Introduction and New Focus of Inquiry
Story of the Question
My inquiry question has changed since the previous semester's experiences. My previous question was:
How can I as a teacher of primary grade students, encourage the use meta-cognitive strategies such as self reflection, self evaluation and “thinking about thinking” to promote student engagement, motivation and critical thinking skills?
As I reflected on this question after my initial analysis at the end of last semester, I realized it was too broad and lacked focus. So I ended up sectioning my findings into categories based on how they influenced my understanding of metacognition in the classroom.
My inquiry question has changed since the previous semester's experiences. My previous question was:
How can I as a teacher of primary grade students, encourage the use meta-cognitive strategies such as self reflection, self evaluation and “thinking about thinking” to promote student engagement, motivation and critical thinking skills?
As I reflected on this question after my initial analysis at the end of last semester, I realized it was too broad and lacked focus. So I ended up sectioning my findings into categories based on how they influenced my understanding of metacognition in the classroom.
One main take-away from my analysis related to the value of cooperative learning and how sharing between students could have an effect on their ability to think meta-cognitively and take their learning to the next level. The following is a quote from the related section of my previous analysis (artifact 1):
"In order to encourage student success with metacognition, teachers should utilize the funds of knowledge in the classroom community and be more like coaches.
Something I have wrestled with often is making sense of the various roles the teacher plays in the classroom and within the relationships with their students. One aspect of this that I am decided about though is that the teacher should not be positioned as the source of all knowledge and I disagree wholeheartedly with the now antiquated notion that students are empty vessels waiting to be filled up with what we have to offer them. “No liberal education worth of the name can content itself simply with the transmission of information from teachers to students. It demands a pedagogy of dialogue and inquiry, of teaching with students rather than at them”(Osborne, p. 33). True education in my mind comes from the collaboration between teachers, parents, the students themselves and their classmates. I think that as a teacher my job is to show students how they can not only learn from me but also to learn from another and be able to teach themselves. Metacognition can help students navigate and identify what they can learn from who and be open/receptive to accessing as well as adding to their classroom community fund of knowledge....
In my lessons I came to this understanding by watching how my students were able to help each other learn by sharing their thoughts, strategies, motivations and connections. I also saw the benefit of letting go of the typical teacher authority of all knowledge position by trying the problem based learning or problem centered classroom approach in my math lesson. By waiting to do direct instruction until after some initial problem exploration, students had a chance to learn from their own struggle, teaching themselves without realizing it or learning from one another when they needed help. I was amazed at how capable they were at diving in and taking the lead. It was amazing how after that initial problem exploration, I was less of a top-down teacher giving them knowledge and more of a coach who helped them make sense of and make the most of the experiential knowledge they just gained. Most of what I did at that point was help them reflect on their experiences and manage the sharing out of solutions. This pedagogical choice allowed for students to see how struggling through a problem and being meta-cognitive to help them work through it gave them the power to learn from themselves. I believe this was a great confidence boost for a lot of my students who may not be used to feeling that type of empowerment."
I also came to realize the truth in one of my personal beliefs that initially drove my interest in collaborative learning. Students learn better when there isn't one source of authority for all the information introduced. I had shared this previously as part of my "Statement of Beliefs" at the end of the Fall semester. The following is a quote from the related section of that document (artifact 2):
"I believe classroom discourse, collaborative work, and social interactions promote meta-cognitive thinking.
I believe that social interactions and collaborative work actively promote meta-cognitive development. "Researchers also recommend the use of collaborative or cooperative learning structures for encouraging development of meta-cognitive skills" (Lai, 2011, p. 24). Meta-cognitive discourse among students for example, can stimulate conceptual conflict. Such conflict can then lead to clarifications of students’ beliefs and concepts. This type of discourse also encourages the construction and internalization of meta-cognitive thinking. I also think that students involved in group processing are better able to then process their own individual thinking. "When children dialogue together, they learn to use language to explain their ideas and experiences, negotiate meaning around a task, and develop new ways of thinking and behaving that they may not have previously considered" (Gilles, p. 37)."
As the spring semester approached, I looked back at my experiences and reflections from the start of the program on and realized that collaborative and peer learning was something I'd been taking notice of since the very beginning of the program.
