One question I have is how do teachers assess using metacognition and critical thinking to determine if students have a learning disorder? Since these are higher order thinking, are the skills that are included assessed when children are being tested for learning disorders?
-Since I want to be an elementary education teacher there are many ways that metacognitive knowledge be involved with teaching my content area. Metacognitive knowledge is defined as knowledge about our own cognitive process and an understanding of how to regulate those processes to maximize learning. This process is hard to teach as an early elementary teacher I feel like because at this age students are just learning how to do basic things, now they are suppose to find out ways that help them learn something effectively. I guess it is better for them to learn these ways now because as they learn other things they can use these concepts and techniques to help them. At the ages of two children start to use theories of the mind that help them formulate their own opinions and thinking. In first grade reading comprehension is a big thing that children are starting to learn. First the learn how to read and now they are learning how to learn from the reading. One teaching method is reciprocal teaching. There are four steps that are taken in trying to teach children how to learn for themselves. After reading an item students should summarize, question, clarify, and predict with the text they read. By doing each of these steps students will learn what works best for them how to learn the material they are reading on their own.
-At the age I’m going to be teaching metacognition is more important than critical thinking. I think this is more important because at the elementary age students are learning many new things that they have not acquired yet. Therefore, they will have to learn ways that they can learn the new information best, where as critical thinking comes after someone has learned information they look deeper into the meaning and analyze the concept. The learning of the object needs to come before looking beyond the surface. Example for reading, students need to learn how to read before they can analyze, summarize, ask questions ect. They will need to learn ways to help them learn and what works best for them. Once they know how to read the then can be critical thinkers and analyze the text.
Your question about assessing learning disabilities is quite interesting. From reading the textbook, I would have to guess that in some aspects, teachers use both metacognition and high-order thinking to assess students' learning capabilities. Although they may not purposefully use these "thinking skills" to directly assess students, I feel they probably use some sort of aspects from each to see how well a child is developing. For example, in Module 12, it discusses how metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about our own cognitive processes and an understanding of how to regulate these to maximize learning. If a child is able to effectively do this, it will shine for them. They will do well in class and on assignments. I feel that if a child is having difficulty doing this, it would be a red flag for teachers. This would help determine if the material/specific lesson was hard or if they are repeatedly having trouble and need to be further assessed. I am not sure if this helps clear things up any, but I hope it helped.
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