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#48029 11/18/01 03:08 PM
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I find it surprising that, among educators, metacognition (directed thinking about thinking) has been a term of art for years, yet the word is rarely included in dictionaries.
Metacognition is supposedly the highest level of thinking.

I wonder what thinking about one's thinking about thinking would be? Meta-meta-cognition? Or mebbe just metameta for short.

Just thought some mention of metacognition should at least make a cursory appearance here on the Meta-words forum.

MM (That's WW upside-down for MetaMeta; please don't make any meathead jokes.)


#48030 11/18/01 08:30 PM
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I, too, find it suprising that it has been a term of art for years!

Metacognition is supposedly the highest level of thinking. According to what scale?


#48031 11/18/01 09:31 PM
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Hello, Musick...

Search on Google this way:

"Bloom's taxonomy" metacognition

...You'll find numerous articles and lesson plans about using Bloom to develop higher order thinking skills and matacognition to cause the student to think about thinking at these various levels. It has been suggested by pedagogues that metacognition is the seventh level of Bloom's six. However, it can be argued that the evaluation level six subsumes metacognition.

I post two of the numerous sites below. If you perform the search, I would suggest going to the cached format so you can home in on the relevant material. These writers tend to enjoy writing at length.

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/edpsych.htm

http://www.theschoolquarterly.com/info_lit_archive/learning_thinking/99_ac_aiwac.htm

It's curious to me that metacognition has been in pedagogical literature for years, and the term itself is even taught to students. However, it rarely appears in dictionaries. I don't know when the term was first used.

Best regards,
WW


#48032 11/18/01 10:09 PM
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Now that you've posed the question, I'm sure the "first recorded apperance" is forthcoming.

Aside from the joking nature in which I'll make my points (usually), let me first say; Thanks for all the info...

... and now let me add; I'd much rather hear your understanding of *it, the way you put *it into words, and moreover, the tone in your voice doing so. This adds a sense that there will be forever missing from any non-face-to-face communication... this includes theories about *cognition. I'll work up an analogy with music theory if you'd like.

Classification (as such) assumes goals that will eventually (as reality has proven) be realized as meaningless... not that attempts to achieve them don't have value, but.

I can't be any clearer!


#48033 11/18/01 10:53 PM
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Muse, I did check my latest edition of AHD and was gloriously gratified in not finding metacognition listed even now.

One problem with education that the pedagogues point out is teachers tend to question at Bloom's lower levels.

Regurgitation of facts. Musical level one puzzle: Name the letters found in scales. Answer: a, b, c, d, e, f, g (We won't get into sharps, flats, and, heaven forbid, "h's" since that would open a can o'worms). Said student at this level has no comprehension; said student is simply regurgitating a through g.

Level two puzzle: Identify the circled pitches on this treble staff. Answer: Said student names the circled pitches.

Level three puzzle: Identify the series of pitches that move in a scale pattern on the staff. Answer: said student perhaps draws a line around the scale patterns and, being a good student, includes no repeated tone or skips.

Level four puzzle: Analyze the similarities between the melody in Example A and the one in Example B. Answer: Student notes that both examples repeat a given phrase four times.

Level five puzzle: The student is instructed to create a melody in which repeated tones are followed by ascending or descending scale patterns. Answer: Student creates the overture to "William Tell." (I'm exaggerating.)

Level six puzzle: Student is instructed to listen to a short piece of music and to evaluate whether the work was too repetitive in use of scale patterns or effective. Student makes the judgments and includes numerous examples to back up the argument.

Metacognitive theory (and I'm not a specialist...just a student myself here) would suggest that at every level, the student is taught how to examine his/her own thinking so that new questions and curiosity about the subject matter are created, efficiency and retrieval are improved, doubts may be recorded and expressed, and an exchange of ideas with other learners will be increased.

In numerous studies, it has been suggested that productive thinkers have a "habit of mind" of examining how they have come to believe what they believe and how, when they are incorrect in their thinking, they are not defeated, but energized to work out their problems. Failures are short-lived and often point the way toward new successes. Metacognitive theory encourages educators to teach their students to examine more closely how they reach conclusions, to analyze their conclusions, to correct mistakes, to ask more questions, to avoid jumping to conclusions, and to enjoy the liberty of changing their minds when the evidence points them in new directions.

This is the subject in a nutshell.

Best regards,
A resident nut, Wordwind


#48034 11/20/01 07:41 PM
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This just got interesting-- I love a computer program --lotus Notes-- Other computer wonks here at AWAD have mentioned in the past--they hate it! in general, Notes is hated. I like it, because i think like Notes.. and can move through in intuitively. I use the same thought process to solve problems as the Notes developers did...

I also recognize, i articulate my thought process-- in many things. When i divorced, i moved out of the family house-- my kids stayed behind with their father.. one day, my son called looking for an odd shaped baking pan-- one he knew i had, but couldn't find-- he was wondering if i took it when i left..

I had to think too-- and asked him where had he looked for the pan. First, he said, with all the baking pans above the wall oven.. when it wasn't there, he looked in cabinet below the wall oven-- a place for odd sized or shaped pans.. as he said this, i remembered where the pan was.. i told him it was in the cabinet with infrequently used things.. as my kids had reached their teen years, i had explained to them how i ordered the kitchen storage.. Glasses were right above the sink-- so you didn't have to take even one step-- Glass to water tap! Dishes, where nearby, right above dishwasher.. No steps in unloading dishwasher.

