All Ireland Society for Higher Education
| Name: | Elizabeth Brunton |
|---|---|
| Email: | Elizabeth.Brunton@staff.ittralee.ie |
| Institution: | Institute of Technology, Tralee |
Irish students enter college with little knowledge of their own learning style or of their strengths in the educational context. Metacognition, learning how to learn, helps students take control of their own learning and fosters the ability to predict performance on various tasks (Biggs, 1999). Facilitating a raise in students' awareness of how they learn, through an investigation of their learning styles and multiple intelligences strengths, and through investigating their learning strategies and the 'critical incidents' in their prior learning that impacted on those strategies, aids in students becoming metacognisant. Students who focus on their studies, are adaptable and flexible in a new situation and are metacognisant have a higher chance of success in the college environment (Brunton & Jordan 2004). Successful students display self-regulatory skills (McMahon & Brunton 2005).
How can we support students to create and sustain their 'Effective Learning Environment'?
Interactive Workshop:
Questions on worksheet for snowballing exercise: 2 (2 minutes) -to 4 (4 minutes) to 8 (4 minutes) - Summarize on worksheet - to be collected and collated by end of conference
1. How much self-knowledge is effective in raising awareness to a useful level?
2. Are there certain measuring instruments that are more effective than others in raising student awareness? (learning styles, multiple intelligences, cognitive modalities questionnaire, questionnaires on future-mindedness, emotional intelligence, self-regulation)
3. Are there certain initiatives that help students self-regulate their learning? (learning contract, time management initiative, learning journal, investigations into students learning strategies, crystallizing and paralysing experiences in prior learning)
4. How best can such work be introduced and continued throughout the students first year of study - must colleges incorporate a module on Metacognition into first year programmes?
Report by question onto OHP in the following order: Question 2, 3, 4, 1.