Chapter 1, page 12
spurts of blood that pass through the arteries and to keep blood traveling upward from falling back into
the heart. If an artificial artery had other ways to serve these functions, it would not need to be elastic. For
instance, if it were made of a strong material that could accommodate pressure spurts without expanding,
and if it had one-way valves to keep the blood from falling back downward, then there would be no need
for the artery to be elastic. Similarly, the question about hardening of arteries can be answered using the
explanation in Figure 1.3c. Hard arteries might be less able to accommodate the spurts, and so they might
burst. Now students can understand why hardened arteries are vulnerable to aneurisms.
On many topics, textbooks stop short of providing adequate explanations. A science textbook may
simply inform students that arteries are thick and elastic, without explaining why. In these instances, the
teacher will need to know the explanation so that she can provide it to students, or she will need to know
how to help students find the explanation on their own. This requires knowledge that goes beyond the
textbook.
Chapter 11 focuses on designing learning environments that promote understanding. In addition,
most of the instructional methods discussed throughout Unit 4 include understanding as a core goal, so we
will be addressing understanding throughout Unit 4.
Self-regulated learning. The past several decades of educational research have affirmed the
importance of a third educational goal: the development of self-regulated learning. Self-regulated learning
is valuable because when students develop the ability to learn and think on their own, they can learn by
themselves inside or outside school, without the teacher’s guidance.
An important kind of knowledge that self-regulated learners have is metacognition.
Metacognition refers to people’s awareness of their own thinking and learning processes. People have
metacognitive competence if they are aware of their own thinking processes, if they use effective strategies
for learning and thinking, and if their awareness of their strategies allows them to make good decisions
about which strategies to use. For example, consider a student (Louis) writing a paper. Louis is aware that
he does not understand his topic very well, so he decides to do some extra reading. He then realizes that he
doesn’t yet have good ideas for how to organize the paper, so decides to spend more time on the
brainstorming and planning phases of writing. These actions show that Louis is aware of his thinking
processes and of different strategies (such as planning and brainstorming) that he can use to succeed in
writing. He deliberately uses his knowledge of his goals and his own thinking processes to choose the
strategies that he will use next. Through these actions, Louis demonstrates a high degree of metacognitive
competence. His metacognitive competence allows him to set his own goals and work out how to achieve
these goals and to regulate his own learning.
Ineffective learners often use ineffective learning strategies. Teachers can help students become
more effective learners and problem solvers if they help students learn to use more effective strategies.
Therefore, it is important for teachers to be able to teach students more effective strategies so that they can
become self-regulated learners.
Let’s look at an example of a teacher who focuses on self-regulated learning as a core
instructional goal. This teacher is leading a small-group discussion about a text that the students have
read. The teacher and the students are discussing the text-comprehension strategies that they can use to be
self-regulated learners ( ref ). The transcript of the discussion is on the left; my analysis is on the
right.
Teacher: I’m noticing that, instead of being passive, lots of people
are taking control of their learning. Nicole, would you be
willing to share what happened when you called me over
while you were reading?
The teacher prompts Nicole to
discuss her strategy use.Nicole: Sure. I couldn’t understand this description on page 104. I
tried summarizing in my head, but I couldn’t figure it out. I
read it again and tried to picture it, but it was no use.
Nicole shows that she is aware
of the strategies she is using.