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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Summary Sentence: A School of Biological Sciences Seminar by Julie Dangremond Stanton, University of Georgia
Full Summary: Students who can control of their own thinking can learn more and perform better than students who cannot. Instructors who want to improve their studentts' ability to control tihinking, or metacognition, can benefit from evidence-based suggestions.
Julie Dangremond StantonEDITOR'S NOTE: This announcement first appeared in the School of Biological Sciences website. For updates, please check the original posting.
Students with awareness and control of their own thinking, or who are metacognitive, can learn more and perform better than students who are not.
Metacognitive regulation is the control of thinking in order to learn. It includes the skill of evaluation, which is the ability to appraise approaches to learning and modify plans based on those appraisals.
Metacognitive skills can have a significant impact on learning and performance, but many undergraduate students are still developing these abilities. We need to understand the important changes that occur as students acquire these skills in order to help them develop their metacognition more effectively.
We used the task of preparing for an exam as a way to explore the metacognitive skills undergraduate students use to learn biology. We analyzed qualitative data from students' self-evaluation assignments and research interviews. From this analysis, we proposed a continuum of metacognitive development in introductory biology students.
We also gained insights into when, why, and how upper-division biology students evaluate their approaches to learning,and the barriers they face when they try to change their plans based on their evaluations.
These data have implications for how undergraduate students learn biology and offer evidence-based suggestions for instructors who want to help improve student metacognition.
