Entry the Tenth or: "dude you gotta try meta-learning, it's like learning...but like, meta."

I have to say, I’m pretty stoked about this semester coming to a close. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed it thus far, I just need a chance to regroup and get my mind right. I was happy to see that our reading assignments in Teaching Tips have come to an end, again it’s not that I didn’t enjoy it (well…some of it), I’m just reading for new material. This week’s reading actually did a lot for me. I found a few things that I really liked.

• The first nugget of knowledge imparted to me was the section on increasing students’ self-awareness on pages 303-304. The section begins by talking about meta-cognition and how it is important for students’ future learning. Meta-cognition is simplified into the phrase “thinking about thinking,” which I like and feel would be easy for a student to comprehend. I personally believe that every student should be aware of their own learning style so that they can get the most from every course they take and continue to learn outside of the classroom. This concept is fairly difficult to “teach” because it varies from person to person, but I would like to focus on it at the beginning of the semester so that students can have the advantage when assignments get harder and test roll around.

• The next nugget come from pages 305-309 in Teaching Tips and focuses on course specific strategies. There is a list of strategies on page 307 that I like but, unfortunately, I would only be able to use two of the items on the list. Those two items are previewing the textbook structure and being clear about domain-specific terminology. I have been thinking about these two activities for the course that I am designing. I think that previewing the text book and the way it is structured at the beginning of the semester is a great idea and will help students prepare mentally for the reading they will be required to do. As far as terminology is concerned, the course that I’m designing is filled with terms that are domain specific, so I really like the idea of being clear as to the meaning of those terms. I think students do better when they feel like they understand the terminology of a subject and that in turn sparks higher order responses to discussion questions, term paper prompt, and journal entries (all of which are included in my course design).

• The last nugget I discovered is on pages 329-330 in Teaching Tips and talks about encouraging the free pursuit of learning. The text book gives a few ways that a teacher can violate the standards of teaching (encouraging learning); first is failure to prepare for class, and second is failure to remain current in both content and methods. I really like this section because I feel that students should be limitless when it comes to learning. Often times teachers fail to encourage learning because their courses are out of date, which I see as the greater sin of the two violations, and students get nothing from the course.
  

• I feel like this probably happens more in GenEd courses and hard science courses because the information doesn’t change as often or isn’t as malleable as some other more abstract subjects. The goal then should be encouraging students to look for new and exciting content, which will also help them feel like they are contributing to the overall course design. In the course I am designing I encourage students to bring in metal music that is new or exciting to them so that everyone can go beyond the course and begin to appreciate the material talked about in class in a very practical way. Viva learning.