Metacognition plays an important role in all learning. Metacognitive practices increase students’ abilities to transfer or adapt their learning to new contexts and tasks (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000, p. 12). But what exactly is Metacognition? Simply put, it is the act of thinking about one’s thinking. It is the process used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance.
A great way for students to hone their metacognitive skills and improve their academic performance is to regularly reflect on their learning. We have previously discussed how to build the habit of reflection using private journals in Canvas and are excited to share another great option for creating a journal space or online notebook using the tool, Harmonize.
Harmonize is most widely used as a discussion and collaboration tool. However, we discovered it also works wonderfully for providing students with a workspace that is private between the student and their instructor … the perfect place for students to put metacognition into practice.
Benefits of Using Harmonize for Student Journals
Can be set to private between the student and instructor.
Both the student and instructor can easily look back at previous entries, allowing for deeper reflection.
Commenting and annotations allow the instructor to provide feedback.
Supports video, images, audio, and embedded URLs.
Multiple milestones (due dates) can be set to remind students when a journal entry to due.
Journal entries can be graded or ungraded assignments.
The activity dashboard allows the student and instructor to see an overview of completed and upcoming entries.
Journal entry assignments can be added to Canvas Modules.
Strategies That Improve Metacognition
Below are several strategies you can use in your course to help students improve their metacognitive skills. Have students complete these prompts in their Harmonize Journal.
1. Have students practice recognizing what they don’t understand.
Take time at the end of class to ask, “What was most confusing about today’s content?” This reinforces that challenges and confusion are part of the learning process. It also jumpstarts the metacognitive processing by encouraging students to assess their understanding and make a plan on how to proceed.
2. Provide opportunities for students to reflect on their coursework.
Give prompts that foster higher-order thinking skills allowing students to recognize their own cognitive growth. Prompts might include:
- Before this course, I thought __________. Now I understand ___________.
- How has my thinking about ________changed since beginning this course?
3. Have students reflect on their learning strategies.
Provide students with prompts that help them reflect on how they are learning rather than what they are learning. Encourage students to be honest with themselves and that their journal is a safe place. Prompts might include:
- What was easy for me this week and why?
- What did I find the most challenging and why?
- What study strategies worked well for me as I prepared for the exam?
- What study strategies didn’t work well for me? Why?
- What study habits will I try to improve upon?
4. Use a “wrapper” to encourage self-monitoring skills.
A “wrapper” surrounds a learning activity and integrates a metacognitive practice. For example, as class begins, give students a few tips about active listening. At the end of class, ask students to write three key ideas from today’s lecture. Then, share what you think to be the three key ideas and ask students to self-check. Students can then further reflect on their active listening skills. What worked well? What didn’t? Why were their key ideas the same or different from yours? This strategy increases learning and improves metacognitive monitoring skills , when used often.
How-to Create a Journal in Harmonize
In Canvas, click Assignments in the left navigation. Create a new assignment.
Give the assignment a name.
Under Display Grade As, choose whether you would like the journal assignment to be graded or not graded.
Under Submission Type, select External Tool. Click Find, then select Harmonize Assignment. Select Discussion from the list.
Even if the journal assignment is ungraded, select a final due date. For example, if the journal is a semester long assignment, choose the last day of the term as the due date. Click Save.
Next, set up your Harmonize Journal settings.
Under Post Settings, select Private Between Student & Instructors. Also select List as the Default Layout.
Under Milestone Due Dates & Auto-Grading, add Milestones to define multiple due dates throughout the term. For example, if students are required to add an entry in their journal each week, create a milestone for each weekly due date.
Finally, under Instructions, add the journal assignment instructions. If you will be providing students with weekly prompts for their journal entries, here is where you can add those. You can add all journal prompts at once or you can edit the instructions each week by adding that week’s prompt.
If you would like to incorporate metacognitive strategies into your course or are interested in using Harmonize, reach out to the LSA Learning & Teaching Consultants.
References:
Bransford, John D., Brown Ann L., and Cocking Rodney R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Chick, N. (2013). Metacognition. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/metacognition/.
McGuire, S.Y. (2015). Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
