The Final Blog -The Metacognitive Process - the gift that keeps on giving

The blog assignment was an interesting insight into my meta-cognitive skills and processes. Reading has always been a major part and necessity of my life. Whether for comprehension, knowledge, communicating or pleasure my meta-cognitive process has become fined tuned and subconscious over time. This exercise actually allowed me to slow down and re-analyze how I read text. It was like going back and retracing the first time I rode a bike or learned to drive. It was refreshing to peel back the onion and watch my mind at work. I always knew when I was reading I was executing a strategy for reading text, but didn’t realize the strategy was universal or had a methodology attached to it or was something to share. 

Examining the five meta-cognitive processes (predicting, picturing, making connection, identifying a problem and fixups), I have become aware of how I choose and emphasize which process I engage based on the type of text I am reading. Watching my mind at work I realized my meta-cognitive processes are in parallel with reading text. For instance, the first blog assignment required me to read text from my content area of math. I used the text “Aspects of Children’s Math Anxiety” for this blog assignment. I noticed with this type of text emphasized the meta-cognitive processes of making connections, identifying problems and “fixups”. When reading the text from my blog partner which was a fictional short story (Welcome to the Monkey House – Who Am I This Time) I noticed I emphasized the meta-cognitive processes of picturing, predicting and making connections.  

Reading text of nonfiction (math or science) makes me use lots of “fixup” skills. When I could not understand how a mathematical process called “orthogonal matrix” was performed, I immediately went to google to find out about it. At the same time I did a little flashback and asked myself what did I do before the internet? I use to lookup stuff in the home encyclopedia, or stayed after class and ask the teacher. The meta-cognitive skill of “fixup” reminded me a lot of how as young students in high school and college we would go to our teachers or professors or ask our fellow students for help. Help was an interpersonal skill and a lot more bonding of knowledge and friendships was going on back then. I am also more critical and I am more aware of contradictions in text when reading nonfiction. I use the meta-cognitive process identifying a problem. For instance, when the math text stated “two items were excluded form the study; “doing math and sums in general” and “division with big numbers”, I found this problematic. It was confusing and contradictory? It raises the question then what aspects of mathematics were used as part of the study?    

Reading nonfiction (the second blog) is different. It is the type of read where picturing and making connections creates imagination for me. Thoughts of characters, situations and experiences are all pulled from the mind and come into play. I become one with the text. I try to put myself in the text wherever I can. It is where I have fun. I like making connections with characters with people I know or even aspects of my own life. For instance when the description of Harry Nash as “huge, handsome, conceited and cruel”. He reminds me of so many people I have known or met in my life. I am able to put a face to him right away. Or, the beautiful girl behind the counter of the phone company. It is rich with detail; “her blue eyes, comparing her to a machine, numb, wondering if she was interested in anything at all”. How many times have I seen that girl behind the proverbial counter of life and have imaged her as a bit player in the “play” of life. I was able to put a face on her immediately. I think I knew her once. The only time I may use fixups in nonfiction is for “who done its” or science fiction. That is the only time I want to get the facts? straight.    

As I acknowledged my meta-cognitive process I realized I had introduced  a 6^th process over the years which I like to refer to as my 3D meta-cognitive process. This is the process where after reading text I compliment the text with a physical experience to bring the text to life. For instance, in the “auto bio post”, I blogged about reading to my children “The Night Before Christmas” from the Golden Book series. The way I made this a 3D meta-cognitive process was to take my children to “Fairy Tale Forest” in New Jersey at Christmas time to actually see Christmas storybook villages set up to the Night Before Christmas. Another 3D meta-cognitive experience I had was after reading novels by Ernest Hemingway, I took a trip to Key West Florida to actually visit his home which is a tourist attraction and view the artifacts and walk in his footsteps to envision his story telling. One last 3D experience I connected with was visiting the Mexican Aztec ruins at Chichen Itza. This 3D experience came about from my interest in the Mayan culture after reading text about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world on December 21, 2012.  

But of all the meta-cognitive skills, processes and methodologies I have re-learned and recalled from this class, the one meta-cognitive process that I remember and always surfaces in my thoughts whenever I read is the vision of when I was a small boy and my mom would read to me. I just didn’t know back then the ground work was being laid for what I have now learned are meta-cognitive processes. I believe well developed meta-cognitive processes are a well balanced combination of mind (knowledge), body (communication)and soul (nurturing).     

