Metacognition

“The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole.” – Shakespeare, As You Like It

“…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” – Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, February 2002

This is a nascent page of links to news articles, blog posts and resources on metacognition and learning, intended for both students and teacher. Contributions from readers more than welcome!

Learn more by studying smarter, not harder

Six strategies for effective learning: videos by the Learning Scientists: http://www.learningscientists.org/videos/

Quiz Yourself: How Good Are You at Teaching the Art of Learning?  http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/08/quiz-yourself-how-good-are-you-at-teaching-the-art-of-learning/

How Does the Brain Learn Best? Smart Studying Strategies http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/08/how-does-the-brain-learn-best-smart-studying-strategies/

Forget what you know about good study habits http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Karpicke, JD and JR Blunt 2011. Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping. Science DOI:10.1126/science.1199327  Article is paywalled, but recapped in this blog post: https://jchoigt.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/is-it-testing-retrieval-practice-or-writing/

Desirable difficulties

Desirable difficulties in the classroom by Adi Jaffe, reposted in Psychology Today by Jeff Bye

Study with others

http://college.usatoday.com/2015/05/04/5-reasons-you-should-form-a-finals-study-group-right-now/

Pre-testing primes students for learning, even when they get wrong answers

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/why-flunking-exams-is-actually-a-good-thing.html?_r=0

Clear lectures and explanations do not always lead to better learning

Repeated study has diminishing benefits

Fritz, CO, PE Morris, B Reid, R Aghdassi, CE Naven 2013. Failure of further learning: activities, structure, and meaning. Br. J. Psychol. DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12060 Discussed in this blog post: https://jchoigt.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/failure-of-further-learning-the-limits-of-repeated-study-and-retrieval-practice/

Affirming your own values may counter stereotype threat

Ed Yong’s post: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/11/25/15-minute-writing-exercise-closes-the-gender-gap-in-university-level-physics/#.VATp49aVux8 discusses these articles below.

Cohen, GL, J Garcia, V Purdie-Vaughns, N Apfel, P Brzustoski 2009. Recursive Processes in Self-Affirmation: Intervening to Close the Minority Achievement Gap. Science 324: 400-403 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1170769

Miyake, A, LE Kost-Smith, ND Finkelstein, SJ Pollock, GL Cohen, TA Ito 2010. Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap in College Science: a Classroom Study of Values Affirmation. Science 330:1234-1237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1195996