Pans and skillets stored below cooktop... above cooktop, food that was cooked on the stove..
Oven pan above and below the wall oven.. All baking goods (flour, sugar, baking powder, etc,) in cabinet next to wall oven.. above the counter top that held the Mixer.. (No steps when baking a cake.. everything in easy reach..

Anne Tyler, (Taylor?) author of The Reluctant Tourist, had her characters store their food in the cabinets in alphabetical order.. Apple Pie filling next to canned Artichoke hearts, Peas next to Pumpkin.. to my way of thinking... it was wrong.

my kids complained about their father.. he had re organized the kitchen.. and they had trouble finding things. it wasn't that there wasn't order.. it was that their father was unable to clearly articulate the ordering process he used.. so they could never find anything.. My son hadn't looked in the cabinet of infrequently used items.. but he knew where it was.. the far side of the kitchen.. and awkward to get at.. so perfect for infrequent use!

I tried to do the same thing when ever i work things out.. to not only have an order, but to be able to explain why i solved a problem they way I did-- whether is was organizing the kitchen, or solving a geometry problem..

Dr bill did the same thing once.. explaining how to figure out how long a walk it was to mow a large lawn with a mover that cut a 12 wide swath.. he took the 200 by 300 feet of lawn, and first converted it to a strip-- 1 foot wide.. by 5,000 feet long.. only his problem wasn't near so easy, since he started with acres.. which he converted to feet, and is swath was 18 inches.. (or 1.5 feet..)

but he took was seemed to be a hard problem.. and very quickly explained how you could simplify it.. so much so, i still remember the solution, if not the original dimensions.. (and a good solution is a handy thing to have!)

I am right now in understanding Metacognitive skills? is this what good teachers should be trying to teach--ways of organizing information, that make it easier to figure out solutions? teaching how to kids to learn how they arrived at a solutions.. and learning to test whether or not their solution will solve the current problrem? I guess i had some.. i learned this skill!


#48035 11/20/01 10:04 PM
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of Troy,

Good to have you on board on this subject. Today in class I told my fourth graders in a recorder class that they would be tested on identifying three notes that they've been playing for four lessons in beginning recorder: b, a, and g on the treble staff.

I reviewed the mnemonic device we use for the lines: Elvis's guitar broke down Friday (e, g, b, d, f) and FACE for the spaces.

I took them through the concept attainment model we'd used for identifying the difference between the appearance of line and space notes.

I finally showed them the three notes we had played in their first four lessons, b, a, and g. I repeated that their test would be a piece they had never seen with 50 notes, all covering b, a, and g in various note values.

Then I asked the question, "Are any of you completely confused? Please don't be embarrassed because this is the time to speak up so I can help you."

One hand slowly went up, then two more, and finally a fourth. I invited those four children up to the white board. The rest of the children talked in the background while I took the four through a couple of drills. It became immediately evident that these children had completely missed the boat on the concept attainment model and had no idea how to recognize the difference between line and space notes. I reworked the explanation of what I had presented in the model, used new language, new metaphors. The light bulbs began to come on, one child at a time. We went through some more drills, and one by one the smiles began to break out on these children's faces. Understanding had been reached. This took about ten minutes from the class's 45 minutes in their weekly lesson, but well worth it.

What is interesting to note about teaching elementary music is I can easily teach children to play by ear with kinetic references. The hard part is for them to make the connection between what they can easily pick up in ear/touch instruction and what they read on the score. But our Virginia Standards of Learning for Music do not stress ear training to the degree of training in reading notation. Both are equally important, I think.

What happened today is an example of working backwards with students to see which concepts have fallen through the cracks. It's a very low level of musical knowledge, but we will not progress to the children's composing original recorder melodies in the spring if I'm not rigorous in working up Bloom's ladder, checking and evaluating all students' understanding.

I especially enjoy showing even these early beginners tricks of the trade: wild fast trills, quick runs up and down the recorder, and quick repetitive rhythm patterns. We get these without much reference to written notation. That will be in place when they write their own compositions in composition groups. My goal in letting my students practice the tricks is to keep their interest high while we work through the challenging task of learning to read the notation. I've observed that tasks that were immediately easy for me as a child are not easy for all children. We each bring different gifts into class, and I feel driven to respect the differences. ( I am the poorest person on the court when it comes to athletic ability, but I sure can reach my athletes by approching music from its physical challenges. "Ten points to anyone in here who can ever play this passage faster than I can!" Boy, does that ever send my physical kids home ready to practice and pulverize their old music teacher at the next lesson or future lessons.)

This has probably been written to an audience of one (myself), but it was fun remembering today's ten minutes of witnessing eureka! points.

Best regards,
Woodwind


#48036 11/20/01 11:07 PM
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Dear WW: I wish my music teacher had been like you. She was an old bat who hated kids.


#48037 11/20/01 11:19 PM
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Thanks, wwh, for the compliment. I'm an old bat who likes kids...and especially kidding with kids.

WW


#48038 11/21/01 02:34 PM
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Now I'm totally confused.

A) How can you not know whether a note is on a line or on a space?

and

2) If there's a musical diffence between line notes and space notes (and not just a graphical diference) what, pray tell, might it be?


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