. But we can’t stop there. If we want our students to work towards independence, we must teach them not only to read discipline-specific texts, but to read their own work as evidence of their own thinking” (p.20).

According to Unflattening, Nick Sousanis, (2015) knowledge can be represented in a visual form and create meaning that was useful to him. Today’s world is so visual that the use of images has been shown to be important in remembering concepts and absorbing information. Literacy to Sousanis is beyond words alone and involves images and other sensory sources. Sousanis’s literacy allows us to see/understand beyond a single dimension (Flatlanders) and “SEE” openly what is truly in front of us. This in terms of literacy, goes beyond words, and liberates/challenges us to think without borders through images and words.

Nick Sousanis’s image bellow of a classroom is a great visual depiction of how students and teacher are not promoting metacognition but “Directly dispensing from sender to receiver” (p. 10). Does true learning through adolescent literacy really happen here?

Unflattening, Nick Sousanis, (2015), (p.10)

Sousanis’s image below is a great visual of a student’s journey in learning through thinking “Finding different perspectives, and this begins in thinking about seeing…” along with “for the journey ahead: To discover new ways of seeing to open spaces for possibilities, and to find Fresh Methods” for animating and awaking” (p.27).

Unflattening, Nick Sousanis, (2015), (p.27)

Maryellen Weimer in her Blog: Teaching Metacognition for Improving Student Performance, lays out several classroom approach to teaching metacognitive thinking:

• How have I prepared for class today? Have this question on a PowerPoint slide as students arrive in class. Ask them to write the answer in their notes. What’s the best way for me to prepare for a class like this one? You might solicit some suggestions and then challenge students to try coming to class better prepared or to use a different preparation method to see if it makes the material easier to understand.
• What questions do I have? Ask students to write questions in their notes as the material is presented in class. Writing the questions shouldn’t prevent them from asking questions but lots of students have questions that they never ask or write down. At the end of the period, have students circle the questions in their notes that they still can’t answer. They could ask someone sitting next to them one of those questions or see if they can find answer in the text.
• Why did I miss those exam questions? As part of the exam debrief, have students circle or list three exam questions they missed and then have them share in writing (on the test or in a note to you) why they think they missed those questions. Then give them this follow-up question: What do I need to do to avoid missing questions like these on the next exam?

In closing, I am no longer skeptical that metacognition isn’t important in adolescent literacy and, in fact, is a key to true learning.

Tanner, Kimberly (2012). CBS Life-Science Education Vol 11, 113–120, Summer 2012, Promoting Student Metacognition

Plaut, Suzanne, (2014). International Reading Association, The right to literacy in secondary school

Sousanis, Nick, (2015). Harvard University Press, Unflattening

Wilson, Donna, (2014). Edutopia, Metacognition: The gift that keeps giving, http://www.edutopia.org/blog/metacognition-gift-that-keeps-giving-donna-wilson-marcus-conyers

Weimer, Maryellen, The Teaching Professor Blog, Teaching metacognition to improve student learning, http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/teaching-metacognition-to-improve-student-learning/