Welcome to The Monkey House – Who am I This Time – a race to the finish line

I finished the text. I have to admit I ran through the words as fast as I could to get to the end. I didn’t think too much about the final text. The words just flew by. I was in anticipation of the ending. When I read fiction I love to go in fast forward towards the end of the story. I try to get a “readers” adrenaline rush. I’ll save all my metacognitive processes for later, after the end. Too anxious to get to the ending. It exhilarates. I get to block out everything going around me. I can’t wait to get to the ending. The “who done it” is the best part. I can’t wait to get to the punch line. Exactly why was this short story called “Who Am I This Time” Well know I know!

The story was about actors being actors and living both their acting lives and real lives as actors. Don’t we all do that? How many different rolls do we play in life and have a wide range of acting leeway. I’m not saying we live our lives as phonies or are deceitful but we have a lot of opportunity to play many parts and many roles in life to many people. 

Now, at the end is when all my metacognitive processes kick in. Lets see, I’ll start with predicting. Of course I knew the two lead characters of the play (Helen and Harry) were getting caught between their acting world and their real world attraction for each other. They couldn’t separate the two.  I make connections with my own personal relationships driven by drama and emotion and real life settings. I got visions of the “Graduate” when in the last scene of the movie we see Benjamin and Elaine sitting in the back of the bus with those smiles on their faces. What were those smiles about?

It’s like they just got something they wanted but don’t know what to do with it, just like Helen and Harry. I can’t help to think be careful for what you wish for. I had no time for fixups, unless I didn’t understand the ending. I had no problems. I flew over the words so fast it didn’t matter if the words were my words or the words from the book. This is when I become the story and the story becomes me. I didn’t have to think that hard. Isn’t reading fun, when it doesn’t require a test. Maybe that’s why students don’t like to read. Maybe some where along the way we invaded and infringed on their imagination. We are always telling them how to read.

Welcome to the monkey house – who am I this time – installment 2 personalizing the text.

This is the second 1/3 of the text. I am more comfortable reading than the first 1/3. I took my parochial metacognitive analysis and threw it into the wind and instead I am using my self-defined metacognitive skills.  I am gong to have some fun with this text tonight.

The first metacognitive skill I like to use is what I call “bringing the text down to my level”. This is a unique technique I use to personalize the text and helps me to sink it in to my mind. For instance on p 19 of the text, it talks abut how Helen Shaw had “come out for the tryouts and couldn’t act for sour apples”. I like to personalize the text and will whimsically read the text as “couldn’t act for s#*t”. It makes a small connection in mind and personalizes the scene, the quote and the character. Not quite sure what this metacognitive skill is (or if it is a real one at all), maybe it is a form of “fixup”.

Another of my other unique metacognitive skill I like to use is the “the universal moment”. These are the lines I take special notice of to anchor the text to a defining moment or sync point. For instance on p20 the text is talking about trying to find another Stella character (Street Car Named Desire) as auditions for the part continues. The line talks about love and goes something like this, “that’s life I guess, 20 Blanches to one Stella. And when you find Stella she doesn’t know what love is.” The line speaks volumes. How universal. The text continues into unrequited love. Something we have all witnessed in life. This is what fiction is all about. Twisting what we have experienced into a universal experience. Something we can all relate to. Ok that sounds like the metacognitive skill “making connections”.

How about the metacognitive skill of “the arrival or the ah ah moment”. On p 23 the text talks about how Helen Shaw “wasn’t in a bottle anymore. There wasn’t any bottle to hold her up and keep her safe and clean”. This is an “arrival moment” that started on page 21 when Helen talks about living her life in a big bottle, not being able to touch. C’mon when we started reading the text on p 21 we all knew that Helen was going to come out of her “bottle”. Ok that sounds like the metacognitive skill “predicting”.  

Hmmm, so maybe I have been using metacognitive skills all along. I just have been calling them something else.       

MetaCognitive Reading – Welcome to the Monkey House – First Reading - Reads like butter.

My first installment reading of Welcome to the monkey house, Who am I, reads like butter. This is the type of text I just fly through. This text creates no problem for me. I just accept what I read and don’t question. My metacognitive strategy for reading fiction, novels, plays, short stores is diferent than my metacognitive strategy for reading nonfiction. Fiction is suppose to be all imagery; let the imagination run free, have fun, relate all experiences to my own. This is the type of text I take on vacation, read in my backyard in the summer, take to the park, read on the plane, curl up to and use to escape. Better than a movie, my favorite TV show or the internet. It is all me when I read. I emerse in the text. Which character am I?

