EduPsych- Complex Cognitive Processses and Self-Regulation

Complex cognitive process

Processes in which learners go far beyond the specific information they learn

May include:

• Applications to new situations

• Problem solving

• Creating a product

• Critical evaluation

Metacognition

Thinking about thinking

• Encompasses knowledge and beliefs about cognitive processes

  • Thinking about thinking

  • Controlling thinking

  • Engaging in behaviors that facilitate thinking and learning

Metacognition and metacognitive awareness facilitate learning!

Metacognitive awareness

• Knowledge about thinking and knowing

  • Students with metacognitive awareness are likely to:

    • Use effective learning strategies

    • Have high achievement

Young children (K-2) tend to:

• Overestimate knowledge

• Think learning is passive

• Devote equal time to easy and challenging tasks

• Believe that absolute truth about a given topic is “out there”

Around grades 3-5, children:

• Begin to see learning as active, constructive process

• Increase in their ability to reflect on their thinking processes

• Recognize that some challenging tasks require more time

• Still believe in absolute truth “out there”

Around grades 6-8, children:

• Tend to believe that knowledge is collection of facts

• Begin to see knowledge as subjective (e.g., awareness of multiple perspectives)

• Do not tend to use effective learning/study strategies

• Still use relatively ineffective strategies

Around grades 9-12, students tend to recognize:

• Learning takes time and practice

• Certain strategies are appropriate/effective in given circumstances

• Ideas should be evaluated and compared to evidence

Learning strategies

Intentional approaches to learning and remembering

Overt strategies

Specific behaviors (observable)

• Require covert strategies to be effective

• Creating calendars/schedules for learning and work

• Asking questions when confused

• Taking notes

• Creating summaries

o = observable

Covert strategies

Mental processes (internal, not observale)

• Make overt strategies effective

• Identifying important information

• Regularly monitoring learning

  • Self-explanation

  • Self-questioning

Illusion of knowing

Thinking a topic is mastered when it reallty isn’t

• Common in students who don’t monitor comprehension

What Factors Influence Whether Students Use Learning Strategies?

• The nature of the task

  • Including students’ cognitive load at the time

  • How much are students being asked to memorize?

• Recognition that current strategies are ineffective

• Specific motives and goals

• Instruction and guidance on effective strategy use

• Epistemic beliefs

Epistemic beliefs

• Beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning

• Epistemic metacognition is also important

Helping Students Develop Productive Epistemic Beliefs

• Talk with students about how:

  • Knowledge involves not only knowing facts, concepts, and ideas but also understanding interrelationships among these things

  • Learning requires active construction of knowledge

  • Knowledge doesn’t always mean having clear-cut answers to difficult, complex issues

  • Knowledge sometimes involves critically evaluating evidence

  • Mastering a body of information or a complex skill often requires hard work and persistence

  • Collective knowledge is dynamic and evolving

Metacognitive Strategies in the Digital Age

• More than ever, students need to learn to:

  • Identify keywords to use in a search for particular information

  • Make good choices about paths and hotlinks to follow

  • Critically evaluate available information

  • Adjust goals and strategies as new information is gained

  • Identify when technology is a useful strategy

  • Compare, contrast, and synthesize information from multiple sources