This course prepares learners to empower themselves through metaliteracy in a connected world. Metaliteracy promotes critical thinking and self-reflection to consume, create, and share information with others. Participants will learn how to critically navigate, evaluate and produce information in open, online, and social media settings. This course features videos, readings, discussions, and learning activities that promote metaliteracy competencies. Participants will become active and collaborative digital citizens who locate and evaluate information in 21st century social environments, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), while making contributions to these spaces as self-reflective and empowered metaliterate learners. Metaliteracy is an empowering idea because it encourages individuals to be active and self-reflective participants in today’s expanding information environments. This approach is relevant to anyone who wants to be an informed consumer of digital information and active contributor to social settings mediated by technology. It is invaluable to learners in a variety of fields and disciplines that involve evaluating and managing information. Metaliteracy is also relevant to anyone in the workplace who wants to improve the ability to search, evaluate, produce, and distribute information. This approach supports college students who want to expand their critical thinking capabilities through research, writing, and adaptation to emerging technologies. It is also relevant to anyone taking a MOOC or pursuing social learning opportunities because it empowers users to be active and engaged digital citizens.
Interview on Metacognition with Dr. Mather (21:35)
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From the course by The State University of New York
Metaliteracy: Empowering Yourself in a Connected World
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From the lesson
Metacognitive Reflection
What kind of learner are you? If you don’t get something right the first time, do you get down on yourself for failing, or do you embrace it as an opportunity for growth? When you post a status update on Facebook or other social media site, are you reflecting on daily activities in a new way? How might status updates and other online postings provide us with a means to reflect and share? This week you will examine your unique learning behaviors and discover how to be more aware of your own thought processes. You will consider how metacognitive practices (or thinking about your own thinking) can help you to better manage and navigate all of the information that you engage with on a daily basis. The content presented this week will bring you one step closer to being a metaliterate learner.
Meet the Instructors
Dr. Thomas P. MackeyVice Provost for Academic Programs
SUNY Empire State College
Professor Trudi JacobsonDistinguished Librarian; Head, Information Literacy Department
University Libraries, University at Albany
Kelsey O'BrienInformation Literacy Librarian
University Libraries, University at Albany
Dr. Michele ForteAssistant Professor, SUNY Empire State College
Community and Human Services
Allyson Kaczmarek, MS
[MUSIC]
Hi. I'm Tom Mackey.
>> And I'm Trudy Jacobson.
>> And we're joined today by special guest, Dr.
Ronny Mather, who's Associate Professor of Psychology at SUNY Empire State College,
and also Interim Dean of our Center for Distance Learning.
Welcome Ronnie. >> Thank you, Tom.
I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Hi Trudy.
>> Hi. Hi Ronnie.
>> Yeah, we are as well.
So what we really want to do now as we're approaching the end of the course,
is really dig deeper into what metacognition is.
It is such an important part of the metaliteracy framework.
>> Mm-hm. >> We've looked at models.
We looked at the metaliterate learner model several times throughout the course.
We really want to take a closer look now, and try and have a deeper understanding of
the background of the term and how it fits in with metaliteracy.
So first, let me just ask a really basic question.
What is metacognition, and how, and can you provide an example for us?
>> Yeah, I mean metacognition had a four-fold root in the history of ideas.
The first root probably was in classical epistemology.
Classical philosophy.
Plato was interested in metacognition.
His ideas around knowledge.
His idea of knowledge as justified true belief is a metacognitive argument.
So metacognition has been around since Plato.
And you can find other examples of it throughout the history of ideas.
Its second root is probably in biology.
I've read your text with some interest.
Biology has always been interested in the way that complex systems monitor them,
monitor themselves, sorry.
So I mean there, there are rep-,
. there is a biological element which I'll
come onto later.
Flavell was very interested in feelings of knowledge as well as
verbalized knowledge so there's a biology element.
And then of course you,
you talk about it in your text, behavior, the sociology of action.
In the 60s and 70s the, the sociology of action perspective was
very interested in the reflective monitoring of behavior.
So there, there was this, this aspect too.
And finally of course then came John Flavell.
Who's text around in the 70s actually introduced metacognition into
mainstream psychology.
And that, that has continued right up until the present day with
cognitive neuroscience.
So there's, there's a four fold root.
I see aspects of it in your text, through and throughout your text.
So those were the four principle origins I would say of metacognition.
>> We did, we did refer Flavell in the, the first chapter of the text-
>> because we saw that as, as important as well.
That's a really important context for, for having understanding of meta cognition.
>> So you asked for an example, let me give you a very basic example.
If I ask you to remember a telephone number, how would you do that?
So, let me give you one, 041-81-0393.
Mainstream psychologists have often been interested in short term memory and
how it actually works.
