This is Important: Before we get started, could you please…

1. This is Important:Before we get started, could you please… Use the Four Questions worksheet provided to prepare a short memorable introduction of yourself with answers to the four questions listed

2. MetaLearning:Facilitating Student Success in the 21st Century St. Cloud State University ~ 2013 Stephen Carroll, PhD

3. Notes You Can Use Date, Course, Page # Notes on what’s being presented This makes sense! Thoughts & feelings that arise Q: How does this connect with … ? Summary Reflections: ASAP – before sleepingWhat’s worth reviewing & remembering? For Best Results: Review Summary within 24 hours Summary:

4. Framing our Problem: A Vision of Students Today A Vision of Students Today

5. The Problem: • Students’ existing ways of learning are based on 19th century paradigms and technologies that are ill-suited to our present world • They know very little about how to learn in ways that will create success in college and they do “know” is wrong, leading to inefficient and ineffective learning • Reduced performance caused by the inaptness of their learning habits creates motivation and engagement problems that further reduce their academic performance—and learning • Success in the 21st century demands rapid adaptation (learning) • Average number of jobs a person will hold skyrocketing • Number of years spent per job is plummeting

6. St1 St2 A Big Problem: Passive Learning 10-20% EXCELL Current Practice: 20-50% complete college but with a MEDIOCRE EDUCATION 20-70% FAIL to complete college

7. One Solution: Teach MetaLearning • Teach students how to learn for the 21st century • Teach them to learn for themselves • Teach them all the learning skills we want them to have • Metalearning is based on current research in cognitive science, neurobiology and learning theory • Seven years worth of data and experience show that it makes a significant difference in students’ learning • It’s especially effective in making students more self-motivated and more self-directed learners

8. St1 St2 Teacher/Coach One Solution: Teach MetaLearning

9. St1 St2 Teacher/Coach ? Meta-Learner:

10. St1 St2 Own Learning/ Development Teacher/Coach Own Knowing/Beliefs Own Thinking Own Performance Own Caring/Values ? Meta-Learner: One Who Takes Charge of their…

11. St1 St2 Teacher/Coach One Solution: Teach MetaLearning If we can help students Learn how to learn: 30-60% EXCELL 10-20% complete college but with a MEDIOCRE EDUCATION 10-20% FAIL to complete college

12. MetaLearning’s Promise This is no panacea; it will be difficult at first. It will take you and your students a while to unlearn old habits and to develop new ones. (It takes ~21 days to break in a new habit, so you need to supervise their development for a month or two.) The payoff is that your students will learn more, learn faster and retain what they learn longer—thus, your performance as faculty will increase as well. Start with one day—the first day of class, perhaps.

13. Objectives for Today • Have you experience metalearning • Motivate you to try metalearning techniques with your students • Provide you with theories, resources, tools and inspiration to help you develop your own metalearning lessons • Provide tools so you can prove it works

14. MetaLearning: 6 Steps to Changing Learning Habits • Help students discover self-motivations for learning • Align their definitions of learning with ours (redefine learning) • Teach students how learning works and derive principles they can use to guide themselves • Derive strategies and tactics from principles (application) • Practice often to develop effective learning habits • Maintain those habits

15. Step 1: Priming Students for Self-Directed Learning Start with the foundation and the goal Choice Point: Do you want to watch videos and discuss? Or Do the activity yourselves? Part 1: Building Self-Motivated Learners

16. Self-Directed Learning Videos Videos online throughmetalearninghabits.org learninghabits.wordpress.comand on YouTube Youtube.com/user/learninghabits/videos • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwu8QqhrOP8

17. Fostering Self-Directed Learning Key Take-Aways: • Get students to recognize that they have goals of their own and that these goals will require them to change who they are and how they think • Get students to commit publically to their own learning goals for your course so that these goals can be used to guide and regulate classroom activities and behavior • Show students how their current learning habits prevent them from attaining their goals

18. Fostering Self-Directed Learning • Places responsibility for learning on the student • Connects students’ learning to their own goals • Helps them develop a self-directed and self-sustaining metalearning practice • Herbert Simon: “Learning takes place in the mind of the student and nowhere else, and the effectiveness of teachers lies in what they can induce students to do. -”What we Know about Learning, Journal of Engineering Education

19. Step 2 Aligning Definitions of Learning • What is learning? • What does it mean to learn something? • How can you tell when you’ve learned something? Part 2: Defining Learning

