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"Giving students control over key aspects of their learning helps them develop self-efficacy and builds independent learners.”

Peggy Grant

Lessons that Support Metacognitive Development and Student-Centered Learning

CLICK on any lesson to download the full lesson as a PDF file. These are a series of lesson that support the development of metacognition.

Lesson Series: An Introduction to Metacognitive Thinking

This is the very first lesson of a lesson series from my research that explores the effects of metacognitive thinking skills (a subskill of critical thinking) on academic achievement, self-regulation, and content mastery. This lesson is merely the introduction to frontload the idea of metacognitive thinking. In later lessons, metacognitive thinking skills will be addressed and/or embedded in journal writing, problem-based learning units (PrBL), questioning, and Socratic seminars. See lessons ABOVE to see the 4 lessons that follow.

SCROLL DOWN the document to explore this lesson and all of the accompanying materials.
This is the third lesson of a lesson series from my research that explores the effects of metacognitive thinking skills. It is a 4 day-long problem-based learning segment on choosing a health insurance plan.

SCROLL DOWN the document to explore this lesson and all of the accompanying materials.
CLICK on the image to read more about metacognition.

Use Journal Writing to Develop Critical Thinking Skills

WHAT? This is a metacognitive journal writing template which provides metacognitive guiding questions to help students think about their thinking as they problem-solve. It is a graphic organizer that divides a task into smaller more manageable chunks, allowing students to plan, monitor, and evaluate their process.
WHEN? This template can be used as a graphic organizer with all problem-based learning activities.
WHY? Helps students organize their thinking, break down problems, connect to prior knowledge, plan, monitor, and evaluate/reflect on their process in order to become more efficient problem-solvers.

CLICK the right arrow to explore the components of the metacognitive journal writing template.

Use "I Can" Statements to Track Student Progress and Goals

WHAT? This is an "I Can" statement sheet that aligns with CCSS-M and links to the Khan Academy's learning module. It can be used to help students track their progress to determine which content they have mastered and which they still need to practice. It covers the first unit of the 8th grade math curriculum.
WHEN? Use it with Khan Academy during stations or rotations in class or with flipped or blended learning.
WHY? Using "I Can" statements will make learning more transparent for students so they understand the skills and content they need to master, allows students to monitor their learning, and use the data to create future learning goals.

SCROLL down the document to explore the full "I Can" statement sheet.
CLICK on the image to read more about why mathematical discourse matters and maybe consider using journal writing to support discussion in your classroom
CLICK the image to see 20 power sentence starters and questions you can use in journal writing in your classroom