And since 1956, psychology undergraduates have been taught that student,
that individuals actually can memorize about seven to nine digits.
But what we've actually found is the number's closer to three to five.
So you will remember that number, and
the way telephone numbers work is they're chunked.
So you'll remember the 0-4-1 81 and
then you'll do 3-3-4, usually is the way that your memory works.
So that is, and, and people are conscious of that, too.
They, they will know their own strategies for remembering phone numbers.
>> Right. >> That is metacognition at a,
at a very basic level.
>> That's an excellent example.
I think we've all done that.
[LAUGH].
>> Yeah, really.
So, so these strategies that people use, I mean it can be taught.
Those are based in-
>> Mm-hm.
>> Sort of psychology or-
>> Oh, abs, absolutely.
I mean one of the, one of the, the models you have of the meta-literate learner,
it seemed to me to have three sort of elements within it.
The first one of course is people learn through repetition.
And actually repetition gets a very bad name in modern educational theory.
But you will not learn anything without repeating it.
And of course you don't need to repeat thing, something by rote.
You can repeat it by reformulating, paraphrasing, etc.
So what I saw in your model there was a form of,
of repetition that is, is, is extremely interesting.
So I, I mentioned the phone number.
You'll have about 30 seconds of short term memory to remember that phone number.
If you don't rehearse that information within 90 to 120 minutes,
you'll forget it completely.
Which will then commit it to long term memory.
So I see within the, the meta literate learner,
an assimilation of information, and then using it almost immediately.
And you have to use it almost immediately, our you'll lose it.
The second aspect that was very interesting was your emphasis on
visual literacy.
A picture which we, is worth a thousand words,
because it leaves within memory, it's a, there's a dual encoding.
A picture will leave a verbal trace, a conceptual trace, and a picture trace too.
Whereas texts will only use a verbal trace, so I see, I see that too.
And the third aspect of course is, is communal participation...
Human beings learn better when they learn collaboratively.
I see all as, all the three aspects there of good learning practice.
Interestingly enough repetition is,
is coming very much back into the fore with regard to educational psychology.
>> That's a great point.
>> Yeah. >> It was interesting, too,
we were talking earlier how in traditional models of information literacy,
the meta-cognitive piece hasn't really been emphasized as much.
>> Mm-hm.
>> It looks like it's going to be with the,
the new ACRL framework which has been influenced by meta-literacy.
>> Mm-hm.
>> We were talking, Trudy, about how previously-
. What, what were the aspects of the,
of the four domains that we've introduced that you saw as part of
an information literacy originally but
now has been greatly expanded to the, to the four domains?
>> And before I think it was really the cognitive and
the behavioral aspects of being able to find, evaluate, use information.
But now the meta-cognitive piece and also the affective piece.
>> Mm-hm. >> Because very often people are sort of
stymied by, sort of fear.
>> Yes, they are.
>> They can't do it, or everybody else can do it better than they can, and so
why should they try.
>> Yeah.
>> So these two new components really, I think,
are, really making a difference in both how people are teaching it.
>> Right. >> But
also if people are aware of it, sort of how they learn.
>> Oh there's, there's clear, there's the clearest evidence of,
of the effective component in the, in the scientific literature on,
in this area with regard to educational psychology.
even, even within the scientific journals using double blind experiments.
There was a recent one eh, in Science 2011 and
the researchers found that people actually in,
in high stakes exams who wrote about their fears and
reflected on their fears actually did better in the tests-
>> Hm.
Very interesting.
>> After the fact.
And there's also, there's also a strong belief now in the, the,
the idea of, of people, peop, people almost certainly have an implicit
understanding of their learning capacity which is almost certainly wrong.
It's formed very, very early in life and it's,
it's probably, it, the, the reason why thinking about thinking.
>> Mm-hm.
>> Metacognition, is so important is, is it challenges that idea.
people, it, it challenges people to, to reevaluate their capacity
to learn through the effect of moving through the behavioral moment.
So the, that's why the, thinking about thinking is so important,.
>> That's a really good point too.
Because I think learners today they make, make assumptions that maybe they're not
a good writer or they're not good at math because of an early experience they had.
But if they're giving that thought, that reflection later on that might
completely change their, their thoughts on it.
In fact it's interesting because we talked about how working with students in a,
in an environment and encouraging them to use technology,
they might come into the classroom, in, into an online environment with
certain assumptions about their own abilities with technology.
But if their, if we encourage them, challenge them to actually
use the technology and then to reflect on that use of technology.
>> And where they succeeded.
>> Exactly.
That that's going to have a huge impact on their own thoughts about themselves.
>> Oh yeah, confidence is critical in, in meta, in metacognition.
abs, absolutely, it's absolutely central to the, to,
to the way that people eh, feel about themself.
