Helping Students Learn to Learn Cultivating Lifelong Learners by :

1. Helping Students Learn to LearnCultivating Lifelong Learnersby: Engaging Students in Reflecting in & on their Learning Process

2. Focus of this session • Objective:Cultivating lifelong learnersHelping students learn to learn (a) from academic subjects, and (b) in lifelong learning(a) & (b) are closely related – two in one • Strategy proposed: Engaging students in Reflecting in & on their learning process

3. PolyU Strategic Objective 1 • To enhance the all-round development of students, particularly in the areas of global outlook, critical and creative thinking, social and national responsibility, cultural appreciation, life-long learning, biliterarcy and trilingualism, entrepreneurship and leadership.

4. Strategic Action (see p.11)

5. What is lifelong learning?Is it different from learning in university?

6. Learning in professional practice Schön (1983) The Reflective Practitioner Professionals face messy problems which require • Reflection-in-Action (or learning by doing) • Reflection-on-Action Effectiveness in such reflections affects performance & continual professional development of a professional

7. Reflection-in-Action Professionals think about what they are doing, e.g.: • What features do I notice when I recognise this thing? • What are the criteria by which I make this judgement? • What procedures am I enacting when I perform this skill? • How am I framing the problem that I am trying to solve?

8. Reflection-on-Action Professionals sometimes reflect on their practice, e.g. • think back on a project they have undertaken, • think back on a situation they have lived through • explore the understandings they have brought to their handling of the case

9. Developing abilities for lifelong learning throughout the professional career by enhancing the abilities for reflection in the process of learning reflection on the process of learning

10. Learning in professional courses Schön (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner Professional education should be centred on enhancing the practitioner's ability for 'reflection-in-action'

11. Developing abilities for learning in professional courses by enhancing the abilities for reflection in the process of learning reflection on the process of learning

12. Metacognition as a highly reflective process What is metacognition? • Awareness / knowledge of what cognition (learning) is • Abilities to control cognition (learning), i.e.,the attitude & habits that support and drives learning Key operations in metacognition (control of learning) • Planning your learning • Monitoring your learning • Assessing your learning A self-reflection process

13. Developing Lifelong Learning Abilities at 2 Levels

14. Easy methods for engaging students in reflecting in / on their learning process • 3-column table for reflective questioning • Question asking guide • Building of knowledge worksheet • 3-step thinking worksheet • Pattern detector • Think of your thinking worksheet • Two person instruction • O diagram for experiments • Vee diagram

15. Reflecting on the process of learning-Reflective Learning Journal Functions • A tool for engaging students in metacognitive reflection on their process of learning • A record of the metacognitive development of students (for both student's and teacher's reference)

16. Reflective Learning Journal – How should it look like ?? Format and structure • Can be unstructured, just a blank note book • Can be structured with guiding questions(see examples of guiding questions in the 'bank')

17. Questions Prompt Bank • A pool of guiding questions to help your students to adopt the right approach of reflection • Banks for tapping different component of Metacognition: • Awareness • Monitoring, Controlling, Planning • Evaluating and Assessing • Sub-categories within the component • Cognitive vs Affective type of questions

18. Reflective thinking questions bank (a) • Awareness in learning • Awareness of the meaning of the knowledge learnt • Awareness of oneself as a learner • Awareness o the standards & requirements of the learning task

19. Reflective thinking questions bank (b) • Monitoring and Controlling in the process of learning • Monitoring learning progress • Difficulties encountered during the learning process • Execution of plans & strategies

20. Reflective thinking questions bank (c) • Evaluating learning • Evaluation of the overall learning experience • Cognitive abilities acquired through the process of learning • Evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive strategies employed • Subjective evaluation of one's performance • Self-evaluated strengths and weaknesses

21. Student Guide • What’s in it? • Nature, objectives, tips, specific tips • Why need it? • Reflective journal writing is novel to many students, i.e. they’ll need support and guidelines as well as reasons to do it.

22. Writing reflective journal –students' opinions • Yes, journal writing will make a difference … It stimulates me to think about what I have learnt. • I found that journal writing helped me to think after the visits… to think about and organise the feelings and ideas.

23. The Learning to Learn website • http://megaweb.polyu.edu.hk/kenneth/L2L/teachersite03a/frontpage/frontpage.htm

24. Future efforts on Helping students Learn to Learn Proposal for a second learning to learn project (funding to be approved) Developing a Curriculum Integration Approach to Enhancing Learning Abilities andCultivating a Life-long Learning Culture for a Knowledge based Economy

25. I would like to use these prompt questions for my subject