Before Leaving High School
Teachers should teach their students metacognition skills before students leave high school. According to high school graduates I know, college is very different from high school, mainly because in college, teachers aren’t going to hold your hand. Teachers aren’t going to hound you for work; they will just fail you. Many of these graduates are shocked by the brusqueness of the real world and wished that their teachers exposed them to skills that would help them prepare more effectively for college. I know personally that metacognition skills are extremely important because I use them daily. Without metacognition skills, I would not be able to finish all of the work I need to do. For example, one metacognition skill I have been told that I possess is intrinsic drive. I want to do well, therefore I try hard. If I didn’t have intrinsic drive, I would just play water polo all day and not do my work. If I don’t have intrinsic drive in the future, I probably will fail college and not get a job. My mom tells me that things don’t always have a reward and you just have to do them because you have to. Doing things not because you’re going to be rewarded but because you have the integrity to do it is called intrinsic drive. This is a good lesson to learn before college because your boss isn’t going to bribe you to do your work; you either do it or someone else who is willing to work will do it for you (a.k.a. replace you). In conclusion, teachers should teach student metacognition skills to prepare students for the blunt nature of the “real world”.
Improving My Metacognitive Skills
What I Presented About
This year I improved on the megacognition skills of metacomprehension and self-regulation. One subcategory in metacomprehension is self-evalution reflection. By evaluating myself, I was able to improve my self. One example of this was my PBL #4. After receiving my grade for the PBL, I evaluated what I could do to it to improve it. I decided to improve more content that I learned during the quarter to display my learning more. This assessment and self-critique is important because in the real world, other people aren’t always going to be there to make sure you are doing quality work. Sometimes you have to assess your own work. A subcategory for self-regulation is selection. Selection is basically being able to select effective ways to do things. When I had to present my lecture about the Red Queen Hypothesis, I considered the best way to display my information to ensure full understanding amongst the audience. I asked some of my classmates which informational structure (webs or outlines) they could comprehend more extensively. I then chose the way that the majority said was effective (webs). Using metacognition skills this year has really helped me do things more effectively and efficiently.
End of the Year Reflection
Some of the knowledge I used to answer my PBL
During this quarter, 4th quarter, I believe that I am using 21st life skills, metacognition, and KS-Working Exit Outcomes to help me succeed in Biology. Ke Ao Ho’oulu is a KS-Working Exit Outcome that I really exhibited this quarter. I increased my knowledge in Biology by applying what I had learned. For the most recent PBL about hand sanitizer, I used my knowledge about superbugs and evolution to use divergent thinking to answer the presented questions. The 21st life skill “self direction” was used this quarter. Completing a huge project like the PBL by the due date required a lot of self-direction and time-management. I know I used this skill because I turned in all of my assignments on time. I used metacognition skills to reflect after assignments like the Bio blogs, so that I could improve them. When I got missing in the gradebook because my blogs weren’t up to par, I reflected and re-did them, so that my work accurately reflected what I learned in Biology this quarter.
I am demonstrating a growth mindset. I continue to do all of my assignments on time. My completion of all of my assignments in a timely manner shows my eagerness to learn new things about science. According to the article, keeping an open mind towards learning is very important if youw want to have a growth mindset. I keep my mind open when I hear new opinions about the topics we’re discussing and appreciate other people’s mana’o. For example, during one class discussion, I allowed Paka to speak his mana’o instead of sharing mine because I wanted a new light on the matter.
I will use divergent thinking to solve my problems. On our rubric for our PBLs, it says to use divergent thinking to solve problems. I think if we apply this to the broader scope of things, we can see that using divergent thinking to solve all of our problems in life is a good idea. My grandmother always told me to “think outside the box”. This is the same thing as divergent thinking because both require being unique and thinking of new ways to do things. By thinking of new solutions, I can eliminate new problems that would have gotten in my way if I had used old solutions that were already thought of. In conclusion, to finish up the year, to face new problems, I’ll think of new solutions.
I am demonstrating a growth mindset. I continue to do all of my assignments on time. My completion of all of my assignments in a timely manner shows my eagerness to learn new things about science. According to the article, keeping an open mind towards learning is very important if youw want to have a growth mindset. I keep my mind open when I hear new opinions about the topics we’re discussing and appreciate other people’s mana’o. For example, during one class discussion, I allowed Paka to speak his mana’o instead of sharing mine because I wanted a new light on the matter.
I will use divergent thinking to solve my problems. On our rubric for our PBLs, it says to use divergent thinking to solve problems. I think if we apply this to the broader scope of things, we can see that using divergent thinking to solve all of our problems in life is a good idea. My grandmother always told me to “think outside the box”. This is the same thing as divergent thinking because both require being unique and thinking of new ways to do things. By thinking of new solutions, I can eliminate new problems that would have gotten in my way if I had used old solutions that were already thought of. In conclusion, to finish up the year, to face new problems, I’ll think of new solutions.
