A Gateway Metacognitive Tactic for "Busy" Faculty
Developed by: Mimi Fuhrman, Helen King, Matthew Ludwig, Julie Johnston
Developed at the 2008 workshop, The Role of Metacognition in Teaching Geoscience.
For population: Reticent, Reluctant, Resistant Faculty in Geoscience
Description of the tactic:
Begin with an activity that they are already doing and force them to explicate their own thinking in writing and then via self-talk to their students. Make sure it is at a level for novice consumption.
How and why this tactic is particularly useful for the given population:
Strengths - individuals most likely are already expert metacognators as well as content experts.
Weakness - thinking is natural and not able to be taught, teaching students "to think" is someone else's job. They are content experts.
A subtle (minimal disturbance), covert, jargon-free, low-risk, probable-gain, familiar, integrated, gateway metacognitive strategy to get entrenched faculty to give metacognition a shot in their geo-science course.
By facilitating their own metacognition of a task that is already part of their curriculum.
Example of how the population would use this tactic:
Faculty member will model self-talk by talking through (a prepared and reviewed) an example of relative dating via an ambiguous cross-section. To make the "expert" thinking process explicit and transparent for the novice.