Self-assessment and metacognition—thinking about thinking—have been shown to improve student learning. Both can be integrated into existing lessons. Ask yourself:
- What are some things that I do to shift ownership for learning to the students?
- What are some things that I do to encourage the students to self-assess—their content knowledge, thinking processes, and how they frame causality?
For instance, have students pause while working on a model and ask themselves:
- Am I using my drawings to really THINK about what each concept means? (Instead of just drawing what someone else has drawn or the first thing that comes to mind?)
- Am I PUSHING my thinking to explore the concept deeply—not giving up but trying to think it through?
- Am I working "minds-on"—actively thinking about the concepts as I draw to create a drawing that explains the concepts?
Encourage them to think about their causal framing:
- How am I framing my explanation from a causal perspective? What causal pattern am I using? Have I thought about whether other causal patterns might do a better job structuring the concept?
- Does the causal pattern fit with all of the available evidence?
