Project Lead: Summer Xia Li, Chemistry, UBCO
Project description
Metacognition is a persons’ knowledge about the cognitive processes necessary for understanding and learning. Students with strong cognitive skills know how to learn, can self regulate the learning process, and become self reflective, life long learners. Unfortunately, most students come to universities tend to lack these essential skills. In this project, I argue that the teaching of metacognition needs to be explicit, integrated into the curriculum, so that students feel like they are going through a lived experience together, rather than another thing on their list. In 2023, I designed a six-part series to train first year students cognitive skills. These activities follow the timeline of our first year course, and are part of their learning objectives with allocated classroom time.
Research Questions
- 1.I’d like to investigate the role of instructors involvement in promoting metacognition literacy in first year chemistry classes.
- 2.How effective is the integrated approach in enhancing the metacognitive skills of first-year chemistry students?
- 3.Are the current initiatives effective in helping marginalized students bridge the achievement gap?