Activity 6.4 (Self-Regulation and Metacognition)

Some of this week’s readings were about problem solving and it seemed all too fitting that I choose the article on Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner by Barry Zimmerman, because this topic is a major problem in my classes (and I’m not alone). My classes are similar to what Dan Meyer mentioned in the beginning of his TED talk, “I sell a product to a market that doesn’t want it, but is forced by law to buy it”. One would think that since I teach at a college level that students’ intrinsic motivation would by high. WRONG! I am in desperate need of some insight; therefore this article was leading a very thirsty horse to a suitable source of water. 

For the sake of condensation, here are just a few of the things that I connected with.

·         1. Reactivity. Where students are asked to self-report their various aspects of learning related to assignments and tests which can potentially result in metacognitive awareness about their learning and study strategies. 

·         2. Self-regulation is not a mental ability or an academic performance skill.

·         3. Self-regulation is important because a major function of education is the development of life-long learning skills.

·         4. Self-motivation stems from students' beliefs about learning.

As James so eloquently put it, “A teacher’s task is to build up students’ characters which consist in an organized set of habits of reactions, to act characteristically when certain ideas possess us and to refrain characteristically when possessed by other ideas” (p. 90). 

SELF-REGULATE, DON’T PROCRASTINATE!

Activity 6.2 (Videos on Problem Solving)

In the video, Math Class Needs a Makeover, I noticed how he referenced the term perseverance as being one of five ways in which you know you’re not hitting things home in the classroom. That if your students aren’t showing initiative and perseverance in what they are trying to learn, then that's not a good thing. In this week’s PowerPoint slides one of the suggestions discussed for students to become more effective problem solvers was overcoming problem solving anxiety and to persevere and play. I thought this was a nice connection between what teachers see as a lack of students having when trying to solve problems and being one of many strategies for meta-cognition. Dan Meyer also discussed how students can go about breaking down a problem related to rates of change by using the visual image of a ski slope and fractionation. This morning I decided to put together a sofa table that I received earlier in the mail. I noticed that although there were some elements of the manual that could have been expanded upon, or more descriptive elements added to it, that it did a decent job of breaking down the process through fractionation. There were specific steps, ones that needed to be done before others. There were manageable parts; it wasn’t just one diagram with an overwhelming amount of parts added to it. Each step and coinciding picture was broken down into a simple form and there were several diagrams provided throughout the process.

Coming from a background of group facilitation/training and small group communication I had not heard of the marshmallow challenge before.  Now I want to teach a group class or do a training session just so I can use it! I was excited to see that adding a group facilitator or executive administrator to the process increased the CEO’s success rate. Ideally facilitators should be able to observe the group as a whole and identify ways in which it can work or operate more efficiently and effectively.  In addition to creating an opportunity to participate in a shared activity, collaborating with other, and solving a unique problem; it also provides a significant connection with taken-for-granted assumptions which is one of the factors that constrains non-routine thinking.  Of course I especially liked the factor that the kindergarten groups were the ones that created several prototypes before the time ran out, and did better than many other groups.

Activity 6.5 (Processing Information in a Technology Rich Age)

One of the examples I used in a recent post was related to a recent problem I’ve been wrestling with, that of time management. I often feel like there are so many things I don’t have time to do or don’t fully commit to the way I’d prefer. While reading Power’s excerpts from Hamlet’s Blackberry, it was as if the words jumped out and slapped me. “Worthwhile or not, the point is that a great many of these busy-making activities are completely our own doing. We don’t just choose them, we pursue them” (Powers, p. 14). It’s time for me to take ownership! No more self-serving bias. It's not technologies fault that I feel overwhelmed, it's mine.

Yes, I do think technology has affected the way I process information. Unlike my husband, I remember what work and school were like before mobile devices and the internet (it had a small part back then). I spent more time in libraries and at home reading books (not e-books), having lengthy conversations (in person) with my work and school mates, the Joy of Cooking was my recipe mecca, not Pinterest (shocking I know), and I wrote checks every month to pay my bills. True, technology has made certain things easier and more efficient, as with Carr, much of what I would spend excess time doing I can now do in one-fourth of it. But that’s not what we’re talking about here are we? We’re talking about the over use of technology and how it’s changing the way we process the world around us.

