Week 2 Post: Metacognition and Apprenticeship as Pathways to Learning

Let me first say that I enjoy the Wittgenstein (pictured below) quote that Martinez employs in the first paragraph. Wittgenstein wrote parts of his only book in the trenches of World War One. This leaves us with next to no excuses in completing our work. He also thought that nothing in the material world is real so I guess we've got that on him. 

I am a fan of Martinez’ definition of metacognition. ‘Thinking about thinking’ seems vague and uninstructive in comparison. By saying we 'monitor and control' thought, it reflects more accurately our desire to be our own advocates in the learning process. Metacomprehension and the ability to realize whether one understands a concept or not seems invaluable to me. I read things that go way over my head all the time (Foucault). Once I recognize this, I know that I can take a few steps back in order to gain an understanding of more complex material in the future. This is important. Had I misjudged my own comprehension, I would build a house on top of a swamp of misguided ideas. This reminds me of what John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) has to say about creativity. He says that the lack of ability to do a thing well also means a lack of ability to perceive that you cannot do that thing well. It really is a hilarious tragedy, and I don’t sleep sometimes for this reason. We talked about humanizing ourselves in front of our students and I think metacomprehension could be an effective way to do so. More important than intellectual integrity with others is being honest with ourselves as learners. It does no good to fear one’s own incapacity to understand or engage an issue or problem. Martinez’ insistence that metacognition is also an emotional process is on point. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the anxiety that can come with engaging in scholarly work.

However, sometimes it’s not practical to question every single one of our propositions. I know Martinez is using Socrates to encourage a spirit of self-evaluation to avoid illusions, but if you do simply question the grounds of everything you see, my thinking at least quickly escalates into the most basic philosophical questions of what it is to know and to be, which is not helpful to an extent. I found a panel discussion on the role of the historian at UIC as very helpful in this respect. A professor from Yale told everyone “We should be modest about what we know.”  The passage on Vygotsky reminds me of what I have wrote above about recognizing your own intellectual limitations and building from there. We can avoid going down a path ill-equipped if we recognize when we have left our zone of proximal development. 

One point I would add to Martinez’ passage on critical thinking is the importance of using metacognition before you engage in critique. If you don’t feel equipped to criticize a piece of work, it’s a good indicator that you need to recognize your own limitations. One can size up an argument only if one possesses sufficient background knowledge. Sure, you can analyze a text to see if the author’s arguments are consistent and logically sound. But disciplinary knowledge can’t necessarily be sized up using abstract logic. Failure to be cautious with criticism can dig you deeper into a put of illusory knowledge.

The article on apprenticeship strongly asserts the role of social modeling that Vygotsky explicated in his work. Given the mentorship project in our class, modeling is obviously a central component encouraging literacy in ourselves and others. An interesting facet of this apprentice/mentor relationship is that they model not only their methods but also the content of their thinking. This can be helpful and problematic. I know that the way I think about history was profoundly influenced by the classes I took at UIC with Professor Kirk Hoppe. I know little about how he reads texts, but the content of his class has shaped the way I conceptualize the world (world systems analysis). This is lovely. I love the body of historical literature that I’ve been exposed to through those classes. They drastically challenged the ways in which I had previously seen world history and politics. But we cannot allow ourselves to be trapped by our influences. We need to constantly be challenging and revaluating our thought based on new knowledge and accounting for new critical perspectives. This can be a daunting task in the realm of the social sciences but a necessary one.

Pictured: A map depicting core, periphery, and semiperiphery nations in the capitalist world economy

Part 2: The personal dimension presents writing one’s thoughts as a method of engaging with a text. I believe this invaluable. It is easy to have hundreds of fleeting thoughts while we are reading, but “It is only through writing,” said my professor, “that we find out what we really think.” Writing forces you to look at your thoughts head on, so that you can be intellectually honest in the way I described above.  Writing our thoughts prevents us from being wishy-washy and timid in our thought. The ink stays on the paper and it becomes readily apparent how you really think and what you really know. I picture the thoughts I have while reading as a cloud. It is high up, fluffy, spread out, and out of my reach. But when I write down what I think, I rip my abstract thoughts from the sky and I bring them down to the ground, a level where I and others can engage with them.

Another challenge I see in the section Changing Classroom Practice is still the coverage of all the required content for standardized tests and the like. A lesson can be slowed down in order to model metacognitive practices for students as well as have them engage in summarizing and challenging the reading together. Perhaps the preferred pace that encourages the most deep learning will not be able to be sustained for every lesson. However this does present an opportunity for students to exercise choice. Which areas of the curriculum should be approached in a slower, more critical way? Let students decide which is the most important. This will encourage debate on which topics should be analyzed most thoroughly and which can be read less carefully. Giving students a chance to voice their opinions on the value of certain material over others will make the construction of the course itself important to them.