Summary of Project: These lesson plans aim at encouraging students to use their reading and researching to influence their thinking and add to their life experience as possible evidence while implementing practices of mindset and metacognition.
Initial Problem of Practice I: Students don’t see reading and researching as a valuable means to gain knowledge and increase experience, evidenced by their minimal use of textual support in discussions and writing. This series of lessons can be taught to help students see the value of annotation, giving them a tool about how to gain knowledge and increase experience to get them to use their reading and researching as evidence. This is introductory material intended for high school or pre-college-level courses.
Initial Problem of Practice II: Explore the tendency of some students to “give up” when they encountered challenges in their research projects, instead of relying on teachers to solve problems. We wanted to find a way to instill a sense of independence in students as they moved through the steps of research and writing. We hypothesized that a focus on metacognition and reflective practices might help improve their own problem-solving skills and instill a greater sense of independence. This is introductory material intended for entry-level college courses.
Revised Problem of Practice: After implementing our lessons, the pattern of student learning behavior was that although students recognize the value of annotation and metacognition, they don't necessarily apply the tools implemented on their own. Therefore, we proposed to investigate the correlation between the students with a strong growth mindset and the students who continue to implement the strategies implemented in the lessons presented.
Initial Findings: It was when our groups came together that we uncovered that perhaps those students who valued annotation or metacognition were also those students who had a growth mindset, and it was this that we set out to investigate together. Although our findings are currently still under investigation, we all acknowledge the importance of teaching “soft skills,” such as growth mindset, habits of mind, and metacognition, to improve our students’ likelihood of consciously utilizing essential literacy practices and developing greater independence in their roles as scholars.
Initial Problem of Practice I: Students don’t see reading and researching as a valuable means to gain knowledge and increase experience, evidenced by their minimal use of textual support in discussions and writing. This series of lessons can be taught to help students see the value of annotation, giving them a tool about how to gain knowledge and increase experience to get them to use their reading and researching as evidence. This is introductory material intended for high school or pre-college-level courses.
Initial Problem of Practice II: Explore the tendency of some students to “give up” when they encountered challenges in their research projects, instead of relying on teachers to solve problems. We wanted to find a way to instill a sense of independence in students as they moved through the steps of research and writing. We hypothesized that a focus on metacognition and reflective practices might help improve their own problem-solving skills and instill a greater sense of independence. This is introductory material intended for entry-level college courses.
Revised Problem of Practice: After implementing our lessons, the pattern of student learning behavior was that although students recognize the value of annotation and metacognition, they don't necessarily apply the tools implemented on their own. Therefore, we proposed to investigate the correlation between the students with a strong growth mindset and the students who continue to implement the strategies implemented in the lessons presented.
Initial Findings: It was when our groups came together that we uncovered that perhaps those students who valued annotation or metacognition were also those students who had a growth mindset, and it was this that we set out to investigate together. Although our findings are currently still under investigation, we all acknowledge the importance of teaching “soft skills,” such as growth mindset, habits of mind, and metacognition, to improve our students’ likelihood of consciously utilizing essential literacy practices and developing greater independence in their roles as scholars.