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Helping Students Learn to Learn Enhancing Understanding by:. Engaging Students in Building Knowledge for Themselves. Objectives of this workshop series. Identify the cognitive development needs of students
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Helping Students Learn to LearnEnhancing Understandingby: Engaging Students in Building Knowledge for Themselves
Objectives of this workshop series • Identify the cognitive development needs of students • Introduce some educational theories which can help us address the developmental needs • Propose easymethods for teaching / assessment for helping with these cognitive development needs • Explore ways for adopting / adapting some of the methods in your course
‘I can onlytry tomemorize. I don’t understand.’ • ‘I just can’t understand the lecture. I memorise the things to take the examination.’ • ‘We have to memorize a lot of texts…basically we can’t understand them when we read, so we just memorize them.’ • ‘I can’t comprehend the formula.’ • ‘Actually I don’t really knowwhat they are doing. If you don’t know, you have to memorise…’ A cognitive weakness.
Explain it to me !! • I think the lecturer should explain it more clearly. • I can’t understand by reading it myself, I have to go to the lecturer. • It’s difficult to understand by reading a book. It will be better for a teacher to explain it to us. • When I revise at home and have a problem, I hope that I can make a phone call right away or send an e-mail to the lecturer, and get the reply immediately. • It will be great if the lecturer has ICQ and turn that on for 24 hours. It will be even better if he can give us his mobile phone number. An attitude problem – dependent on teachers.
Why do students fail to understand? Students memorise information because they have difficulties with … • Seeing relationship among information • Forming a holistic picture of the topic • Integrating and assimilating knowledge for personal internalization Developing students abilities in understanding is helping students to change in this direction:
Developing abilities to build knowledge – What educational theories can help us?
Metacognition What is metacognition? • Awareness / knowledge of what cognition (learning) is • Abilities to control cognition (learning), i.e. the disposition & habits that support and drives learning Key operations in metacognition (control of learning) • Planning your learning • Monitoring your learning • Assessing your learning
Developing Abilities for understanding • My Knowledge Building Worksheet • 3-Step Thinking Worksheet • Pattern Detector
Knowledge Building Worksheet • What is Knowledge Building worksheet? • It is a tool to help student go beyond memorising facts into relational and creative thinking, both cognitively and motivationally • Rationale • Many students learn by simply memorizing facts as they misconceive it to be the goal of learning • By showing that disconnected information is of little use, students are encouraged to link loose ideas together to form a meaningful structure
Using the Knowledge Building Worksheet • How to use? • Points diagram new ideas • Examples • Revision worksheet • Course formation revealer
3-step Thinking Worksheet What is 3-step Thinking Worksheet? • It provides a handy means to sharpen students’ understanding of learnt material Sharpen target cognitive abilities with option sets: • Logical Reasoning • Knowledge Personalization • Extension and Application • Originality Enhancement
Using 3-step Thinking Worksheet in Teaching and Assessment Teaching: • Learnt Material Organizer • Lecture notes quick-fixer Assessment: • Continuous assessment: review exercise
Pattern Detector What is Pattern Detector? • It provides a scaffold for students to interpret data The worksheet: • The five guiding questions to interpret data • We need your input!
Using Pattern Detector in Teaching and Assessment Teaching: • Using the guiding questions to present graphic information in the lecture • In-class activity Assessment: • Visual data hunt • Regular assignment