Reading Response Logs
Reading Response Log #1
I am reading this book called Metacognition, Motivation, and Understanding by Franz E. Weinert and Rainer H. Kluwe. Right now I am getting the basic facts of what metacognition is and the other terms around it. For example, it is telling me that metacognition is second-order cognitions. This is essentially what I already knew, such as thinking about thinking. But it also says that metacognition is often regarded as referring to general and flexible knowledge that is not domain specific. This I am not sure how to grasp. Anyway, it is also showing me the relationship between metacognition and motivation. It even shows me a table of the similarities. When I look at the table separately from each domain, I can understand it. However, it is also hard to grasp the concepts of them relating, even though it shows their relations. I am finding this topic to be challenging on a few levels. Challenging in terms of grasping the correlations as finding a concrete link to understanding. I can understand the two main terms just fine, but the line between them is blurry for me to grasp.
Reading Response Log #2
I am into the same text as before but I am learning new terminology and lineages. Metacognitive knowledge is the part of the acquired world knowledge that has to do with cognitive matters. Now, I have been reading bits in other texts about cognition and how metacognition and cognition are related. However, I always thought they were totally different. Anyway, Metacognitive knowledge is a branch off of metacognition and is subdidvided into 3 parts, which I found interesting. There is knowledge of person variables, such as intraindividual, interindividual, and universal, there is knowledge of task variables, and knowledge of strategy variables. All of this new information, plus all of the other new terms I am learning seem to be getting too much. I feel like everything is being thrown at me every which way and I don’t know if I should include them or not. This is because they all seem like they could very well be a part of my topic in some way on some level. How deep should I go? How much information do I need? How much is too much? It’s starting to get a little overwhelming.
Reading Response Log #3
More terms - executive processes, formal operations, consciousness, social cognition, self-efficacy, self-regulation, reflective self-awareness, psychological self, executive control, critical thinking, personal control principle - All new terms that I don’t know where to begin. I am starting to wonder if my topic is too broad or too difficult. Maybe I should narrow it down a little more? Anyway, there are so many resources, it’s hard to choose, and then some of the resources I think would be very beneficial, I can’t get ahold of. I have books from the library, papers from the internet, all saying a lot of the same things, but yet all so different too. I don’t know where to go.
Anyway, a paper I am reading by Jennifer A. Livingstone is called Metacognition: An overview. This si giving me more of a background on what metacognition is. Maybe I can better understand it, therefore coming to a conclusion about my topic. She says that metacognition enables us to be successful learners.
Reading Response Log #4
I am going through a book called Differentiation for the Adolescent Learner by Glenda Beamon Crawford. I thought this book would be useful because I am gearing my research towards adolescence, and understanding adolescent learning would be a good asset for the project. It turns out that it includes some information on metacognition in adolescence and it also talked about metacognitive coaching. I really thought this was interesting because I have never heard this term before. Really, we teachers are metacognitive coaches whether we realze it or not, same with parents. The difference is that when we use the term metacognitive coaching, it is specific towards the goal of developing metcogitive abiltiies, whereas in class when we don't realize it, our primary goal is to teach them how to solve a math problem or read a book. I was very intrigued about this topic. I am thinking of including this topic in my project but I'm worried it will take away from my original topic.
Reading Response Log #5
I am going through a bunch of different books and picking out phrases I like and understand that could relate. I am coming across metcognition related to learning, and in developing a person's metacognition, you would need to understand and know how to learn. I figured, in order to do this, a student would need to understand their own learning styles and their learning preferences. So, I figured I should include this in my project, that way my "resource book" will have multiple resources for extending one's metacognitive abilities, if need to.I am really excited about using this resource in my project because it is something that we can all use at some point or another. The only problem is, because I have been reading so much, I am forgetting were I found certain information that is in my head, and also some I have written down.
Reading Response Log #6
So, as I am reading, I am finding that cognition and metacognition is so much alike, yet so different. Sometimes its hard to grasp the differences in order to better understand how metacognition is related to motivation. So I think I am starting to understand it better. For example, cognition is knowing what strategies to use to study, but metacognition is reflecting back to see if you understand the material studied, i think? I am still doing more reading on it.
Reading Response Log #7
I am reading this book and I found a few online articles mentioning that metacognition is related to motivation through self-efficacy. This concept is kind of though to understand and grasp. So, I did some more background research on self-efficacy to better understand its relations. So, I found that self-efficacy is the belief of one's own abilities. As I read further, I find that metacognition is also defined with a characteristic of having the ability to change one's own thoughts. So I figured if someone with metacognition can change their own thoughts, and self-efficacy is believeing in oneself, and also that motivation can be increased due to increased self-efficacy, then self-efficacy is the main link between metacognition and motivation. The main idea, then, is to improve one's metacognitive abilties so that he or she is able to know and understand their own thoughts and then change their own thoughts in order to improve their positive thinking about themselves. This was like an AHA moment for me when I figured this out. I hope it makes sense anyway. It makes sense to me but the way research and conclusions work is that I could be missing an important detail that could hinder this conclusion.
Reading Response Log #8
It is getting down to crunch time and it is starting to come together, however I feel like there isn't much I can write about. I mean, I can explain metacognition and motivation, but I don't know how to expand on my conclusions of self-efficacy. I'm thinking of using my project more of as a "resource" for people rather than a concluding experimental research type of paper. I am currently looking into extra resources for teachers in terms of enhancing metacognition in students as a resource. It's now getting tough to find information that I can use and not repeat a lot of what I already have mentioned.
