Re: Mike's chapter/Metacognition

dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu
Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:55:51 -0500

Reflection is one of those ideas that everyone, from pretty much
any theoretical orientation (excepting behaviorism), can agree is
important for learning (as variously theorized). Metacognition is a
particular variant of reflection that assumes some sort of conscious
access to cognitive processes. I think cognitivists (Information
Processing theorists) subscribe to the idea of metacognition as
presenting a means for more effective cognitive control.
Constructivists (from a Piagetian orientation) tend to value
reflective abstraction (perhaps an analog of metacognition?) for
its transformative function in restructuring cognitive schemas.
Connectionist theorists, on the other hand, reject the idea that
cognitive processes are accessible to introspection at all, so
the reflection they espouse is a reflective practice (i.e., a cultural
practice of reflection) valued for other than the introspective access
implied by metacognition. I think this is what Eva is hoping Mike is
valuing through his references to metacognition.
David

David Kirshner, Lousiana State University, Baton Rouge LA 70803-4728

Eva Ekeblad <eva.ekeblad who-is-at ped.gu.se> on 07/06/99 10:30:27 AM

Please respond to xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu



To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu

cc: (bcc: David H Kirshner/dkirsh/LSU)



Subject: Mike's chapter

Hi Mike

I had half promised to say something about the middle childhood school
maths section of your paper -- but I'm afraid that I'm not much more
updated than you are, having more or less closed my ear in that direction
after finishing my dissertation in 96. There would, I suspect, be
references to add as concerns actual classroom application of the stuff you
mention -- by the way, shouldn't Maggie Lampert be mentioned somewhere in
that context. And you're not taking up the aspects of gender and of power,
which you could do by means of Valerie Walkerdine. But... you know that
already, don't you?

My main reaction to the chapter was how you are navigating within a
worldview of cognitive abilities and processes -- which presumably is from
where your readers come to the book(?) -- and try to nudge the ship into
more sociocultural waters. The social practice of intelligence and
scholastic aptitude testing looms large and heavy... I do hope your text
can teach some readers how not to run aground on those rocks.

But, then I do wonder how much you need the talk about abilities et al. in
order to make yourself heard? What, for example, is the "display" of
metacognition in the quote below? Among the practices of schooling is the
practice of talking ABOUT cognitive activities... and with schooling
children adopt some of this practice, right? Thinking, knowing, learning
become possible topics of talk, and there's an appropriatable repertory of
ways of talking about them... well, you ALMOST say so, but in a vocabulary
that isn't quite consistent.

Hope this topic survives the current gremlin upheavals.
Eva

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http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Cole/chp13.html

Metacognitive skills
Schooling appears to influence the ability to reflect on and talk about
one's own thought processes (Luria, 1976; Rogoff, 1981; Tulviste, 1991).
When children have been asked to explain how they arrived at the answer to
a problem or what they did to make themselves remember something, those who
have not attended school are likely to say something like "I did what my
sense told me" or to offer no explanation at all. Schoolchildren seem
better able to describe the mental activities and logic that underpin their
cognitive activities. In other words, they display metacognition.