Unit 3 - Incorporating metacognition into your lesson plan
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Unit 2 - Identify metacognition in your lesson plan
Lesson 4
Objectives: learner will identify areas of own lesson plans that will benefit from metacognitive thinking activities, or further develop metacognitive activities already present.
To Do: participate in a small group discussion
1. This lesson activity will take place on www.edmodo.com
2. You will be dividing into small groups of 4 or 5 students. The instructor will assign you to a group. You will present your chosen lesson plan in its present state and identify the aspects of the lesson that you’d like to add metacognitive activities to.
3. To present your lesson plan, write it in a Word Document and upload it to a post in your group.
4. Discussion prompts for initial post
- What understanding were students lacking after completing your original lesson plan?
- Referring to your readings, previous discussions, and journal, what types of activities do you think would help fill in these gaps?
5. After you present your lesson plan, engage in a discussion with your classmates. You must respond to at least two other people’s posts and respond to those who post to your initial post
6. See File:Discussion Rubric for Metacognitive mini course.pdf for grading and expectations
7. Things to think about when responding to your classmates’ initial posts:
- Do you think these areas of the lesson will benefit from metacognitive activities?
- Was there anything from the readings in Lesson 1 that support your ideas?
- Do you have any suggestions for the types of activities that would benefit this lesson?
Tips on Edmodo posts:
* Similar to other social media accounts, the most recent posts will be at the
top of the screen. So, you must start from the bottom up.
* You can attach files and add links. The icons for these functions are just
below the space for you to type.
Lesson 5
Objectives:learner will develop metacognitive activities for their own lesson plans
To Do: Create a self-assessment journal entry about your thoughts on Lesson 4 and include a rough draft of some metacognitive activities. Create a revised lesson plan that includes these activities.
1. This lesson activity will take place on www.edmodo.com
2. Please submit two (2) separate Word documents for this assignment, reflection and rough draft of your lesson plan
3. First Word document: Write a paragraph reflecting on the feedback you received from your peers in Lesson 4
4. Things to think about when reflecting:
- What are positives and negatives of their thoughts/suggestions/ideas?
- Do you think you’ll incorporate their ideas?
- Has this experience inspired any other ideas?
- See File:Rubric for Journal.pdf for grading and expectations
5. Second Word document: Complete a revised rough draft your own lesson that incorporates metacognitive activities.
6. For each added activity, provide a rational for adding it. You must include at least one reference, either from the readings or an outside source.
7. See File:Rubric for Rough Draft.pdf for grading and expectations
Lesson 6
Objectives: learner will test activities with a small group of students or discuss activities with a peer.
To Do: Participate in a small group peer review
1. This lesson activity will take place on www.edmodo.com
2. You will be dividing into small groups of 4-6 students. The instructor will assign you to a group. You will present your updated rough draft lesson plan.
3. To present your lesson plan, write it in a Word Document and upload it to a post in your group.
4. After you present your lesson plan, you will complete a peer review of 2 other students’ lesson plans and activities.
5. Submit your peer review in a Word document. Each assessor should create their own document
6. See File:Rubric for Peer Review.pdf for grading and expectations
7. Things to think about when responding to your classmates’ initial posts:
8. Does the lesson plan contain metacognitive activities?
9. If yes:
- What makes it a metacognitive activity?
- If you were taking this course, do you think the activity would help you?
- Do you have any suggestions to improve the activity?
10. If no:
- Where could a metacognitive activity be added?
- What type of activity would help?
- Do you have any suggestions?
Lesson 7
Objectives: learner will reflect upon discussion or results of test group and make appropriate adjustments to activities before fully incorporating into lesson plans
To Do: Create a self-assessment journal entry to summarize your experience of this mini-course
1. This lesson activity will take place on www.edmodo.com
2. The journal will be submitted as an assignment.
3. Please use the Word document format previously outlined in other self-assessment journals
4. Things to think about when completing this activity:
- Summarize the results of your test group or discussion
- Questions to ask yourself: what did the new activities add to the lesson that was previously missing?
- Do you think metacognitive activities are a benefit to a student’s understanding of a concept?
- Will you use it in future lessons?
- Do you have any ideas about those lessons? If yes, please explain in a few sentences.
5. The journal will be submitted as an assignment to the instructor, but use the journal as a place to sort your thoughts on your progress in learning about metacognition. When you prepare to move on to the next steps you should reread your previous journal entries and my comments.
6. See File:Rubric for Journal.pdf for grading and expectations.
Final thought
Metacognition is the ability to reflect on one's own learning. Incorporating this into your lesson plans can greatly increase your students' understanding of a new concept. I've found metacognition to be very helpful in my own education and I've seen its effectiveness in my own students, which is why I'm so passionate about it. However, it must be incorporated in the right way. This requires its own level of metacognition by the teacher. A peer evaluation is also extremely helpful. Review of the effectiveness after each use of the activity can further refine its benefits. Collaboration with others can bring up new thoughts that a person may not initial think of.
Good luck in your future endeavors! I’d like to thank everyone for participating in this mini-course. It was a pleasure working with you! I hope this course helped to give you insight into metacognition and its benefits.