New Media and Metacognition in Math
Collaboration and Metacognitive Thinking with Mathematics
“I’m just not good at math.” It’s a phrase math teachers hear frequently, and it attempts to simplify the struggles students often have in math classes. Rather than delving into the actual reasons for their challenges, students want to attribute their challenges to an inability to grasp the subject. Promoting metacognition throughout the mathematical process is one way to combat this mindset. By encouraging students to engage in think alouds and breaking down their problem solving processes, you are asking them to confront actual points of confusion. Through the use of new media tools and collaborative groups, you can have students both think and talk through problem solving strategies in order to overcome difficulties in solving math problems. Allowing students to create screencasts is a great way to give autonomy and ownership over the concepts, while furthering students’ awareness into their own abilities. In addition, you can provide opportunities for collaboration as students watch, critique, and comment on one another’s screencasts. By facilitating these activities, students are working to increase their conceptual mathematical understanding as well as improve their metacognitive abilities.
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Screencast-O-Matic
Screencast-O-Matic is a tool students can use to record their steps in solving a math problem. It’s an extremely user-friendly application that will record the user’s desktop while allowing the user to narrate what is happening on screen. By encouraging students to talk their way through problems as they solve them, you provide an opportunity for students to identify exactly where they are having trouble and what strategies they have in place to overcome those problems. Teachers also have the ability to give much more direct feedback to students, focusing specifically on the gaps or misconceptions they see in the video. In addition, using screencasts gives students a way to collaborate and compare methods of solving problems, as you can assign students to watch and comment on classmates’ videos.
VideoAnt
VideoAnt is a tool used for commenting on specific parts of videos. Students can make an annotation on a particular aspect or moment in a video and it will show up at the appropriate time. Specifically in tandem with Screencast-O-Matic, teachers can upload their students’ screencasts to VideoAnt and facilitate students interacting with and commenting on their classmates’ videos. This promotes critical thinking and collaboration among students, while exposing students to multiple methods of solving a problem. This process also provides the teacher the capability to specify what students should look for and/or comment on.
Google Docs
Discussion and collaboration play a huge role in math classrooms, and Google Docs is a tool that has taken each of these elements to another level. Google Docs is a platform that allows multiple people to view, create and edit one shared word document. It can be used to display classwork, including group and individual projects, homework, and assignment instructions. This tool provides a collaborative community where students can compare, contrast, critique, and synthesize their own thoughts as well as those of other groups. Finally, Google Docs gives students the option to reference these discussions and findings from anywhere they have internet access.
Where Can I Find More Information?
Pugalee, D. K. (2001), Writing, Mathematics, and Metacognition: Looking for Connections Through Students' Work in Mathematical Problem Solving. School Science and Mathematics, 101: 236–245. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&u=msu_main&id=GALE%7CA76927405&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&userGroup=msu_main&authCount=1
Schoenfeld, A. H. (1992). Learning to Think Mathematically: Problem Solving, Metacognition, and sense making in mathematics. Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning, 334-370. Retrieved from http://howtosolveit.pbworks.com/f/Schoenfeld_1992%20Learning%20to%20Think%20Mathematically.pdf