In order to introduce some fun, and hopefully get students to practice some of the concepts discussed in class relating to social and emotional intelligence, and mindfulness practices, the Mindful Brainiac Challenge was developed. Students are divided into teams and awarded individual and team points for demonstrating certain behaviors / actions.
Using Class Dojo application, points are awarded from one of the three categories: Cognitive and Metacognitive skills, Social and Emotional Intelligence, and Mindfulness. Teachers collect points from their own observations in class, homework assignments, and reports from students themselves, peers, other teachers and parents. Students are only awarded positive points (so they don't get "punished", and points lead into different milestones that award badges. Throughout the course, different milestones / achievements will receive different rewards, individually and collectively, and by the end of the course, the team with most badges and the individual with most points wins.

Lou is a young child presenting problem behaviors. At home, at school, or outdoors, Lou’s parents try different methods of correcting Lou’s behaviors, and evaluating their efficacy in the immediate, and longer, term.
The interactive program offers a rich simulation of situations parents and children in such circumstances might face. Whilst studiosly avoiding any suggestion of easily and universally applicable methods, the interactive program invites parents and professionals in training to reflect on the adequacy of their disciplinary and other child-rearing styles, and the impact of stress and fatigue on family functioning, related to environmental variables in their lives. The interactive program also proposes a series of « golden rules » parents and professionals in training can use as helpful guidelines and points of reference in promoting the welfare of their children and enhancing family functioning.
Use of the interactive program, which should always happen when their is professional supervision and accompaniment, by a parent, in a parental couple with or without the involvement of the child concerned, in a group of parents, or by a psychologist in training, contributes to improvement in child-rearing practices, the feeling of parental competence, co-parenting relationships, and communication with the child in question and other children who may be part of the family setting.
The interactive program’s playful and modern approach makes for an indispensable tool for psychologists and family educators working with young children with problem behavior, and their parents.
The interactive program may be used in four languages (English, French, German, and Spanish), and is accompanied by a manual in English and French describing the theoretical and empirical bases for the interactive program and its uses, as well as guidelines for using the video which are especially apt for professionals working in the educational guidance of parents and families.
Standard instructions regarding the training of students in the helping professions are also available on the interactive program. These instructions are aimed at professors in higher education in the domains of family psychology, family education, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. They permit psychologists and other professionals in training to understand how best to use the interactive program and focus its use in the broader context of their working relationships with one another and with families and children.

Lou est un jeune enfant présentant des difficultés de comportement. A la maison, à l’école ou en promenade, ses parents font des choix éducatifs et en évaluent l’efficacité immédiate et à long terme. Le programme interactif se présente comme un simulateur de situations éducatives. Sans jamais induire que l’éducation d’un enfant se réduirait à une recette universelle, il emmène parents et professionnels dans une réflexion à propos de l’adéquation des réponses éducatives en regard des comportements de l’enfant, de l’impact du stress et de la fatigue sur le fonctionnement familial, de l’importance des variables environnementales. Il propose un ensemble de « règles d’or » agissant comme des points de repère. Son utilisation par le psychologue en formation, le parent seul, en couple parental, avec ou sans leur(s) enfant(s), en groupe de parents, accompagné ou non d’un professionnel de la guidance, contribue par ailleurs à favoriser le travail thérapeutique portant sur la fonction parentale, la relation coparentale et la communication avec l’enfant. Son approche ludique en fait un outil indispensable aux psychologues et aux éducateurs familiaux travaillant auprès de jeunes enfants présentant des troubles du comportement et de leurs parents.
Le programme interactif est présenté en quatre langues (français, anglais, allemand et espagnol). Il est accompagné d’un manuel en français et en anglais donnant des indications sur ses fondements théoriques et des conseils d’utilisation à destination des professionnels de la guidance éducative.
Des consignes standardisées relatives à la formation des étudiants sont également disponibles . Elles sont destinées aux professeurs de l’enseignement supérieur et des universités dans les domaines de la psychologie de la famille, de l’éducation familiale et de la thérapie cognitivo-comportementale. Elles permettent d’orienter le travail des psychologues en formation à partir du programme interactif.

Our goals
From the beginning, this was conceived as an ongoing project. This website will be used in our courses and will continue to be developed by students. The goal is for people to learn about metacognition and its role in learning. We believe that learning can happen the most effectively when learners engage with open educational resources not just as passive consumers of information, but as active participants in meaningful knowledge creation.

Why metacognition?
Developing metacognitive awareness is shown to contribute to learning transfer, helping learners to use their knowledge and apply what they've learned in new contexts. As English teachers, we know that metacognitive awareness and the open discussion of metacognitive processes helps learners to develop and refine skills in reading, writing, and researching. Metacognition is something we all do in countless contexts, so it's something that anyone can meaningfully engage in discussing and learning.

Please join us!
We hope that other instructors will encourage their students to engage with these OER in the spirit of open pedagogy. We selected metacognition as a topic from the perspective of English teachers, knowing its integral role in working with language. We believe that metacognitive awareness is crucial to any type of learning. In particular, learners focused on study skills and college success benefit greatly from metacognitive awareness. Learners of psychology and education would also have much to gain from engaging with this topic.

If you're an instructor who would like to use this site in your courses, please email us at george.zamzow@pcc.edu

Peer instruction may offer some of the richest opportunities for metacognitive teaching. Reciprocal (peer) teaching forces the instructor to use a whole series of metacognitive processes such as determining what the learner already knows, deciding what is to be taught/learned and how; monitoring comprehension and evaluating the outcome in terms of increased comprehension, which in turn encourages the instructor to reflect upon his or her own thinking processes. By asking the students to defend their answer to a question to another student you are, in effect, moving the role of "teacher" to the students.

