5. Bibliography

Bransford, J.D., Brown,A.L and Cocking,R.R. (Eds.) (1999) How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, D.C. :National Research Council, National Academy Press.

This NRC report presents a thorough review of the literature concerning learning strategies that encourage and are barriers to student learning.  Their major findings include the following: 1) student misconceptions are a barrier to their learning and these misconceptions must be challenged if they are to be changed, 2) to build meaningful understanding of a discipline need both factual knowledge and a strong conceptual framework into which to put those facts, 3) strong metacognitive skills are necessary for learners.
Mental Models

Modell, H.I., (2000) How to help students understand physiology?  Emphasize general models. Advances in Physiology Education 23:101-107.

This article is the basis for my intent to incorporate general models into my physiology course.  Model presents his concept of general models as a way to help students better understand physiology. General Models represent first principles that can be applied across physiological systems. General Models help student build robust mental models of physiological systems that allow them to predict consequences of changes to those system.  General models help students transfer their mechanistic understanding to systems they have not yet studied.

Gentner,D.  &  Stevens, A. (Eds.) (1983) Mental Models. Mahwah, NJ :Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

This book lays out the basic premise of how learners use and develop mental models to develop deep understanding.  They indicate that the ways student build, test and refine their mental models is dependent on  the nature of the domain studied, the nature of the theoretical approach, and the nature of the methodology.

Herbert, BE, (2003) The role of scaffolding student metacognition in developing mental models of complex, Earth and environmental systems, DFG-NSF International Workshops on Research and Development in Mathematics and Science Education,Washington D.C.

Available online at http://geoexplorer.tamu.edu/dfgnsf/WG1.html.
Earth and environmental systems study a complex and dynamic set of variables that cover a wide range of scales ( time, size, disciplines) and thereby pose a large challenge to students attempting to build their mental models. His project seeks to develop and assess IT-based learning environments that fosters student development of rich mental models of environmental systems through metacognitive scaffolding, manipulation of multiple representations, use of authentic, complex and ill-constrained problems.  This project provides a thorough set of guidelines for developing and assessing educational material to guide effective student development of robust mental models.

How people learn web sites

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/r...le_Learn.shtml

Entwistle, N.J. (2001) A summary of the ‘Teaching for Understanding’ project

he is PI of the ETL center at the University of Edinburgh.  They have a great publlication list and videos to watch.  He  developed the RASI- revised approaches to study inventory.
http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk/publicat....html#teampubl

Everson, H.T. & Tobias, S., (1998) The ability to estimate knowledge and performance in college: A metacognitive analysis”,  Instructional Science 26: 65–79.

Tobias, S., & Everson, H. (2000) Assessing metacognitive knowledge monitoring.  In G. Schraw & J. Impara (Eds.), Issues in measurement of metacognition 147-222. Lincoln, NE: Buros Institute of Mental Measurement.

Tobias, S., & Everson, H.(2002)  Knowing what you know and what you don't: Further research on metacognitive knowledge monitoring.  College Board Report No. 2002-3.  College Board, NY.

    Assessing student metacognition will be one of the challenges of my project.  These authors examine learners’ ability to differentiate between what they know and do not know. Their findings indicate learners of all levels of ability and developmental stages are affected by their ability to monitor their learning. They have focused on the correlation between knowledge monitoring and student’s academic performance.

Isaacson, R.M. & Fujita, F., (2006) Metacognitive Knowledge Monitoring and Self-Regulated Learning:  Academic Success and Reflections on Learning. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6, (1), 39 – 55.  

    These authors studied how student’s metacognitive skills impacted self-regulated learning (SRL) skills in undergraduates. They found that high achieving students were: more accurate at predicting their test results; more realistic in their goals; more likely to adjust their confidence in-line with their test results; and more effective in choosing test questions to which they knew the answers.

Kuiper, R. “Enhancing Metacognition through the Reflective Use of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies.” Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 33, no. 2 (March-April 2002): 78-87.

"Using a comparative descriptive design, self-regulated learning strategies were used to enhance metacognitive critical thinking abilities. The data suggested that nursing education and practice consider using self-regulated learning prompts with new graduates to promote thinking strategies." ERIC 39-S.Imel

Schraw, G., and Dennison, R. S. “Assessing Metacognitive Awareness". Contemporary Educational Psychology 19, no. 4 (October 1994): 460-475.

A 52-item inventory was constructed to measure the metacognitive awareness of adults. Items were classified into eight subcomponents under categories of knowledge and regulation of cognition. Implications for assessment were identified.

web site from Schraw's class with metacognition survey.

http://litd.psch.uic.edu/courses/qa/schraw.html

Schraw, G.(1998)  "Promoting General metacognitive awareness" Instructional Sciences  26 (1-2):113-125

Vadhan, V., & Stander, P. (1994) Metacognitive Ability and Test Performance among College Students. Journal of Psychology, 128 (3):307-311.

Undergraduate at a community college were asked to predict their grade on an exam prior to taking the exam. Predicted grades were compared to actual grades on the exam.  They found that students with higher actual grades demonstrated an understanding that helped them to more accurately evaluate their own performances.

Bloom, B. (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York: McKay

This is the classic study that proposed six cognitive domains: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.  Each domain is explained and relevant examples across disciplines are provided.  This work provides a simple and straight forward means of helping faculty monitor and align their teaching and testing as well as provide a framework for students to both monitor and structure their studying.

Reflective Thinking: RT

http://www.higp.hawaii.edu/kaams/res...reflection.htm
    This web site defines reflective thinking, indicates RTs connection to building critical thinking in learners and offers practical class room activities to promote RT.

Thompson G, Pilgrim, A., and Oliver, K. (2005) Self-assessment and reflective learning for first year university geography students: A simple guide or simply misguided? Journal of Geography in Higher Education. 29. 403-420.

    These authors designed a set of learning materials and activities who purpose is to guide students towards independent learning by encouraging them to reflect more on ‘what' and ‘how' they learn. Results of the 2003 and 2004 trials showed that the self-assessment schedule had a positive impact on student learning and was at least partially effective in improving students' critical thinking skills.