I love the imagery of the beautiful girl behind the counter of the phone company P16&17. It is rich with detail; “her blue eyes, comparing her to a machine, numb, wondering if she was interested in anything at all”. How many times have we seen that girl behind the proverbial counter of life and have casted her as a bit player in our own proverbial “play” of life. I was able to put a face on her immediately. I think I knew her once. I use picturing and connections.

How about my actor friend, Harry Nash p18. He reminds me of so many people I have known or met in my life. He was “huge, handsome, conceited and cruel”. He too I was able to put a face to right away. I think he dates one of my lady friends. Me and my girl friend laugh.

This type of text I read with a different metacognitive strategy than nonfiction text; I use picturing and making connections. There are no fixups, problems, or predicting going on in this metacogintve process of mine. No googling required, maybe an occasional word to lookup (fixup) but then again most text is written for the average reader, all the words are familiar to me. Re-Reads? Did I miss a detail in my canvass?. Predicting is a “no no”; why spoil the ending or second guess myself. Its time to give the mind a rest and let it be playful. The text just roles off my lips. I am busy and mindful making connections, recalling experiences and relishing in the imagery in full color. To me this type of text is what reading is all about; effortless, inviting, calming, filled with emotion and making new literary friends through characters. Whatever I was feeling or was experiencing before reading the text, just got tuned out. Best medicine in the world.

Another journey through self-awareness.. who am I.. reads like a hot knife thru better...effortlessly

Math Anxiety MetaCognitive Processing (decompressing) - How I learned to ride my bike - the third time is the charm.

The third part of the text attempts to interpret the results of the math anxiety questionnaire. This part is about as confusing as text can get because of the exceptions and conditions around the interpreted results which is common in these types of readings. I already have a “template” of meta-cognitive strategy that I developed over the years. In this blog I am attempting to step back and observe what metacognitive skills I used to develop my “template”. They say the third time is the charm.

On page 61, the text states that questionnaire responses were scored 1 to 3, where 1 was the least anxious. The dimensionality of the math anxiety scores were analyzed using factor analysis. I do not know what the factor analysis is but the next pararaph seems to expand on that by saying that two items were excluded form the analysis; “doing math and sums in general” and “division with big numbers”. I found this confusing because essentially isn’t that what math is? Decompressing I refer to this as my "what the #!%?" metacognitive strategy. I guess I am using the“identifying a problem” meta-cognitive skill. Anyway not agonizing over it  I do a quick “re-read” just to make sure I read the word "excluded" correctly and re-read the sentence structure to make sure I read it correctly (adverbs, nouns and adjectives all read in the right order). I just push forward with the next sentence, not judging or belaboring. I guess this is an example of “fix-up”. A rose by any other name….

On page 63 the text starts to talk about “principal component analysis”, of which I had no idea what they were talking about. Here comes my meta-cognitive strategy. A quick look on google tells me it is referred to as PCA, an “orthogonal matrix”.  Wow, now I know another acronym PCA. I can say PCA and sound like I know what I am talking about. Boy, do I love math. Now don’t get me wrong I'm no Einstein (far from it) I still dont know what the article is talking about. I have now  entered that world of math that everyone cringes and gets headaches and runs away. I just do the next google search for “orthogonal matrix”. Thank god for wikipedia. Now it tells me it is nothing more than matrix manipulation of numbers. Now this is where I stop looking. I have found my connection. It did not take me long. Two searches on google until I hit familiar territory and envision matrix manipulation. I made a visual connection to PCA that I understand. Now I get the picture….

Matrix manipulation
                       | 1  2  3 |                                | 1  2 |
   matrix a      | 4  5  6 | times  matrix b      | 3  4 |
                                                                     | 5  6 |
Do I need to understand everything about “principal component analysis”. No! My 80/20 rule works just fine. I just need to get a simple picture of matrix manipulation of numbers to remove nagging questions in my mind about what “principal component analysis” is, and move on to read fresh text. Hmm.. I guess I am using “making connections” and “picturing”. 

