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Cognitive-and-Metacognitive Learning Strategies:
In what contexts should we help students learn
how to develop-and-use strategies, and why?

Two Options:  How should we teach cognitive-and-metacognitive Strategies for Learning-and-Performing` ?

• should these Learning Strategies be blended into regular courses?

• or should Learning Strategies be part of a separate “study skills” course, or series of workshops?  (and should these be optional or mandatory? for credit or non-credit?)

 

Here are some pros & cons for these two options:

 

A "blending" into regular courses would be simpler administratively, but it might be resisted by course instructors who want to focus on their own course content.  But a strategy of using brief metacognitive wrappers (done before or after a course-related activity) might overcome this resistance.

 

If a "study skills" course is optional, it might be viewed as remedial — intended only for students with learning deficiencies, instead of being useful for all students — so most students won't take the course even though it probably would help them improve their Learning Skills.  But college students cherish their new independence (compared with high school) so a mandatory course might be resented, especially if a student thinks “I know this already” and (in a response discussed in Views-of-Self and Motivation) “I've been doing fine without it.”

Offering some credit might be more practical because if “learning about Learning Strategies” is optional and is non-credit, most students won't do it (or will do it with minimal investment of time) because they are super-busy so they rarely do activities that are optional and non-credit.