And I mean that's, that's one aspect of metacognition.
We sometimes, metacognition sometimes gives people the impression that we
are that we are not ta,
we are talking about conscious thought, conscious manipulation.
But it's not purely that.
I mean there's going to be in the,
in some of the scientific literature about metacognition in animals, and
whether it's, and, and whether animals are capable of metacognition.
There's some evidence that they actually are,
which would mean that metacognition is, is, is prior even to language itself.
Which would be, which is primor, as primordial as, as, as it can get.
there's, there's been, as I said, significant attention paid to this,
this idea, these days.
There's also attention paid to how can I put this.
Inner language.
Human beings spend a lot of time talking to themselves.
They might not, the, the either in their, within their heads or, or
literally talking out loud to themselves.
About 25% of the waking states can be taken up by this.
Yes.
So it's a very, very important aspect of being human.
So there's been a lot of philosophers on mind have been fascinated about this
internal conversation, and the way that it enables metacognition.
And there's been very, very technical debates on whether it
somehow reflects natural language or somehow different from it.
But there's ska, there's absolutely clear evidence that meta, may, and
Flavill was very interested in the feelings of metacognition.
You know that tip of the tongue phenomenon?
Like what's the queen's family name, or what's Elton John's real name?
Then you know that you know that.
>> Mm-hm.
>> But you feel that you know it.
Even, even, it's even prediscursive.
So, again, there's been great speculation wet whether metacognition is
actually really hard-wired into the brain, or the capacity to do so.
>> That's an interesting dimension.
So this is something that's already happening whether people
are thinking about it or not, right?
>> Mm-hm.
>> Do you think then that there are,
because I think we often think that you know thinking about one's own thinking,
you, by foregrounding it, people will be more aware of it.
If people are already doing this,
what's the advantage then of having them be even more aware of this activity?
>> They have increasingly,
it's increasingly important that they are conscious of so doing.
Those, there is considerable literature that
people who think that learning capacity can be increase,
their own learning capacity can be increased, are far better learners.
Just in the way that, I mean if I, if I said to you, you know if you, if,
if you go to a gym every day for two hours you're going to get stronger.
If you think about thinking, if you think about your learning processes,
you're going to become a better learner.
It really is the same, the,
the, the scientific literature is very clear on that.
So, it has to be not, not only, the telephone number example I gave is,
is somewhere between consciousness and sub, and, and subconscious, so
it's a good example.
But the more conscious you are about learning,
the better the learner you will be.
>> So Ronnie, could be go back to your que,
you mentioned that communal learning, you know, is more effective learning.
And I know very often learners say, I don't want to do it that way.
I do better, sort of on my own.
So is there sort of a metacognitive piece that goes along with the communal?
>> Yeah the question is,
is that people often, the, the benefit of having a conversation, or
online or, or face-to-face is that people will repeat what they've learned.
They will move from it to some other possession and
it will be constantly repeated.
I think that's the most important thing.
St, st, somebody who is learning on their own,
I would advise them to test and retest themselves.
And maybe that's what conversation is, it's a retest.
And that's why the conversational the, the peda element within online learning for
example is so important.
You're retesting your knowledge.
And certainly I would say to individual learners to, to, to emphasize I would
emphasize to them the importance that they test and retest their own knowledge.
I see chunking in your own book, your eight subheadings.
Usually, there's usually there, you could go through it in two [INAUDIBLE].
Eight concepts.
So, ideally and, almost as a matter of instinct, authors chunk their text too.
That's what an index is.
So if you were reading the first four concepts of the text,
and have been through it and you wanted to check your knowledge,
a simple test within 90 to twen, 120 minutes will do that.
>> Hm.
>> 'Kay.
It's just the way memory works.
So I mean, I mean, again to, to give an example of that, if, if I,
if that phone number was a bit, that I quoted earlier was [SOUND] was the phone
number of a friend you'd had 25 years ago and you'd forgotten the number.
If I brought it to memory for you,
you would remember that number easier than a completely foreign number.
Which shows that it's in there somewhere.
>> Hm.
>> I have a related question to that example,
which I think is such an excellent one.
And we think technology and emerging technologies is a key part of this, and
being able to adapt to the changing environments.
But I was just thinking about that idea of how people remember and we,
we kind of foreground this idea, and
that the chucking even of the numbers as you described.
But is there a downside to the technology too, in that now that,
when you meet someone and you, you put their phone number in your phone, and
people aren't remembering it the way they, that they do.
Or even having the, the rapid dial, ability you know,
you're pushing a number instead of act, the actual number.
Even in this search engine capability where sometimes, oh,
people, we always say, oh wait, let me look, let me Google that.