For example, when making observations of children in a learning situation for my Child Development course last Summer, the conclusions that I came to were related to children teaching each other. The following is an excerpt from my final observation paper (artifact 3):
For example, when making observations of children in a learning situation for my Child Development course last Summer, the conclusions that I came to were related to children teaching each other. The following is an excerpt from my final observation paper (artifact 3):
"All the opportunities I had to observe the children learning chess involved two children playing each other. Even when an adult/teacher was present it was as a mediator/coach off to the side not as an active participant in the game itself. Due to this situation, there were many instances of children learning from each other. The learning that occurred between the children seemed to be of three types. The first I saw was children learning through observing the other children. They watched and absorbed other children's techniques/strategies and listened to each others' reasoning for the decisions they made in the game. The second involved children learning as a result of being critiqued or evaluated by their peers whom they were playing with. The third and more subtle learning came about as a result of the children teaching the other children how to play the game. These children through taking on the teaching role were able to test out their own understanding of the game through communicating what they had learned to other, often younger or less familiar players."
In the Fall semester I also wrote a journal entry (artifact 4) at the end of October in reference to trying out a "Number Talk" with my first grade students at E.M. Stanton Elementary. In the entry I remark about how the students struggled with this routine because it seemed that they had not often been expected to listen to each other in addition to listening to the teacher. The following is an excerpt from that journal entry:
"The other issue was that these children have obviously not been taught or haven't been expected to listen very well to each other instead of just the teacher. It was very difficult to get them to listen to the responses or strategies of the other children. They don't seem to realize the purpose of sharing is so that we can all gain from what the members of the class are thinking. I wasn't as successful with this. Each time I had a child share their thinking, there were at least two other students talking over them, not paying attention or obviously just anxiously waiting to give their own response and not listening at all. I wasn't clear with this expectation I guess, or maybe the reasoning I gave for the expectation was not enough to inspire the children to want to follow through and actually listen. Some of the kids that would have benefited the most from hearing other students strategies were the ones that clearly weren't listening at all"
This same problem arose again in my small group mathematics lesson at the end of the Fall semester. I was attempting to utilize classroom discourse and the sharing of strategies to encourage students to learn from each other. I ultimately found when reflecting on the experience that it had not been successful. My students were still not seeing the value in listening to one another and were only really focused when I was leading discussion in a more traditional teacher-driven, question and answer style. The following is an excerpt from the analysis of that portion of my lesson and the associated video clip (artifacts 5.1 and 5.2):
"Most of the lesson was the traditional discourse model where I asked questions and had the students respond. However, I did try when we came back together to solve the initial bags problem to have a student share her approach and elicit responses from the students. This did not go well (see the video below). The student who was sharing was more concerned about telling me than her classmates and was annoyed to have to turn around and share her drawing with them. Also the other students seemed to take the attitude that they only really need to listen when the teacher is talking. When it's another student they are very distracted and surprisingly disrespectful. I believe I could have structured this better. I should have made the student sharing stand up at the front of the room. I also should've taken a moment to go over with students how they could learn from each other as much as me. Also rather than having her just share her drawing, I wish I had encouraged her to come to the overhead and redraw it while walking us through her steps. I think the other students would've paid more attention if it was more active sharing and not just looking at a small static drawing. After realizing that I was losing the engagement and focus of most students, I ended up reverting back to the more traditional discourse mode of question and answer. This lack of ability to have students effectively share ideas with one another was not a surprise because that kind of sharing is not an expectation/norm in the classroom these students operate in most of the time and I didn't do well introducing or setting up those new expectations in my lesson. What I found interesting is that I did overhear some very good sharing of ideas when they were conferencing during the period of problem exploration, but when they came together as a whole class, they seemed confused about the expectation to share their thinking and reasoning. Even though it did not happen successfully as a whole group, I was pleased to have seen in the more formative problem exploration time that they are in fact capable of it. They may just need me to structure the discussion differently and make my expectations for that time more clear"
So after much reflection and entering a new student teaching placement in the Spring, I came to the decision to narrow my focus of inquiry. My new inquiry question would stem from my findings about the importance of collaborative learning for metacognition and focus on my belief in the necessity of students sharing information and learning from each other. My new inquiry question became:
How can I encourage my students to value learning from each other and support them in doing so to foster an effective community of learners?
How can I encourage my students to value learning from each other and support them in doing so to foster an effective community of learners?