On page 67, the article mentions, unidimensional, dimensional and multidimensional anxietiety factors (ie, testing, social, cultural, language, Can-Do schools vs Non-Do schools), but does not elaborate on their impact on the study. I call this my “nice to know” meta-cognitive strategy. I don’t belabor it. I just tuck it away in the back of my mind. I guess this is my version of using a “fix-up” (read on, persevere in some other way)’  

Finally the conclusions of math anxiety ( p68), this is really what the article is all about. The conclusion states a traditional approach to teaching math caused more anxiety than an alternative approach to teaching math. The alternative approach emphasizes that working in groups helps support social norms which enables pupils to express their ideas without risk of embarrassment or humiliation. No surprises here. This pretty much is the outcome I expected. Sounds like the metacognitive strategy “predicting” to me.

Interesting, I was able to decompress and re-step how I rode my first bike.

Now I see the light...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRtAJy2nFVM
          

MetaCognitive 2nd third text Math Anxiety

The second/third of the reading text for “Childrens Mathematical Anxiety” continues with discussing the framework and methodology that will be used in the “Mathematics Anxiety Questionaire”.  The text deals with characterizing teaching approaches. The text talks about traditional (pupils are taught standard pencil-and-paper methods of computation taught by the teacher followed by individual practice) and alternative (pupils use and discuss their own strategies to solve routine and non-routine problems using small groups) approaches. The article goes further to discuss math classroom observation strategies and in particular four categories that wil be used (Context, Teaching Organization, Verbal Interaction Analysis and Cognitive Level).

The readings now are not so much about math, but are about the actual classroom implementation and strategy of using a questionnaire to determine and understand “anxiety” outcomes. This is the part of math that interests me the most because it factors in two very important motivators for me (remember motivators from my first 1/3 of text reading?). The first motivator satisfies my need to be an “arm-chair” psychiatrist observing human behavior and the second motivator to apply math (in this case statistics) to a tangible and real world application.

I have to admit the readings now are quite intense for two reasons. One is now I am more aware of metacognitive skills and I find that I am crowding my mind with a lot of noise over analyzing how I am reading text. I was better off when my process for reading text was automatic and second nature and I was engaging my metacognitive skills subconciously in the background.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss. The second factor that added to the intensity of the reading was that the observations themselves become “mathematical anxiety” issues because the observations are dependent on the pupils skills and the size of the student populations observed. Here is where the reading gets tough. There is lots of room for interpretation that is going on in my mind so I draw upon experiences and familiarities to navigate me through muddy waters. It is with these type of readings that I use the 80/20 rule. That is I will pick up most of the information being presented (80%) by absorbing 20% of the reading. I may go back and re-read but only if I know what I need to re-read for. Most of the time my 80/20 rule approach works. I donot get anxious if I donot get or understand everything. I’ve learned over the years to be kind to myself; no need to beat myself up. No one is an expert or perfect the first time around when learning or reading something new.           

EDS654 Metacognitive text reading

The text I chose to use for this assignment is an article called “Aspects of Children’s Mathematics Anxiety” by Karen Newstead. The article basically tries to give some understanding and rational to a topic referred to as ‘mathematical anxiety’ that has received considerable attention among researchers and mathematic educators in recent years.

With that said, there are two reasons why I chose this article. The first is that I am very curious when I teach math to understand the “phobia” that students display. The second reason I chose this article is that I enjoy being an armchair psychologist and attempt to understand the inner working of the mind. Because of the reasons why I chose this article I read this text a certain way. I read the text primarily picturing and making connections. Keep in mind the approach I used to read this text may be totally different than an approach I may take to read a different text or a text I donot enjoy or content I donot understand.

The first 8 pages of the text talks about “facilitative” and “deliberative” types of anxiety experienced by young adolescent in the classroom and their teachers experiences. I can easily envision the students’ anxious faces and distant stares in a typical math classroom setting and the teachers’ puzzlement trying to get the material across to the student. I can see the anxiety of the student and the quietness of the classroom for those questions that need to be surfaced but are afraid to be asked. I can also very easily picture myself as both the student and the teacher of math to round out the experience of anxiety from both ends.

This type of metacognitive content area reading makes me comfortable, engaged and personalized with the reading experience. It makes the reading playful, entertaining and very insightful. I connect very easily and pictures surface in my mind constantly. This is truly one of those reading moments when mental pictures are worth a thousand words. It easy to grasp what is being read. I literally have conversations in my mind alongside of the reading. My metacognitive experience with this text was exploding with sight, sound and imagination.