by Bailey Larson
THROUGHOUT THEIR TIME AT PREP, students are exposed to myriad pedagogies. They work individually and in groups; they study concepts incrementally and cumulatively; they work with their hands and contemplate in their heads; and they create their own coursework in independent studies.
Faculty members develop teaching styles that fit their personalities and the needs of their students, and approaches vary from class to class. But every now and then, Prep teachers stop and take time to ask their students to pause and reflect about what they’re learning, how they’re learning and whether it’s working for them.
Moments of metacognition are purposefully worked in throughout Prep’s academic and human development curriculum, meant to give students an opportunity to learn how they learn.
Dean of Studies Sarah Cooper says such pauses allow students to both solidify and contemplate what they’ve learned.
“If you are just having information given to you all day without having time to reflect on it, it doesn’t coalesce in your brain as well,” she says. “It doesn’t allow you to make connections between the learning you’re doing in one class and in another, and it doesn’t allow you to apply that learning to the rest of your life.”
Cooper sites Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, which reads, “The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to your prior knowledge, the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later.”
In the Performing Arts Department, Jon Murray works metacognition throughout his music curriculum. Sure, he has to teach students the technical side of playing an instrument, but it can’t end there. He talks to students not just about the notes and the keys, but also about how their individual instruments’ sounds fit into a larger piece of music. He has to teach them to have an awareness of their own thought process and how that fits into the group. When students grasp this concept, he says there’s an aha moment.
“They’ll start to talk about what they’re doing and show signs of curiosity about their place in the larger ensemble,” he says. “Then they’re more locked into the process.”
In 9th grade English, as each semester comes to a close, the students are required to create a writing portfolio. The students choose samples from their work throughout the semester that represent progress. They revisit journal entries, essays and other assignments to see where they’ve been and how they’ve evolved as writers. They hone and edit the pieces and assemble a final portfolio.
Cole Slater ’18 says the process was initially frustrating, as it was hard to return to and improve on work he completed early in the year. But seeing how he had evolved in his ability to express himself on paper was well worth the frustration.
Alana Weiss ’18 agrees. “I can see the change,” she says. “I can see how I’ve grown as a writer.”
Ninth grade English teachers Dr. Tyke O’Brien and Jodie Hare, along with former teacher Mike Miley, adopted the portfolio review process three years ago. When submitting their work, the students must also include a letter that details why they chose the pieces, what their challenges were in writing them and how the revision process affected the pieces.
“I was shocked at how honest the students were and how seriously they took the writing and reflection, as such seriousness was not always evident in the actual in-class revision process,” Hare says. “The letters are honest, engaging and heart-warming.”
Metacognition pops up throughout Prep’s curriculum, through math test corrections and art class critiques, when students review their labs in science class and when they study for exams in world languages. Cooper says these moments help students discover new ways to embed information into their brains and their lives, valuable skills for their continuing intellectual journeys.