Reading reflections are designed to encourage students to complete readings before coming to class, to reflect more deeply on the content of the reading, to make personal meaning from the meaning, and to develop their metacognitive skills for lifelong learning. The reflections consist of three questions: (1) What is the main point of the reading?, (2) What information did you find surprising? Why?, and (3) What did you find confusing? Why? Students submit short responses to two of three questions prior to coming to class.
Metacognitive components of the activity
Reading reflections address many elements of metacognition, including knowledge, control, and reflection. Reading reflections are designed to help students develop knowledge about themselves as learners, learning tasks (reading), prior knowledge, content, self-monitoring, self-assessment, and reflection.
Metacognitive goals
The primary goals of this activity are to help students develop their skills of self-assessment, and to reflect more deeply on the content of their reading assignments. Reflective thinking is an essential element of expert learners, so this activity helps students develop skills as intentional learners for lifelong learning.
Assessing students' metacognition
Reading reflections (n = 35 in a typical semester) count for approximately 10% of the course grade. I do not grade these reflections, but give students credit if they are turned in on time (before class) and if they clearly demonstrate significant reflection.

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This article provides an overview of metacognition, suggestions for teaching elementary students to be metacognitive about their reading, and links to professional resources.

Students should be asked to reflect on how they this science is "done" (what is the process of science?) before they come to class (or at the beginning of class time). Students pick up ~5 cards that contain statements regarding the nature of science (based on Cobern & Loving, 1998 but modified for a greater emphasis on communication in science as developed by van der Hoeven Kraft et al., 2009), for example, "Writing is the primary vehicle by which scientists communicate with one another around the world." Some statements may include inaccurate views, such as "If a scientist develops a theory but shares it with no one, she has still contributed to the work of science."
Activity:
1) Students sort through these cards (Acrobat (PDF) 238kB Dec18 14) as individuals and then as a group and eventually construct a group paragraph (with a guiding rubric (Microsoft Word 51kB Jul15 09)). A powerpoint presentation guides them through the steps powerpoint presentation (PowerPoint PRIVATE FILE 1.7MB Sep17 08).
2) They share their paragraph(s) with the class.
3) This results in a class discussion about the commonalities and differences in the paragraphs.
4) Students are then assigned a reading homework assignment about the history of geology (Bryson, 2003) with guided questions.
5) The next class starts with a discussion about these questions--they are designed to focus students on some of the components that may be missing from their paragraphs (also included in the powerpoint).
6) After the reading, vocabulary of scientific theory and hypothesis are discussed and defined.
7) In the end, students are asked to re-reflect on their initial ideas and what changed and what caused their ideas to change. These ideas are then re-visited throughout the semester in the context of specific topics.
Metacognitive components of the activity
Students are asked to reflect on what they know before they begin the activity (activating their prior knowledge). They then re-visit their ideas at the end of the activity to determine how their ideas have changed or not changed as a result of the conversation from the class activity and additional reading.
Metacognitive goals for this activity:
There are three primary goals for including metacognition in this activity:
1) Students will gain a greater understanding of the content by taking the time to reflect on their learning before and after the activity.
2) Students will start to appreciate the power of self-reflection in the learning process
3) The instructor will gain valuable feedback from the students in what they learned and areas that still need to be emphasized.
Assessing students' metacognition
Approximately 90% of the participants in past semesters have indicated that their understanding has changed and increased. In assessing their pre vs. post written prompts, participating in this activity increases their understanding of the content. Whether they now appreciate the importance of self-reflection is less known. However, at the end of the semester students are asked to rank self-reflection as important or non-important in their learning process, and it is consistently rated as helpful or extremely helpful.

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A rubric in student language used by elementary students to self-assess reflective journals. It can be modified to be used by peers or teachers to provide feedback.

Experienced researchers “get” inquiry - that is, they have an ongoing internalized self-talk process that evaluates, draws connections, and creates next steps for the information-gathering process. But, they may not know that or how they do it.Along with the steps of inquiry, we need to help learners understand the metacognitive "self-talk" that guides their decisions which drive the inquiry. What researchers think is more important than what they do. So how can we help researchers recognize and utilize their metacognitive processes that guide their research? In order to prepare information-age learners, librarians need tools to teach the thinking that lies behind the inquiry.In this module, librarian candidates will learn to make the internalized reflective process overt. Candidates will create metacognitive awareness of the reflection process that accompanies inquiry. They will demonstrate understanding by creating concrete reflection scaffolding tool for emerging researchers.The skills and understandings gained from this module will help school librarians build instruction in support of CCSS.ELA-Literacy. CCRA.R.7, 9, 10.

To prepare for this reflection, students are assigned to do background reading on the organization they will/wish to work with for the Service Learning component of the course. Students then are guided into a reflection with the following questions:

Why should you know about the people or organization with whom you'll be working?
Why do you think this partner was chosen?
After reading about the partner organization, how would you like to contribute to their work, (what kind of support would you give and/or project would you do?) How does it your idea/project relate to the content of the course and the organization mission and goals?
What are you hoping to learn from the collaboration/ project?
What do you hope to have gained from this project and
What do you think your service-learning partner hopes to have gained after completion of this project?

The assignment also gives students practice in eliciting their own thoughts and reflections when approaching a new experience

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An opportunity to offer metacognitive teaching arises from the simple question "what do you know now that you didn't before (whatever)"? This simple question can be asked after a reading, a lecture, a lab or other unit of student activity. The thrust is to force the student to consider what they've been exposed to and reflect on what they've learned. Did the activity change their opinion? Did this activity help them identify an analogy?