Metacognition and Reflection

This post will build on the first post where I explored the various kinds of reflection.  I think tying it together in this way will make it more meaningful.

1. Technologic or Formulaic Thinking-- procedural thinking that is based on pre-existing knowledge that comes from somewhere outside of the thinker
1. This kind of reflective thinking would be good for students to examine a process that is based on an already-established protocol.
1. Masonry students could examine the process behind laying brick and discuss why it is ordered in a given way.
2. Early Childhood students could reflect on the process given to calm a scared child with separation anxiety to understand why the sequence used is successful.
2. Situational Thinking-- thinking that is rooted in an immediate moment in time and does not look beyond the moment to any root causes
1. Students can be urged to use situational thinking to guide behavior from moment to moment, but this kind of thinking will not serve to solve any core problems.
1. Public Safety students could reflect on the actions and behavior needed in a variety of high stress situations, such as traffic stops, domestic disputes, auto accidents, and house fires.
2. Nursing students can reflect on the behavior required to interact with a patient who is experiencing trauma.
3. Deliberate Thinking-- deeper thinking that is used to go beyond the immediate situation to understand the core issue
1. Students can use this type of thinking to better understand a process or situation.  The students can call on outside expertise.  The students can reflect on a procedure that they are engaging in within a group project or within a lab environment, in order to understand why it is or is not working.
1. Early Childhood students can examine the preschool schedule to understand why children are having difficulty transitioning from one activity to another.
2. Landscaping students can reflect on the preparation and care needed for plants to grow when a flower bed is not flourishing the way it should be.
4. Dialectical Thinking-- thinking that builds on deliberate thinking to generate solutions
1. Early Childhood students can build on the preschool schedule and transition issue to suggest solutions and possible changes that can be made based on a variety of expert sources.
2. Landscaping students can look for solutions to help create a healthier environment for flower beds that are not flourishing.
3. This is the perfect kind of thinking to use in a project-based learning situation as the students work through an issue and proposing solutions.

Reflecting

This week I spent some time reading and thinking about the practice of reflecting.  As a high school and college student, I often spent time reflecting on my writing, on readings, or on experiences, and at that point, it seemed more like a requirement, something to check off of the list and be finished with. When I was a student teacher, my cooperating teacher, required me to keep a reflective journal.  It started off as more of a listing of the day's events, focusing on procedure, but luckily my cooperating teacher was skilled in the practice of reflection, and she was able to help me move from that procedural type of thinking to a much deeper practice of metacognition that guided me to strengthening my beginning as a teacher.

I enjoyed reading "Fostering Reflection" by Lana Danielson because it clearly outlines the four types of thinking and connects those modes to reflective practice.  This prompted me to think about how I normally reflect and how we as teachers ask students to reflect.  I hadn't really thought about different kinds of thinking and how it could relate to reflection; it may be a bit shallow, but I thought reflection is reflection.  And I have to believe that this is a common assumption.  So let's look at the four types of thinking and how reflection can be used as a component of student learning.

1. Technologic or Formulaic Thinking-- procedural thinking that is based on pre-existing knowledge that comes from somewhere outside of the thinker
1. This kind of reflective thinking would be good for students to examine a process that is based on an already-established protocol.
2. Situational Thinking-- thinking that is rooted in an immediate moment in time and does not look beyond the moment to any root causes
1. Students can be urged to use situational thinking to guide behavior from moment to moment, but this kind of thinking will not serve to solve any core problems.
3. Deliberate Thinking-- deeper thinking that is used to go beyond the immediate situation to understand the core issue
1. Students can use this type of thinking to understand better understand a process or situation.  The students can call on outside expertise.  The students can reflect on a procedure that they are engaging in within a group project or within a lab environment, in order to understand why it is or is not working.
4. Dialectical Thinking-- thinking that builds on deliberate thinking to generate solutions
1. This is the perfect kind of thinking to use in a project-based learning situation as the students work through an issue and proposing solutions.

What is so great about reflection is that it can be done in a variety of modes-- peer-to-peer discussions, writing exercises, graphic organizers, etc.  And these can be enhanced through technology tools and resources to promote creative and deep thinking.  For example, blogs mainly focus on writing, but a reflective blog can contain images, video, audio, and writing, which engages more of a student's thinking and provides outlets that will help to generate a higher level of thinking.

Jing and Wikispaces

The students in our Legal Studies Administration class and our Medical Studies Administration class have to take the Microsoft Office Specialist Certification test for Word. The teacher came to me and asked if I had any thoughts for how she could be a little more creative and use technology to get the students practicing the objectives and helping each other prepare for the test. After being thrilled about the invitation to plan and help, I went through many different ideas in my head that included the Flip camera she has recently purchased and her new Smartboard. I knew what I wanted to do was have the students create videos that we could put on a wiki that would be their review tool.

We finally decided on Jing, which is created by TechSmith, and is a free download for both Windows and Mac. Jing is a very simple to use tool that can create screenshots or screencasts and can then be saved as a Flash movie and emailed or uploaded.

Here was our basic plan:

1. Students worked in groups of two and were assigned an objective from the MOS Word Certification test.
2. Students researched and learned how to complete the objective.
3. Students wrote a step-by-step script that they used to record their screencast.
4. Students used Jing to record their screencasts using the scripts.
5. Students chose best version of screencast and uploaded to a page on a class wiki that contains the video and the script.

We found the students were actively engaged in every part of the process. Because they knew that their classmates from both classes would be reviewing the videos, they made sure their videos were top quality. Hopefully we will see an increase in the MOS pass rate as they use this as a study tool.