Do you think it’s possible to disconnect from technology, specifically the usage that we have control over? And if so, what suggestions or techniques do you have that might break the Digital Maximus? Can we go back to doing things the way we did them before or will they be forever misshaped? For example, I used to read various genres of books, mostly mystery, and would read at least an hour if not more a day (double time on weekends). But somewhere along the way I lost the desire to read. I’ve bought books, I’ve checked them out from the library, I’ve downloaded them to my Nook, and it’s usually not more than two chapters in before I’m back to surfing Facebook, playing app games, and reading articles from my iPad (and the articles are not very long).  Instead of making sure I have my keys and purse before I leave the house, what do I check for first? You guessed it, my phone and iPad!

Activity 6.1 (Problem Solving)

I think there are more aspects of problem solving in learning than I originally thought before going over the lecture slides and assigned reading. I do think we learn some things without problem solving, but not too much, because most of what we learn can be deduced to a problem. Are we aware that what we are learning has some element of a problem attached to it? No I don’t think we do. Do I perceive what I’m learning in this class as a problem? Not originally, but that line of thinking is shifting. I think most people carry on in their lives unaware of the fact that most of their interactions and dialogues with others, and with themselves, as having connections to a specific problem. This maybe explains why problem solving is analogous to learning.

Years ago, and I won’t specify how many, I took a graduate summer course to become a certified mediator in conflict resolution. It was an intensive seminar on essentially, problem solving. Sure we role-played the obvious scenarios such as “the neighbor’s dog is barking too much and now you’re in a dispute” or “we’re getting a divorce and can’t agree on anything”. Those were obvious problems, or well-defined problems (Pretz., et. al, p. 7). However, as I learned through the course of this summer long training excursion, it’s the ill-defined problems that are the most difficult to work through. For example, a husband and wife are arguing over what to have for dinner, but as the conversation escalates in emotions other topics come to the surface. Come to find out dinner is not the problem, it’s something else, and that’s where the process to problem solving begins. Define and identify the problem. Fractionation would work really well in these situations too.

I recently read an article about whether or not students at different ability levels should be taught in the same way or same room as those that may need more assistance. Vygotsky and Piaget believed that children learn in stages during their developing years, some maybe faster than others, but not to the extent that the child wouldn’t master that stage at some point. I couldn’t help but think about this hot topic in the world of primary and secondary education when I came across this passage while reading the chapter on problem-solving. “Even though experts often both define and represent problems differently than do novices, the experts can suffer when the fundamentals of their representations are altered, resulting in significantly different performance profiles”(Pretz, et. al, p. 15). Learning is about making associations, connections with what we already know and building on that. Some individuals may start off with few knowledge structures related to the topic but will still continue to assimilate and accommodate. We see here that experts, or individuals who have more skill and/or experience with something, may also experience some hurdles to problem solving.

To me this connected well with the discussion in the lecture slides on thinking or talking aloud to enhance non-routine thinking. Speaking out loud our inner thoughts is a valuable tool, allowing us to figure out ways to connect the old with the new, through accommodation. I encounter problems on a daily basis, either at work related to teaching, at home on a relational level, or within myself. Here recently, well just since June really, I’ve been having a hard time with time management. The problem is I had too many things I wanted to do over the summer that I am not able to get to and it’s frustrating to me, which then occasionally leaks over in to my relationships with others (specifically my husband). I tend to feel guilty if I’m not getting things done in a timely fashion or completing goals that I had assigned to myself. For me it’s not good to ruminate in my thoughts for too long without sharing them aloud. I find out answers to questions or solutions to problems best when talking to someone about it. So, I sat my husband down, asked him to lend an ear for a bit while I wrestled out loud with my inner thoughts. Once I identified the problem (too many tasks assigned for time allotted), I was able to brainstorm possible solutions. The one I chose was to delegate some tasks and reassign others to a later date. So far it’s working out, but it’s in the early stages of implementation.