Metacognitive Strategies to Enhance Learning in Economics and for Life

Educators and employers often emphasize the importance of instilling values of lifelong learning in our college students.  In this increasingly complex and dynamic global economy it is of utmost importance that higher education focus on helping students learn about thinking and think about learning.  The goal of higher education should be to help our students to be intentional learners (AAC&U 2002, 2007).  Intentional learners are aware of their learning and the reason for study.  They are purposeful in developing learning goals, in formulating strategies to reach their goals, and in continually evaluating their learning.  Quite naturally, intentional learners take ownership and responsibility of their learning.

Practical skills, including critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, collaborative learning, writing, speaking, and peer assessment are emphasized in many college experiences.  These skills are all worthy and useful, but they can be more meaningful if they coexist within the context of helping our students to become intentional learners.  With this purpose in mind, several learning strategies were implemented in Principles of Microeconomics courses to encourage students to become intentional learners of economic matters.

We (Karl Wirth of Macalester College) use a simple metacognitive activity to improve student reading, learning, and metacognitive skills.  Students submit online reflections for each reading assignment before coming to class.  The reflections are guided by prompts that ask students to: 1) summarize the important concepts of the reading, 2) describe what was interesting or surprising, and 3) describe what is still confusing.  The reflections not only encourage students to read before class, they also promote content mastery and foster development of monitoring, self-evaluation, and reflection skills.  Although reading reflections constitute only a small fraction of total points in our courses, they are excellent predictors of final course grades.  These results support the notion that improving students’ monitoring, self-evaluation, and reflection skills will enhance their learning.

In a survey of reading habits, we asked students to describe the depth of their reading, their self-regulation of environmental conditions, and the reading strategies that they employ.  Results indicate that most students generally do not utilize many expert reading strategies, and that there are significant differences between the experimental and control groups regarding the completion of reading assignments, the depth of reading, and reading strategies used pre-reading, reading, and post-reading phases.  These results confirm that reading reflections are having significant impacts on student reading and metacognitive skills, and they underscore the importance of attending to students’ reading knowledge and skills.

Learning Reflections are completed on a weekly basis.  Students respond to: what are the three most important concepts they have learned in this portion of the course, why they consider it to be important, or if it facilitates their understanding in other disciplines or content areas?  The goal of this reflective journal is for students to deepen their understanding of the course content and to help them develop an appreciation of their learning by making connections with information and ideas in economics, other disciplines, and other areas of their life.