Modules 12 & 14: Blog Post 2

This is a video made by a friend of mine (her name is Jenna) who is an instructor of one of the other sections of Educational Psychology. She's describing some specific metacognitive strategies she uses while reading for her classes. I'd like you to watch this video and write about whether any strategies like these have helped you in regulating your own thinking/studying in the past and describe which metacognitive strategies are MOST effective for you (and describe why that might be, using your knowledge from the book).

The strategies that Jenna described I also use a lot when I read articles and books for classes. I have used the sticky tabs on the sides of my binders for a specific class so that I know which subjects within that class the section is about. Since most of my classes do not have books that are actual books, and are more the textbook type, I don’t use sticky tabs in the same way as Jenna, but I do find them useful. One strategy that she mentioned that I LOVE is highlighting and writing some notes in an article so that I can skim back through the article and read the important pieces as a way to review before a test. She also mentioned not highlighting very much, because then it is hard to see what is relevant and important versus what is not, but I have a problem with this. I highlight a lot, and I try to cut down on my highlighting but then I’m like “what if that is important and on a test too?” so then I end up highlighting that item too. I try to cut back on my highlighting but I can never do it efficiently, highlighting more makes me think I’m learning more, but it does also help me read more detailed. Highlighting helps me regular my studying because then I know more or less of what I was thinking at the time of reading the article and can have the similar mindset that I had while reading that article. I’ve never used the idea but I liked Jenna’s idea of writing things down that are relevant to her in the index that are not actually in the index itself. The metacognitive strategy that has been the MOST effective for me is self-interrogation. I use this for studying for EVERY test I have ever studied for, and in fact I even use this strategy at work when remembering what foods are which (like meats and vegetables in the deli, because I do not eat sandwiches myself and do not know which meats is which, etc). I think that this is the most effective for me because then I know if I know something or not, there is no guessing if I know the material or not, it is a very straight forward way for me. I hate guessing and not being 100% about anything in life, so this way is the best for me. Self-interrogation is really the only strategy in the book that I mainly use to test my own cognitive abilities.