Metacognition Page
My Biology scores for 6 weeks
In order to survive this class, metacognition must be taken into full consideration. Metacognition is defined as the understanding and awareness of your own thought process. I believe that metacognition is necessary because if you know your own thought process and how you learn best, you will be able to maximize your learning experience. Aristotle says something related to this when he states, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of true wisdom.” For example, when examining my own metacognitive graph, I noticed that I was pretty much consistent with my scores with one really high spot in the middle. I reflected on what we did differently on the week I scored high compared to the other weeks. I remembered that my high-scoring week (week 4) was the week where we did a lot of written work with CER. From this, I learned that I am a person that expresses myself best through essays or reports, the written word. I also assessed my lowest scoring week (week 2) and found that week 2 was the week where we did a lot of creative, artsy-fartsy activities. Obviously, I am not very proficient at artsy activities, so that was a challenge for you. I plan on continuing to graph my scores weekly and assess my scores from each week to see what I am struggling with and what I am doing correctly since this graph helped me with my self-discovery. From assessing my graph, I really got a feel for what I excel in and quite frankly, what I suck in. This knowledge not only will help me be able to utilize my strengths to my advantage; it will also motivate me to improve myself in areas where I am weak in (in this case, artistic things).
Metacognition has a very strong link to self-regulation. Self-regulation ultimately comes down to doing the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel or any obstacles that I may encounter. I personally can say that I struggled with this skill initially. When I first entered Biology, I was a bit stunned by how much my kumu expected out of us. I think a combination of my kumu’s high expectations for us, the completely different teaching style, and the intensity of the material really made me struggle a bit in the beginning of the year. I also have a lot of extra curricular activities and home duties that I participate in, so balancing all of my activities, required and for fun, with all of my Biology work was a refreshing challenge for me. My strengths with self-regulation was that I was already proficient at time-management because I participate in sports. My kumu’s action of throwing us out at sea to fend for ourselves for a little while ultimately ended up to be a good thing because it strengthen my mental abilities, time-management abilities, and also my understanding of Biology concepts.
Metacognition has a very strong link to self-regulation. Self-regulation ultimately comes down to doing the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel or any obstacles that I may encounter. I personally can say that I struggled with this skill initially. When I first entered Biology, I was a bit stunned by how much my kumu expected out of us. I think a combination of my kumu’s high expectations for us, the completely different teaching style, and the intensity of the material really made me struggle a bit in the beginning of the year. I also have a lot of extra curricular activities and home duties that I participate in, so balancing all of my activities, required and for fun, with all of my Biology work was a refreshing challenge for me. My strengths with self-regulation was that I was already proficient at time-management because I participate in sports. My kumu’s action of throwing us out at sea to fend for ourselves for a little while ultimately ended up to be a good thing because it strengthen my mental abilities, time-management abilities, and also my understanding of Biology concepts.
I was not able to achieve my goal from Quarter 1. I wanted to obtain a 90% for my quarter 2 grade, but I only have a 89% as of now. However, I did obtain my ultimate goal which was to get an A for the quarter. I obtained this grade by studying for test by reading the assigned reading for Biology class. I also went in whenever I had a chance to retest orally to raise my grade. My metacognition improved from quarter 1 because I am more accustomed to the class. I reflect after all of my quizzes and tests to prepare for the next upcoming assessments. I think about how much effort I’m putting into my work. I compared my grades from quarter 1 and quarter 2 and compared my academic approaches for each quarter, trying to find out which one was most successful. I clearly had successes and challenges with self-regulation during Quarter 2. If you look at my week 1 grades from Quarter 1 and 2 comparatively, you will see that my Quarter 2 grade is significantly higher than my Quarter 1 grade. (Quarter 1- 0; Quarter 2- 28) This grade difference is due to my improvement in the field of self-regulation. During week 1 during Quarter 1, I didnʻt study for the Biology quizzes as much as I should have because I wasnʻt accustomed to the system of this Biology class yet. However, during Quarter 2, I had adapted my study habits to fit this class, so I could regulate myself in a more effective way, thus raising my grade exponentially. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I also had trouble with self-regulation later on during Quarter 2. If you compare my weekly grades between Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 after week 1, you would notice that my grades during Quarter 2 are not as high as they were during Quarter 1. This is due to my lack of completion of the assigned reading. Since I didnʻt regulate my time effectively, I didnʻt have enough time to read all of the chapters for Biology class. As you can see, Quarter 2 was challenging, but also successful for me in the perspective of self-regulation.
Photo Credit:
Red Queen Hypothesis: http://rlv.zcache.com/red_queen_hypothesis_alice_red_queen_wonderland_sticker-rb1b9208f4a39427e89b20b32e0de4cee_v9wf3_8byvr_512.jpg
Red Queen Hypothesis: http://rlv.zcache.com/red_queen_hypothesis_alice_red_queen_wonderland_sticker-rb1b9208f4a39427e89b20b32e0de4cee_v9wf3_8byvr_512.jpg