* Already passed in 2 other Reading Response Logs
I am reading this book called Metacognition, Motivation, and Understanding by Franz E. Weinert and Rainer H. Kluwe. Right now I am getting the basic facts of what metacognition is and the other terms around it. For example, it is telling me that metacognition is second-order cognitions. This is essentially what I already knew, such as thinking about thinking. But it also says that metacognition is often regarded as referring to general and flexible knowledge that is not domain specific. This I am not sure how to grasp. Anyway, it is also showing me the relationship between metacognition and motivation. It even shows me a table of the similarities. When I look at the table separately from each domain, I can understand it. However, it is also hard to grasp the concepts of them relating, even though it shows their relations. I am finding this topic to be challenging on a few levels. Challenging in terms of grasping the correlations as finding a concrete link to understanding. I can understand the two main terms just fine, but the line between them is blurry for me to grasp.
Reading Response Log #2
I am into the same text as before but I am learning new terminology and lineages. Metacognitive knowledge is the part of the acquired world knowledge that has to do with cognitive matters. Now, I have been reading bits in other texts about cognition and how metacognition and cognition are related. However, I always thought they were totally different. Anyway, Metacognitive knowledge is a branch off of metacognition and is subdidvided into 3 parts, which I found interesting. There is knowledge of person variables, such as intraindividual, interindividual, and universal, there is knowledge of task variables, and knowledge of strategy variables. All of this new information, plus all of the other new terms I am learning seem to be getting too much. I feel like everything is being thrown at me every which way and I don’t know if I should include them or not. This is because they all seem like they could very well be a part of my topic in some way on some level. How deep should I go? How much information do I need? How much is too much? It’s starting to get a little overwhelming.
Reading Response Log #3
More terms - executive processes, formal operations, consciousness, social cognition, self-efficacy, self-regulation, reflective self-awareness, psychological self, executive control, critical thinking, personal control principle - All new terms that I don’t know where to begin. I am starting to wonder if my topic is too broad or too difficult. Maybe I should narrow it down a little more? Anyway, there are so many resources, it’s hard to choose, and then some of the resources I think would be very beneficial, I can’t get ahold of. I have books from the library, papers from the internet, all saying a lot of the same things, but yet all so different too. I don’t know where to go.
Anyway, a paper I am reading by Jennifer A. Livingstone is called Metacognition: An overview. This si giving me more of a background on what metacognition is. Maybe I can better understand it, therefore coming to a conclusion about my topic. She says that metacognition enables us to be successful learners.
Reading Response Log #4
I am going through a book called Differentiation for the Adolescent Learner by Glenda Beamon Crawford. I thought this book would be useful because I am gearing my research towards adolescence, and understanding adolescent learning would be a good asset for the project. It turns out that it includes some information on metacognition in adolescence and it also talked about metacognitive coaching. I really thought this was interesting because I have never heard this term before. Really, we teachers are metacognitive coaches whether we realze it or not, same with parents. The difference is that when we use the term metacognitive coaching, it is specific towards the goal of developing metcogitive abiltiies, whereas in class when we don't realize it, our primary goal is to teach them how to solve a math problem or read a book. I was very intrigued about this topic. I am thinking of including this topic in my project but I'm worried it will take away from my original topic.
Reading Response Log #5
I am going through a bunch of different books and picking out phrases I like and understand that could relate. I am coming across metcognition related to learning, and in developing a person's metacognition, you would need to understand and know how to learn. I figured, in order to do this, a student would need to understand their own learning styles and their learning preferences. So, I figured I should include this in my project, that way my "resource book" will have multiple resources for extending one's metacognitive abilities, if need to.I am really excited about using this resource in my project because it is something that we can all use at some point or another. The only problem is, because I have been reading so much, I am forgetting were I found certain information that is in my head, and also some I have written down.
Reading Response Log #6
So, as I am reading, I am finding that cognition and metacognition is so much alike, yet so different. Sometimes its hard to grasp the differences in order to better understand how metacognition is related to motivation. So I think I am starting to understand it better. For example, cognition is knowing what strategies to use to study, but metacognition is reflecting back to see if you understand the material studied, i think? I am still doing more reading on it.
Reading Response Log #7
I am reading this book and I found a few online articles mentioning that metacognition is related to motivation through self-efficacy. This concept is kind of though to understand and grasp. So, I did some more background research on self-efficacy to better understand its relations. So, I found that self-efficacy is the belief of one's own abilities. As I read further, I find that metacognition is also defined with a characteristic of having the ability to change one's own thoughts. So I figured if someone with metacognition can change their own thoughts, and self-efficacy is believeing in oneself, and also that motivation can be increased due to increased self-efficacy, then self-efficacy is the main link between metacognition and motivation. The main idea, then, is to improve one's metacognitive abilties so that he or she is able to know and understand their own thoughts and then change their own thoughts in order to improve their positive thinking about themselves. This was like an AHA moment for me when I figured this out. I hope it makes sense anyway. It makes sense to me but the way research and conclusions work is that I could be missing an important detail that could hinder this conclusion.
Reading Response Log #8
It is getting down to crunch time and it is starting to come together, however I feel like there isn't much I can write about. I mean, I can explain metacognition and motivation, but I don't know how to expand on my conclusions of self-efficacy. I'm thinking of using my project more of as a "resource" for people rather than a concluding experimental research type of paper. I am currently looking into extra resources for teachers in terms of enhancing metacognition in students as a resource. It's now getting tough to find information that I can use and not repeat a lot of what I already have mentioned.
* Already passed in 2 other Reading Response Logs