This
"OAGC Page" supplements my proposal – Use Metacognitive Thinking Strategies to
improve Learning and Problem Solving – and
I'm hoping it will be helpful for members of the Conference Program
Subcommittee. Before continuing, here is...
a
personal update, written May 2: I'm an
enthusiastic educator who has been especially excited since early-April when my
focus shifted from other topics back to my core interest of improving our
Education for Problem Solving, in ways that include helping students improve their developing-and-using of metacognitive
strategies. I've been rereading my Edu-HomePage and (as usual) being
inspired by creative ideas to revise it.
The ideas kept coming faster than my writing speed, leading to many
iou's. Then I began thinking about how
much I enjoyed (and learned from) the 2024 OAGC Fall Conference and —
discovering that the deadline to submit a proposal for 2025 hadn't passed —
decided "yes, I want to do this."
Since then I've been revising this page (although today it became
finished) and my website, mainly its HomePage but also other pages. Many iou's remain, and during May I'll
continue developing-and-revising the website. { update, May 3: Today I
discovered another reason – Jazz
Lab with Stephanie
Matthews
– to remain excited about a favorite "other topic," improvising music. }
This
page provides useful extra information,
plus links to sections (mostly in
the HomePage
of my website about
Education for Problem Solving) for explanations that are more complete than
in the two descriptions (Short &
Detailed) below. The
Detailed Description ends with personal information:
It could be useful to read my bio-page about "life on a road less
traveled." ... The OAGC-Page explains why this
might be relevant when evaluating my proposal,
and why I'm
hoping we can build a community of educators who want to discuss options for
using metacognition to improve education.
Here is "extra information" with two
explanations for why :
• The "road less traveled" has provided many benefits. But it
makes me "unknown" within OAGC,
so you should be thinking "who is this guy?" and "is he
competent?* can we trust him?"
By contrast, most other proposers already have been externally
evaluated. For example, you know a
person is competent & trustworthy when a district has hired them (as a
classroom teacher, intervention specialist, coordinator, or director) in their
program for gifted students. With me
this valuable information is missing, but you can get other info in my
bio-page.
* I've done many presentations (in talks with
questions-and-responses) plus formal discussions and poster sessions, most
recently with talk/Q&R in a seminar for OSU Engineering Education (2022),
and earlier (2014-15-16) with Round-Table Discussions {descriptions
+ handouts} for California STEM Symposium,*
while I was living in Anaheim serving as caregiver for Mom in our family
home. When she died at 95 (after a long-and-good life) I returned to
Madison WI, then moved to Columbus in 2022. / A "bonus" I'll do is to make the
first slide interesting — with my
favorite diagram (in the non-gray part) + questions — so participants can
"begin thinking about the ideas early" before the session officially
begins. / * In
2014, I was surprised that my proposal was accepted, because I had no
"school position" and "wasn't known by anyone," but
evidently the evaluators thought my ideas were innovative-and-valuable so they
decided "yes, we want these ideas to be part of our program."
• And here are two
possibilities to consider:
You were chosen
to be on the Program Subcommittee, so you know other educators and
you could help "build a community of educators who
want to discuss options for using metacognition to improve education" for gifted
students and for others. I'm hoping this
will happen. While considering my request you would be doing two more
evaluations, to decide if this kind of community is worth facilitating, and (if
yes) who to contact; then they can make further decisions. If others want to explore possibilities, we
could begin with informal discussions just to share ideas – with no
collaborations expected – although I think co-creating
better education
might be a beneficial result.
If another
person is proposing a conference session about using metacognition for education – or if you invite someone by
asking "are you interested?" – maybe we could cooperate to coordinate
what we're doing, by just mentioning the session (and some ideas) of the other
speaker, or with informal co-contributing.
Or even by sharing a session as co-presenters; I can imagine how this might be productive,
even though I have plenty of ideas (more than enough) to fill a session by
myself.
&&&&& Short Description &&&&&
Use Metacognitive Thinking Strategies to
improve Learning and Problem Solving
Give students
educationally useful experiences, and use metacognitive thinking strategies
(self-questioning, reflection, SRL, my problem-solving model,...) to help them
learn more from their experiences, improve their knowledge and skills. Use the wide scope of "problem
solving" to build motivational transfer-bridges (from school into life)
throughout the curriculum.
Dr.
