Metacognitive Activities and Strategies for Teaching and Educational Results - MASTER Background: The idea of this project was born when we tried to improve students learning. In all our schools we noticed that a large fraction of our students regardless of background, lacked confidence in their own academic performance, had problems to focus their attention and gave up as soon as some resistance occurred and therefore had very limited academic success. We wanted to find a way to teach our students to overcome these obstacles. The US Education Endowment Foundation in reviewing empirical studies found that feedback from teachers to students and metacognitive strategies (helping pupils think about their own learning explicitly). were the two most effective ways of improving teaching and learning in the classroom (The Economist 11:th of June 2016). This is what MASTER wants to find methods to develop. Participants: The participants in this project are teachers and students from six schools in Europe, each with their unique profile. We will form project workgroups of students and teachers within and between the schools. Activities . The project activities are divided into four equal parts of a semester each. Within each Semester a particular aspect of metacognitive learning will be discussed and taught and in addition within each semester there will be a number of specific tasks defined for the students to execute in the international work groups. Mobilities and project meetings will be evenly distributed over this period. Year 1:1“Understanding metacognitive thinking and how it can be helping you to think better” and “Setting learning goals and achieving them” Year 1:2. “Learning different techniques for problem solving, reading comprehension, critical thinking” Year 2:1 "Using strategies for learning “What makes a great teacher.” Metacognitive strategies and feedback improve teaching and learning.“Learn different techniques for focussing selective attention and optimising learning.” Year 2:2.” Using strategies for learning “What makes a great teacher.” “Metacognitive strategies to improve teaching”. “Learning metacognitive strategies for self-monitoring, becoming a self-directed learner and using metacognitive strategies for other areas in life”. Methodology The project will work on three levels 1- Teachers in groups within each school will discuss and develop feedback/metacognitive approaches for students to use in executing common project tasks. 2 - Students in each school will be instructed about metacognitive methods and how they can be applied to their learning; students will carry out exercises to embed the techniques in their learning. 3-Students working in both national and international peer-groups will execute common tasks making use of metacognitive methods. Teacher seminars will be organized to further train teachers in metacognitive learning and teaching as well as supporting peer learning processes for pupils. To deepen the cooperation experience there will be mobilities where the international project groups will meet and learn new skills and review their results. Results and impact The expected impact of this project is that all students have been given a number of tools for metacognitive strategies for learning such as literacy, study techniques etc. The will have learnt how to set learning goals and making plans how to achieve them. They will learn how to monitor their own learning process and make adjustments. They will learn how to apply their knowledge to all academic subjects as well as their personal life. The main expected impact on the teachers involved with the project is to improve their teaching skills and to make use of metacognitive strategies while planning their classes. We also expect that by having working groups and sharing ideas that we will get an opportunity to share best practice within and between the partner schools.
Background: In this project our aim was to improve students learning by helping them find metacognitive methods and mindsets to use both in school and in everyday life. To achieve these aims we worked with both students and teachers. Students have been involved in a large number of different activities while teachers have taken part in organized workshops. Objectives: The objectives were to use metacognitive techniques to improve students´results and teachers performance in the classroom and produce a resource bank for teaching metacognitive strategies. Participants: The participants were teachers and school students from Denmark, Finland, Greece, Spain and Sweden. The total number of participants varied between schools but each country sent a minimum of 16 students, one teacher and one coordinator to each mobility. Students had to apply to join the project and a wide crossection of students was enrolled; including many students from disadvantaged backgrounds.During the project we worked with national as well as international groups among both students and teachers. Activities: The project activities were divided into four equal parts of a semester each. Within each Semester a particular aspect of metacognitive learning was taught and discussed. In addition during each semester a number of specific tasks were executed by students within their international work groups. Mobilities and project meetings were evenly distributed over the project period. The topics and activites of each year and semester were as listed below. Year 1:1“Understanding metacognitive thinking and how it can help you to think better” and “Setting learning goals and achieving them” During this theme we started with a coordinators meeting and teacher workshop to learn more about what Metacognitive strategies are. (Coordinators meeting) We taught the students about the plastic brain and that mindset matters. We made a documents where students reflected on their future goals for their life and learning. Year 1:2. “Learning different techniques for problem solving, reading comprehension, critical thinking” A vital key to learning is reading and today it is very important to be critical to what ones reads. The teachers shared a lot of materials on how to teach reading strategies as well as material about critical thinking. We worked with this materials during the Spanish mobility trying out different materials within the teacher group tp make sure it was understandable for other teachers. We also during this mobility evaluated our work so far so as to prepare for the interim report. During the Spanish mobility the students worked with problem-solving, solving riddles and an escape room. Year 2:1 "Using strategies for learning “What makes a great teacher.” "Metacognitive strategies and feedback improve teaching and learning".“Learn different techniques for focussing selective attention and optimising learning.” We asked our students what makes a teacher into a great teacher and narrowed it down to 5 points per country. Next step was to try to find research material about the subject, although surpringingly little was found. We used the results from this exercise to inform the teachers on how they could improve. The students most important factor according to the students was that they saw that the teacher noticed and cared about them.We held a workshop for teachers about growth mindset where we used articles from various sources. With the students we did an activity with a paper penguin to illustrate fixed and growth mindsets. Year 2:2.” Using strategies for learning “What makes a great teacher.” “Metacognitive strategies to improve teaching”. “Learning metacognitive strategies for self-monitoring, becoming a self-directed learner and using metacognitive strategies for other areas in life”. During the mobility in Finland we concluded the discussion about the most important characteristics of a teacher and had a discussion what teachers can do to improve further. We concluded that having sufficient time with students and cooperation between teachers are very important to be able to engage in students learning. The main activities during this semester were to see if the students could combine all the different things they have learnt by giving them a large task. Our students worked in groups to prepare a UN role-play activity which took place during the mobility in Sweden where we involved all students in year 9 in Fässbergsschool. The students had to plan their activities, share tasks, find information, summarize and prepare a resolution and an opening speech. During this mobility we also talked about future jobs. Results and impacts: We wanted to put theory into practice and try it on students. After that we wanted to share our materials with fellow teachers. We think this is unique and can have a large impact as we have combined theory and practice.