[LAUGH] Is, is there any kind of fear of, is there any downside to,
to those technologies in that way?
>> And this isn't quite the same thing, but I notice now on my phone,
if I start typing something, it fills in the rest of the word for me.
>> Right.
Yes.
>> So now maybe I don't even have to remember whole words, you know?
>> There would be, the, there is, at,
at the minute there's only speculations purely because we're still
basically running around with the same genetic programs we had in the ice age.
So, yeah, I mean the speculation that, but
that that kind of, of, of social evolution can happen fairly quickly.
So there, there's been no definitive research on
how this will affect our cognitive capacities, to do so.
I, I think there's a, there is a debit and a credit.
One of the, the credits already mentioned is, is, is visual literacy too and the way
that Facebook, Facebook seems to me to work because it works as a narrative.
We've seen the power of the narrative in audience research with regard to
soap operas around in Europe for 25, 30 years.
When the scriptwriters get the stories wrong, the viewers write in and, and
correct them on the biography.
>> Right.
>> So, s, some of these British, soap operas that have ran for
decades have continuity editors.
Because they have to remember over a period of 25 to 30 years
how this how these stories have developed and the characters have developed.
Again, it has to do with a visual encoding of information.
Where again there's that, there's almost a visual encoding of of somebody's life and
narrative structure.
>> So if somebody's presenting information,
they really would want to think about.
>> Absolutely. >> Not only textual presentation.
>> Mm-hm. >> Yes.
>> But also visual if they really want to have an impact.
>> Yes. Yes.
Absolutely. >> So.
>> Absolutely. >> And the multi-modality of that.
That's such an interesting example, Facebook as a narrative,
because that's really what it is.
>> Yes. >> It's a timeline.
>> Yes.
>> So you have your individual timeline, but at the same time you're it's,
it's intersecting with everyone else's timeline.
>> Mm-hm. >> And it's happening in, in real time.
And you're constantly getting updates and
status updates in what, terms of what people are doing.
And it's very interesting that we're seeing this shift from the status,
status updates that were very textual, to the images and
now I think we're seeing even more of the, the video dynamic.
>> Mm-hm.
Absolutely.
>> As, as part of that timeline.
So people are actually taking videos of their cellphone or finding something on
YouTube and then that becomes a part of their, their daily narrative.
>> Yes, very much so.
>> And then that comes back to sort of the value of information.
>> Yes.
>> Both sort of, in and of itself, but
also when you say, you know YouTube videos.
>> Right, yeah.
>> Knowing the ethics of being able to use those and that type of thing.
>> Absolutely. >> So it's all sort of inter-connected.
>> And the idea of the producer, because the producer now, with the cell phone,
they, they're recording their world, they're making little, and
emoto videos that are more produced.
And then they're sharing those with,
with this audience, automatic audience that they have on Facebook.
The, I think the status updates too have this metacognitive piece to it.
>> Mm-hm. >> And again, I'm not sure if people
are thinking about this, because they're, they're providing this daily update.
But it seems to be a reflective >> Mm-hm.
>> kind, kind of an instant reflection in terms of what's going on in their lives.
And then the fact that they can like something that other people are doing, or
they comment on what other people are doing.
There's an ongoing sort of,
commentary that's part of that narrative throughout the day.
>> Yeah. I mean that,
the metacognition may have arisen, literally a reading of your own mind.
It might have arisen in an evolutionary sense with the ability to
read other minds too.
>> Hm. >> And that's part perhaps why
Facebook has, has become so popular.
You're looking at your own life, you're reading your own life, but
you're also reading, literally reading somebody else's.
Again just it's that's an insight from evolutionary psych that,
that said it's the, the two, the ability to, to, to, as I said, understand
yourself was somehow related to this capacity to understand other's intentions.
So we've really learned an awful lot about metacognition, here today.
>> It's fascinating.
And again to hear of this outside of your own discipline brings a whole new
perspective to it.
And so you've been great today, Ronnie.
We really appreciate these insights.
[LAUGH]. >> Thank you so much.
Yeah. Wonderful.
>> Thank you. >> Taking this much deeper.
So we really appreciate it.
>> Thank you.
And I just want to say to everyone else,
as you're reading through the materials this week, and
as the, the course is winding down, think about your own thinking.
Think about who you are and
where you fall in this in terms of being a metaliterate learner.
And think of all those different roles, and
roles that you may have already played out throughout the course.
>> Yes, definitely. And I think I'm going to be
figuring out how much time I'm spending talking to myself.
[LAUGH] And if it's less than 25%, [LAUGH] I'm okay.
[LAUGH].
>> And I'm going to see how many phone numbers I can actually remember.
[LAUGH] So thanks very much.
>> We'll see you next week.
>> Bye.
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