Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
comparison of old and new teaching methods
a free essay on learning through reflection
importance of reflection in teaching
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: comparison of old and new teaching methods
Literature Review
Research on the Problem
Researchers and theorists have sought the key behind getting students to learn for decades. For every theory placed on the table, there is another waiting to clear it off and replace it. This dichotomy can be challenging for teachers who are searching for the answers to help them reach their students especially when these students are asked to do mundane tasks like memorize. In addition, many teachers struggle to identify the root cause of their student’s struggles with material, and once pin pointed, they often find it difficult to address these causes.
What are the exact challenges the students are struggling with? In her research, Nancy Joseph, believes the answer to this question lies in a lack of metacognitive ability in the students. “Your ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate your performance reveals sophisticated cognitive activity.” (Joseph, 2006) If the students are not capable of reaching this level of cognitive ability, they will not be able to grow with the difficulty of the class material. Each student learns best in his or her own way, and by understanding this “learners are able to use their academic strengths to develop additional skills and understanding, moving toward greater intellectual maturity.” (Joseph, 2006) Students cannot develop critical thinking skills as it relates to content if they do not possess the skill to think critically at all.
The pathway to metacognitive ability begins with self-reflection. At the junior high level, students are unaware that the ability to be reflective is a skill that will carry them through life; not just in their current Language Arts Classroom (Joseph, 2006). Teachers are told almost daily about how important ...
... middle of paper ...
...is difficult, and that they must be creative in finding ways to make easier for the students to understand. If they do not, then they will keep doing what they have always done, and continue getting the same results.
I hope to examine parts of the studies that have already been conducted on these issues. I will be looking at the result of connecting games, social interaction, practice, direct instruction, indirect instruction, and to what extent a student’s metacognitive level has on their ability to memorize material such as prepositions. As Ellis noted, “the results of the research do not afford conclusions that can be readily applied to language pedagogy.” (Ellis, 2011) My attempts will be focused on a more general scope of application in the classroom, and I will try to bridge the gap between the research, theorists, and practical application.
Define what metacognitive or reflective writing is. What are some of the prompts or “topics” for reflective writing?
The researcher will adopt the survey on Jr. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory which originally proposed by Sperling, Howard, Miller, and Murphy. It consists of 18 statements to which participants respond by marking a Likert scale with numbers from 1 (“never”) to 5 (“always”). Average completion time is approximately twenty minutes. The Jr. MAI statements represent two component categories of metacognition, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Within the knowledge component are statements of declarative knowledge (knowledge about self and strategies), procedural knowledge (knowledge about strategy use), and conditional knowledge (when and why to use strategies). The regulation component covered planning (goal setting), information
Metacognition can be complex; however, it is essential to teach at an elementary level because it’s an intellectual habit that can be obtain by the teacher’s method of teaching and the student’s consciousness of learning. Thinking about thinking is necessary in elementary level because of the awareness of the student’s thinking process. The teacher must be conscious of the different aspects of learning of each student and be able to work with them with different strategies that are the best to make their learning process more effective and interesting.
...ot only use the cognitive skills of the students but also their affect. This will allow the students to process and reflect on how they made that specific decision or answer. They are not just focusing on the end result but how they end up in that result or scenario. Teachers need to incorporate more reflection pieces or activities in their lessons because it not only enhances the cognitive skills of the children but also addresses their social and emotional needs.