Craig Rusbult — craigru57@yahoo.com
&&&& Detailed Description &&&&
[ If this proposal is
accepted, ] my session will use key ideas from the HomePage of my
website, Education for Problem Solving,
but topics won't necessarily be in the order you see below. /
I've made an
OAGC-Page for reviewers [it's this page] with extra information, and links to
details in the HomePage.
Here
are some plans for designing the presentation:
•
A re-sequencing of topics — to make the session a "real-time
experience" that is more enjoyable & productive for participants —
will be part of the improving that occurs in the next 5+ months. The final result (in October) will be a
revision of what is outlined below. And...
•
Here are three "big picture"
ideas that will be emphasized:
1) general
Metacognitive Strategies (MC Strategies) are valuable in many ways, and...
2) these general
MC Strategies can be effectively combined with specific MC Strategies – using my model for problem-solving Design
Process – that offer significant "added value" to what-and-how
students are learning. / #2 is the bulk of what's below, with #1 at
the beginning and — much more briefly than in the session, where it will be
carefully examined & discussed — #3 at the end.
3) Maybe both kinds of MC Strategies can be
smoothly implemented. Maybe. Although I'm very confident about #1 and #2,
unfortunately there are rational
reasons to avoid an explicit teaching of MC Strategies but there are rational reasons to predict that implementation will be easier when we use
MC Strategies for Gifted Students.
Returning
to the Detailed Description,
metacognitive Self-Regulation is effective: When metacognitive
Self-Regulation — combining Metacognition
(to observe thinking) and Self-Regulation (to observe &
control feeling and behaviors) — is
applied for learning (as in Self-Regulated
Learning, SRL) and this is done well, it produces a variety of useful
benefits, especially for gifted students.
[ Oops - I don't know if
claiming "especially for gifted students" is justified by
evidence. But there is evidence that all
kinds of students benefit when they do metacognition well, and their
metacognition generally improves when it's explicitly taught. And I think many
gifted students will be especially motivated to improve their metacognition.
SRL Cycles and my Problem-Solving Process:
My simplest model for Problem-Solving Process (i.e. for Design
Process) has a Cycle of Generating
Options (for a Problem-Solution) and
Evaluating Options; and we ask "revise Option?"
before re-Generating. Basically this is [equivalent to] the Plan-Monitor-Adjust
in an SRL Cycle.
[ "Plan-Monitor-Adjust" is changed to the more common "Plan-Monitor-Evaluate" in my
section comparing SRL with Design Process that shows their essential equivalence, and
explains how with each strategy you Plan
(mentally) and Do (physically) in
iterative cycles. ]
Define and Solve:
In my Design Process, first
you Define a Problem by choosing an Objective (for what to
improve), understanding the
Now-Situation, defining Goals for a
better Goal-Situation. Then Solve the Problem by Generating Options & Evaluating Options,
in iterative Design Cycles (Generate-Evaluate-Generate-Evaluate-...) until you decide that an Option is a satisfactory
Problem-Solution.
The overall change is... The
Now-Situation —[process of Problem Solving]—> A Goal-Situation. { MORE
about my model for Design Process, with Define-and-Solve plus Quality Checks & Reality
Checks}
use Quality Checks
and Reality Checks: When people solve problems, we Evaluate an
Option by comparing 3 elements (Predictions
& Observations, Goals) in 3 Comparisons that are Evaluations. We do Quality
Checks (by comparing Predictions with Goals, or Observations with Goals,
asking The Design Question, "how close is the matching?" with Quality
defined by Goals; mismatches
stimulate-and-guide creative Generation of a new Option) for General Design. In a similar way, we do Reality
Checks (comparing Predictions with Observations, asking The Science
Question, "am I surprised?") for Science-Design. /
In my
favorite diagram (it has a link in OAGC Page) students can see-and-understand
the logical integrating of Design-with-Science
in my model, helping them develop a logical integrating of Design-with-Science
in their thinking.
Metacognitive Regulation for Problem Solving: Design
Process is an extension of my
PhD work to develop a model for Scientific Method and use it to analyze
C&I. Is there a method? Yes and No.
The "No" is because no single method is used by all people in
all situations. While designing we use flexible
goal-directed improvising, analogous to a hockey skater but not a rigidly
choreographed figure skater. During a
process of solving, your improvised
Action-Decisions about "what to do next" (considering urgency
& importance) are guided by Observations (of current Now-Situation compared
with a Goal-Situation) and Conditional Knowledge about an Action's functional capabilities (what it
achieves) and its conditions-of-application
(for when it's useful); this
Coordinating of Actions converts creative-and-critical thinking skills into process skills, so they can use time more effectively & design
a better Solution.