I am happy with the results of this project, especially because over the past two years, I really was not sure I would figure out a way to help in this classroom. After this experience, I see many, many possibilities. We already have another project that will begin in the next month that includes Mixbook. Vo-Tech 2.0 is on its way!

Remembering Joshua

I have been contemplating posting this for about a week, and my hesitancy is that it is not really a new tool or concept that every school can benefit from. But the more I think about it, and the more I am impacted by it, I feel compelled to share.

Recently, a tragedy struck a family in our Virginia Beach community. A story hit the news about a five year old boy who was murdered by his father. The mother was also wounded. At first this was just another sad story on the news, something that I try to avoid; however, my fiance realized that he knew this family. He is actually very close friends with the little boy's uncle and aunt and their family. The event then took on a new meaning for me; I couldn't stay detached because I wasn't anymore. I attended the little boy's funeral, and since then, my life has not been the same. At the service, his short life crossed a screen image by image, and I struggled with questions of faith and fate and God and other things that many people probably explore when this kind of thing happens. I empathized with the family and the poor mother. I cried and ached to hold my own small children close. Forever.

Since then, I have been preoccupied by this tragedy, and in a way, I am grateful because I have had a renewed sense of life. I have stopped rushing and fretting quite so much. I have taken each day I have had with my own two boys during the past week and lived it fully. I have laughed more willingly at their orneriness and spoken more tenderly when frustrated. So in that way, little Joshua does live on, as they expressed hopefully during the funeral. He will continue teaching me to cherish the moments I have with my children, which is something we often forget in the harried and hurried evenings and days.

And it has led me to question why we, as educators, do what we do. Why there are so many of us out there who are passionate about making the classroom something more meaningful and purposeful for our students. We have realized that we only have a limited amount of time with them; every second is valuable and something to cherish, and they deserve all we can give. As Joshua helps me to remember that with my own children, I hope I can also be helped to remember that when working with my teachers and our students.

So maybe this post does have something to do with tools we can use in our schools and classrooms: connecting, being present with our students, valuing each teachable moment with them, and knowing that we impact their lives, whether short or long.

I ask that you take a moment to visit the site Remembering Joshua. I hope that you continue to be inspired to live life fully and to always find joy and meaning, both in and out of your classroom. If you feel compelled to donate to the family, there is a link. The mother has substantial recovering to do, and she is probably going to be without health insurance by the end of this month. If prayer and positive support is what you can offer, please do that as well.

Please forward this post to as many as you can so that we can make a difference to this family who is enduring such a great loss.

Portfolio Project- Update #2

And we mustn't forget that everything is a learning process! I may have gotten a little ahead of myself with the wiki-- in terms of putting it out there without any personal explanation of its purpose. But I was able to hold a very brief, informal training session with a few today that helped a bit. I need to remember that face-to-face meetings are beneficial, too! I think I get sucked into sitting in front of this computer screen, and I forget that others may not be so comfortable, savvy, or interested. So before I frustrate my pioneers, I am going to work a little more closely with them at the start, and then, once everyone is comfortable, we can take some time apart to reflect and brainstorm. We'll file this under lessons learned.

Trepidation

Earlier this week, someone asked about how my building administrators are using social networking tools. I quietly laughed at this because I am just getting more comfortable with using social networking tools in my professional life.

It was interesting how this appeared at this point in time because I have spent a bit of time the last several months not being quite sure of my professional goals. The whole "what do I want to be when I grow up" question plagued me. I felt listless, aimless, even bordering on apathetic. Definitely not where I had intended on being when I started teaching several years ago, and I wanted to blame it on a myriad of things. My position, my colleagues, my disinterest. Then I realized, I had no one to blame but myself. I had become stagnant in my profession. And I had nobody to blame but myself. I think over the past several weeks, I have learned one of the most important lessons I could learn: Passion doesn't just happen upon you; it is a result of connecting in a meaningful way.

I had been sitting back and waiting to be inspired-- inspired to think, inspired to change, inspired to choose. And it wasn't happening. And so I sat. And I watched myself spiral down into the place we all see many teachers spiral: mediocrity. I was busying myself with technical requests and organizational processes, blindly for quite a while, not realizing that while I was doing this, I was allowing part of myself to die away. I see the value of what I have been doing here for two years, and much of it was necessary, but I also now see the value of balance. And that was what I was lacking.

Coming to the Tech Center pulled me out of my comfort zone. Rather than being able to easily integrate technology into subjects that I knew much about-- English, social studies, science, math-- I was now surrounded with wrenches and torches; cars and sheds; huge mixers; blowdryers and scissors... I had no idea where to begin, what they were teaching, or how I could help them to move forward into the 21st century-- to benefit themselves and their students. And true to form, I was fearful, so I sat; I didn't risk. This is my pattern, but I can reflect now and see that I usually end up moving past the fear. I hope one day to not allow the fear to consume me so completely.

It has been invigorating to bring myself back up to speed. My Google Reader, which for a year has sat, intermittently accessed, with very few feeds, is now bursting with robust feeds from many different Educational Technology professionals. Twitter, which I couldn't really understand as a professional tool, now blips at me daily, and I have started following people I know and those I don't know. And probably the greatest accomplishment of all? I have contacted five teachers about the possibilities of transforming our portfolio process to an online project. They have all excitedly accepted, and though I still feel trepidation at the prospects of seeing this project through to fruition, I know that this time, I will not allow it to whither.