20. Typical Answers - Understanding • Knowing something • Understanding something • Being able to teach something • Getting it • Eureka! • Making a connection to something new • Insight • Discovery • Enlightenment • Knowing that (vs. knowing how) • Memorizing • Being able to recall • Remembering something • Understanding the principles • Seeing the logic • Being able to extrapolate • Seeing how it works • Epiphany Part 2: Defining Learning

21. Typical Answers - Skills • Being able to do something • Knowing how • Facility • Doing it • Mastering a procedure or process • Increasing level of proficiency • Following correct procedures • Being able to use what I know • Being able to apply something in a new situation • Acquiring the knack of something • Gains in craftsmanship • Getting better at something Part 2: Defining Learning

22. Typical Answers - Affective • Learning to like something • Getting engaged • Being inspired • Being motivated • Finding joy • Wanting to do more • Wanting to practice • Looking for chances to use what I know • Learning to love something • Learning to see the beauty or complexity or artistry in something • Learning to appreciate something • Gaining confidence • Becoming more interested in something Part 2: Defining Learning

23. Typical Answers - Habits • Being able to do something without paying a lot of attention • Doing things automatically • Integrating what I know into my life • Using what I know as a matter of course • Knowing when to use what I've learned • Ability to improvise based on what I already know Part 2: Defining Learning

24. Learning is Forming New Habits • Fueled by attitudes and desires (emotion) • Supported by skills and understanding Part 2: Defining Learning

25. Therefore Teaching ≠ We want to move away from the learning-as-acquisition-of-facts and teaching-as-Sherwin-Williams model toward defining learning as durable habit formation and teaching as developing and mentoring self-directed learners.

26. Defining Learning How we define learning affects how we teach and shapes how students learn in our classes far more than what we say about our goals. Part 2: Defining Learning

27. Try this experiment • Rank your course learning objectives using Bloom’s taxonomy.

28. Try this experiment Then ask your students to use a list of verbs correlated with that taxonomy to evaluate where your teaching focuses.

29. Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of LearningLower-Order Cognitive Tasks

30. Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of LearningHigher-Order Cognitive Tasks

31. A Cross-lateral Neurobic

32. Cross-lateral Activity Cross-lateral activity opens up the corpus callosum • Gets more of your brain involved • Balances the load • Aids memory • Makes learning easier

33. Write your summaries 3-5 sentences in 3 minutes

34. The ART of Learning • Acquire new material • Retain new material • Transfer use of new material A R T

35. The ART of Learning. The A in ART is for Acquisition Mnemonic: Actively Build Connections Part 3: How Learning Works

37. Part 3: How Learning Works

38. Learning IS making connections:Neurons that fire together wire together 2 pyramidal neurons forming a synapse Part 3: How Learning Works

39. Ideas are patterns of neural firing Part 3: How Learning Works

40. More complex ideas are more complex patterns—made up of smaller patterns Part 3: How Learning Works

41. Learning IS Making Connections • Learning has the physical and metaphorical structure of an analogy. • Therefore we must teach analogically, not de novo. • “Nothing we learn can stand in isolation; we can sustain new learning only to the degree we can relate it to what we already know.” (Sci Am Mind, July 2010.)

42. Learning Changes the Brain A Basic Brain—not very fold-ey Part 3: How Learning Works

43. A Better Brain—more fold-ey Part 3: How Learning Works

44. Learning Increases Brain Plasticity • Therefore we need our students to regularly experience sustained, challenging learning tasks • The more they learn, the better learners they will become • Analogy; Like working a muscle or learning a foreign language

45. New Brain Cells Forming Learning Hard Stuff Grows Your Brain Part 3: How Learning Works

46. Learning Builds and Maintains Healthy Neurons Part 3: How Learning Works

47. Learning works best when it is difficult • Therefore, we must teach our students to seek challenge • Always prefer the difficult over the routine or the easy • Optimal learning occurs in “flow state”—midway between boredom and anxiety • Analogy: crosswords and sudokus

48. Difficulty Increases Engagement Based on Flow, by MihalyCsikszentmihalyi (2002)

49. Some Mantras for Learning • Fat sausages • Foldey lobes • Hairy neurons Fat, Foldey, and Hairy Part 3: How Learning Works

50. The ART of Learning Habits of Acquisition • Note-Taking • Reading strategies • Paying attention/active learning • Not multitasking (microbreaks) Part 3: How Learning Works