Regulation of Metacognition: While doing Metacognitive Regulation, we Regulate
Metacognition by deciding when to
use metacognition (or to avoid it & just think) and how to use it. {an important set of
sections is "getting
more & learning more – developing-and-using effective
metacognition – regulating metacognition to make it more
effective – education that improves metacognition"}
what we design:
For a design project (i.e. a problem-solving project) the objective
can be to design (to find, improve,
or invent) a better product, activity, relationship, and/or strategy [usually involving decisions] (in General
Design) and/or (in Science-Design)
a better explanatory theory. These problem-solving
objectives – extending far beyond traditional "design fields" –
include almost everything students do in School, and in Life.
two
wide scopes for Problem Solving:
With my broad definitions — a problem is an opportunity (in any
area of life) to make things better, and problem solving happens whenever we
make something better — almost all that we do is a Problem-Solving Activity.
And a similar Problem-Solving
Process is used for almost all that we do; it's similar
but not identical, like "variations on a theme" in music.
wide scopes improve transfers: Using research-based principles (summarized
in How People Learn) we expect
transfers-of-learning to increase when we teach knowledge in multiple contexts (in a variety of PS Activities) and we teach knowledge in an easily-generalizable
form (with similar PS Process).
two kinds of transfer:
Using metacognition in Design
Process will help a student increase their transfers-of-learning Between Areas (inside School & in
many areas of their Life) and
Through Time (from the Past & Present into their Future).
wide scopes –> building bridges: If a student believes these
two transfers will occur, they can think "if I improve my
School-Learning, it will improve my Life-Living, will help me achieve my goals for
Life," giving them personal
motivations to learn in school, and personal
confidences (with a growth mindset)
that they can improve the quality of their learning-thinking-doing in all areas
of Life. They are building
bridges from their current School-Life into their future Whole-Life,
in their short-term future now (e.g. this week) and long-term future
later. They think "making my education better makes my life better," so they want to
improve their own Personal Education, to make it (and their life) better.
getting more and learning more: If education
is "learning from life-experiences," better education is learning more from experiences. We can help students get more experiences (of the kinds that are educationally useful)
and help them learn more from their
experiences, with metacognitive strategies;
e.g. a sequence of ERP (Experiences + Reflection –> Principles)
uses process-of-inquiry to teach principles-for-inquiry.
[ getting
more and learning more + performing (in the present) and learning (for
the future) ]
performing and/or learning: When you want your best possible performance
now, you have a Performance
Objective. When you want your best possible learning now – so you can improve your best possible performing later – you have a Learning Objective. { For example, a basketball team wants
to learn well in an early-season practice, and perform well in a late-season
tournament game. }
coping
with challenges: Can teachers
effectively teach metacognitive strategies? and do this with reasonable time
investments? Richard Cohen (primary
author of The Metacognitive Student)
says Yes-and-Yes,* claiming that
teaching general metacognitive strategies
is easy to learn and easy to implement with training that "can be done in
a day," fits into any curriculum, works at any age level, lets teachers
choose to use metacognitive strategies a little or a lot, for personally
customized scaling. [* These claims are made in the
book, and during an interview; iou -
I'll finish writing this tonight, May 3, and will link to the exact locations
within the interview-video. ]
general strategies and specific strategies: Teachers can use only general strategies (e.g. those of Cohen, or SRL ,...) or combine
these with specific strategies (e.g. Design Process). A combining offers many educational benefits,
and I'll explain how a school (and its teachers) can do this
effectively. [ principles
for combining Design Process with other strategies ]
questions about challenges: I'll ask participants to discuss the pros & cons of
using metacognitive strategies (general or combined) for an Ideas-and-Skills Curriculum with ideas,
skills, skills-with-ideas. And to discuss possibilities for coping with the
challenges of effective implementation.
[[ some
Your
guidelines say "do not send vitae" but it could be useful to read my bio-page
that tells the story of "my life on a road less traveled" and why "I
have mixed feelings about the results." The OAGC-Page explains why this might be relevant when evaluating my
proposal, and why I'm hoping we can build a
community of educators who want to discuss options for using metacognition to
improve education. [ the two explanations for why ]
&&&&&&&&&& end of page
&&&&&&&&&&