Self-direction

As a member of faculty, it’s probably fair to assume that you were successful as a student and that over the years you have developed and honed your ability to learn. When faced with a new challenge or subject, you use these skills to analyse what is needed, determine the approach to take, and check your progress.

Because we have these interdisciplinary skills, we often assume that our students will too. We overestimate their study skills and are then surprised when their assignment fails to answer the question, or when they spend time and effort on irrelevant areas.

What the research tells us is that metacognition skills are something that need to be taught and practiced. They are underpinned by the student’s self-belief in their own intelligence and their power to affect outcomes.

Let’s start by looking at the cycle of metacognitive skills an expert or successful learner will typically follow. We will then look at each of these stages in more detail and some strategies you can adopt to support your students at each stage of the cycle.

SELF-BELIEF

A GROWTH MINDSET

Assess the task

Evaluate strengths and weaknesses

Plan

Apply strategies and monitor performance

Reflect and adjust if necessary

Assess the task at hand, taking into consideration the task’s goals and constraints.

Evaluate their own knowledge and skills, identifying strengths and weaknesses.

Plan their approach in a way that accounts for the current situation.

Apply various strategies to enact their plan, monitoring their progress along the way.

Reflect on the degree to which their current approach is working, then adjust and restart the cycle as needed.

ASSESS THE TASK

EVALUATE STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

PLAN

APPLY STRATEGIES AND MONITOR PERFORMANCE

As an expert, it’s natural to monitor the effectiveness of your chosen strategy to make sure it’s working. This isn’t something we can assume students will do automatically. However, the good news is that by explicitly teaching and prompting students to monitor their performance, they can make greater learning gains (Bielaczyc, Pirolli, & Brown, 1995; Chi et al.).

So how can we help students do this?

Strategies to Consider

Provide simple heuristics for self-correction

Teach students basic heuristics for quickly assessing their own work and identifying errors. For example, making an estimate to compare their detailed answer against.
There are often disciplinary heuristics that students should also learn to apply. For example, “What assumptions am I making?”
You can also give more practical guidelines. For example, ‘I would expect this assignment to take you approximately 6 hours.' Students then have a ball-park figure to measure themselves against and to either seek help or change their approach.

Have students do guided self–assessments against criteria you provide

This help students recognise the qualities of good and poor work and teaches them how to monitor their own progress towards learning goals.
This is a skill you will need to model first. Sharing annotated examples of poor or model answers can be helpful here.

Ask students to reﬂect on and annotate their own work

Ask students to complete their own self-reflection on their approach as part of the assignment.
This helps students become more conscious of their own thought processes and work strategies and can lead them to make more appropriate adjustments.

Use peer review

Have students analyse their classmates’ work and provide feedback against specific criteria.
This can help students develop their critical evaluation skills and become more aware of the strengths and weaknesses in their own work.
Remember to share ground rules on how to provide constructive feedback.

REFLECT AND ADJUST

SELF-BELIEF: A GROWTH MINDSET

Self-belief is at the centre of the metacognition cycle. A student’s self-belief about their own intelligence and abilities to learn has a significant impact on their metacognitive development.

Research shows that students’ beliefs in these areas are associated with their learning-related behaviours and outcomes, including course grades and test scores (Schommer, 1994).

A student who considers their ability and intelligence to be set in stone won’t see the value in putting in the time and effort it takes to master a new skill – they are demotivated before they even start. On the other hand, a student who sees their ability as malleable is more likely to engage in positive learning behaviours and study strategies that will increase their performance (Henderson & Dweck, 1990).

FIXED

GROWTH

It’s too difficult, I give up

I’m no good at this

It doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll never get this

I’m scared to try something new

If I practice, I’ll improve

I can do anything I put my mind to

This is hard, but I’ll get there

Feedback can help me improve

Strategies to Consider

Address students’ beliefs about learning

It’s worth spending time with your students talking about their potential for growth and the positive effects of practice, effort and adaptation.
You might like to use the analogy of the brain as a muscle needing exercise to work at peak performance. Just like an athlete needs to train, we need to exercise our brains with mental discipline and practice.

Broaden students’ understanding of learning

Students often believe that “you either know something or you don’t know it.”
Highlight the different levels of learning and explain that different types of knowledge are needed for different tasks:
- Ability to recall a fact, concept or theory (declarative knowledge)
- Knowing how to apply it (procedural knowledge)
- Knowing when to apply it (contextual knowledge)
- Knowing why it is appropriate in a particular situation (conceptual knowledge).

Help students set realistic expectations

Give students realistic expectations about the time it might take them to develop skills. Perhaps share your own frustration at mastering something or stories of how famous figures in your field overcame challenges. This can help students see that learning doesn’t happen without effort.
This can also help students avoid negative views about their abilities or environment and instead focus on aspects of learning over which they have control: their effort, concentration, study habits, level of engagement, etc.

KEY TAKEAWAYS