(2008) show how other perspectives have influenced these fields. Researchers can choose their theoretical frameworks, and it is critical that they do so. Research that is not well linked with theory will be disconnected to other research and will not offer clear implications for educational policy and practice. (Kaplan, 2008) While there are competing theoretical models and some disagreement over how best to define the term and its constituent parts, it is generally agreed the topic of metacognition is concerned with metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, and metacognitive regulation and monitoring. (Flavell, 1979; Hacker, Dunlosky, & Glaesser, 1998; McCormick, 2003; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011; McLeod, 1997; Schneider & Lockl, 2002; Cross & Paris, 1988; Flavell, 1979; Paris & Winograd, 1990; Schraw & Moshman, 1995; Schraw et al., 2006; Whitebread et al.,
Some students find it challenging to figure an effective way to learn about something and unfamiliar. It has been states that students try to find the easy way to learn, but in fact, there is no such thing (Chew, 2011). Developing “effective learning habits” can cause a major impact on how much information you retain while studying (Chew, 2011). Every student has a distinctive way of learning, but “metacognition is a concept that could drastically impact everyone’s learning” (Chew, 2011). According to Dr. Stephen Chew, a cognitive psychologist, metacognition is, “a student’s awareness of their level of understanding of a topic” ( 2011). Dr. Chew descibes “accurate metacognition" as being, the key transformation between a successful student
Snyder and Snyder’s article indicates that critical thinking is a skill that can be learned, developed, and practiced through instructions. The authors also discussed that critical thinking shall be regularly integrated into the curriculum for the students to be able to participate in active learning. In this journal article, it proposes that by using instructional strategies, students can actively engage themselves in the learning process instead of solely depending on memorization and lecture. Learning by memorization isn’t acquiring knowledge or skills; it will be merely forgotten
Understanding how to translate information learned into information taught with the intent of engaging a variety of student learners. This is the issue educators have faced for centuries. Developing a young mind is a chore and there are myriads of techniques that can be implemented. Teachers are not machines so the implementation of technique into useful classroom practice can only be as effective as the educators will, understanding, intelligence and personal belief. None of this can be tested so unless a school chooses the correct technique for the correct assessment it is possible to be competent educators while being non proficient at meeting national or state standards.
The last challenge that a beginning teacher may face is designing appropriate assessment to assess students’ critical reasoning. It is not easy to assess students’ critical reasoning as it is not just about having the knowledge of critical reasoning. Willingham (2007) states that “knowing that one should think critically is not the same as being to do” (p. 13). The teacher may be able teach the students critical reasoning and the students are aware of it but without the right assessment, it is hard to know if the students have actually acquired critical reasoning.
In other words, through reflection, teachers are being thoughtful and they will start to think seriously about what they do inside and outside of the classroom. In fact, according to Farrell (2007), in order for teachers to engage in reflective practice, they must analytically collect information about the lesson that happen in their classroom and then analyze and evaluate this information and compare it to their primary assumptions and beliefs so that they can make changes and improvements in their teaching. That is to say, reflective practice facilitates teachers to learn from mistakes, success, failure, as well as to improve and develop themselves further to be a better teacher. Above all, Bartlett (1990) argued that teachers need to critically reflect on certain fundamental issues in language teaching. Thus, in this paper I am going to discuss on the importance of reflective practices, the elements in the reflective practices, and I am going to provide a sample of reflective practices of real life in the classroom. I have divided the discussion into several
My peer review writing workshop went very well. I learn that my peers writing are unique, but Donnovan and Mayari seem to lack on introducing the definition from the dictionary or their own definition. Their writing topic is interesting, but they are still in the process in adding examples to it in order to make a stronger essay. The feedbacks they had given me was somewhat helpful,but the suggestion given by Ms. Siegal seems to be more helpful. I did enjoy the comments given by my peers it made me feel quite impressed they enjoy my paper.
As children, we are forced to learn the curriculum our teachers create in order to educate our minds and fill us with knowledge we can use for the future. Through time, we combine all of this knowledge and take different tests that will decide whether or not we can go to college and be _____ into higher education. However, when it comes to truly understanding the subject, students tend may not think critically enough of what they are learning. When I was young, I remember when I was taught _________. As I look back, I always had questions about the subject, but whenever I asked them, they never had an answer that satisfied me. I could never connect with the subject and fully understand the importance of it. This kind of gap between knowledge
Unfortunately there are no quick fixes for the problems that plague the modern classrooms; there are only stopgaps and remedies which may be helpful in mitigating the problem until a more permanent solution is attained. These remedies constitute my personal teaching philosophy. One of these remedies involves instructing the students in the act of metacognition, st...
One of my favorite quotes from Stacey Green states, that if we don’t make learning relevant to our students, then they just learn the answer from the test and forget when it is done. (Vaques, Sneider and Comer page 2) When students learn because of memorization and are not engaged and interested in what is taught, the information becomes a victim of your short term memory, where as when it is
students to learn and teachers to teach. At first glance, it may seem problematic, but research has