Supporting Metacognitive Development in Early Science Education: Exploring Elementary Teachers' Beliefs and Practices in Metacognition

Metacognition is the understanding and control of cognitive processes. Students with high levels of metacognition achieve greater academic success. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine elementary teachers’ beliefs about metacognition and integration of metacognitive practices in science. Forty-four teachers were recruited through professional networks to complete a questionnaire containing open-ended questions (n = 44) and Likert-type items (n = 41). Five respondents were selected to complete semi-structured interviews informed by the questionnaire. The selected interview participants had a minimum of three years teaching experience and demonstrated a conceptual understanding of metacognition. Statistical tests (Pearson correlation, t-tests, and multiple regression) on quantitative data and thematic analysis of qualitative data indicated that teachers largely understood metacognition but had some gaps in their understanding. Participants’ reported actions (teaching practices) and beliefs differed according to their years of experience but not gender. Hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated that the first block of gender and experience was not a significant predictor of teachers' metacognitive actions, although experience was a significant predictor by itself. Experience was not a significant predictor once teachers' beliefs were added. The majority of participants indicated that metacognition was indeed appropriate for elementary students. Participants consistently reiterated that students’ metacognition developed with practice, but required explicit instruction. A lack of consensus remained around the domain specificity of metacognition. More specifically, the majority of questionnaire respondents indicated that metacognitive strategies could not be used across subject domains, whereas all interviewees indicated that they used strategies across subjects. Metacognition was integrated frequently into Ontario elementary classrooms; however, metacognition was integrated less frequently in science lessons. Lastly, participants used a variety of techniques to integrate metacognition into their classrooms. Implications for practice include the need for more professional development aimed at integrating metacognition into science lessons at both the Primary and Junior levels. Further, teachers could benefit from additional clarification on the three main components of metacognition and the need to integrate all three to successfully develop students’ metacognition.

WAKING (TO) THINKING BEING: A STUDY OF EDUCATION, METAPHYSICS, MIND, AND LANGUAGE

This dissertation articulates the basic aims and achievements of education. It recognizes language as central to thinking, and philosophy and education as belonging profoundly to one another. The first step is to show that although philosophy can no longer claim to dictate the foundations of knowledge or of disciplines of inquiry, it still offers an exceptionally general level of self-understanding. Education is equally general and faces a similar crisis of self-identity, of coming to terms with reality. Language is the medium of thought and the repository of historical mind; so a child’s acquisition of language is her acquisition of rational freedom. This marks a metaphysical change: no longer merely an animal, she comes to exercise her powers of rationality, transcending her environment by seeking and expressing reasons for thinking and doing. She can think about herself in relation to the universe, hence philosophize and educate others in turn. The discussion then turns to the historical nature of language. The thinking already embedded in language always anticipates further questioning. Etymology serves as a model for philosophical understanding, and demonstrates how philosophy can continue to yield insights that are fundamental, but not foundational, to human life. The etymologies of some basic educational concepts disclose education as a leading out and into the midst of Being. The philosophical approach developed in previous chapters applies to the very idea of an educational aim. Discussion concerning the substantiality of educational ideals results in an impasse: one side recommends an open-­ended understanding of education’s aims; the other insists on a definitive account. However, educational ideals exhibit a conceptual duality: the fundamental achievements of education, such as rational freedom, are real; but how we should understand them remains an open question. The penultimate chapter investigates philosophical thinking as the fulfillment of rational freedom, whose creative insights can profoundly transform our everyday activities. That this transformative self-understanding is without end suggests the basic aims of education are unheimlich. The dissertation concludes with speculative reflection on the shape and nature of language, and with the suggestion that through education reality awakens to itself.