Metacognition: The Key to Acing Chemistry by Dr. McGuire

Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire is the Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success and retired Assistant Vice Chancellor and Professor of Chemistry at LSU. Prior to joining LSU, she spent eleven years at Cornell University, where she received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award. She has delivered keynote addresses or presented workshops at over 400 institutions in 46 states and ten countries. Her book, Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, was released in October 2015 and is a Stylus Publishing bestseller. The student version of this book, Teach Yourself How to Learn: Strategies You Can Use to Ace Any Course at Any Level, was released in January 2018.

Let’s watch her seminar about Metacognition: The Key to Acing Chemistry.  As an educator, I found her her teaching tips were very useful for teachers and students.  Let’s Ace the next exam!

Initial Post

1. Watch Metacognition: The Key to Acing Chemistry (44:50)
2.  

Respond to this discussion prompt by Tuesday 11:59 pm. Instead of seeing everyone’s responses, I change this one to a smaller group discussion so that you don’t have to scroll down too much and have a better small group interactions.  Select the Reply box and write a paragraph for each of the following questions:

1. You will report on something good that happened to you, or an accomplishment of yours from the last 5-7 days. It doesn’t have to be chemistry or science or even school-related. Please keep it appropriate!
2. In your opinion, what’s the difference, if any, between studying chemistry and learning chemistry?
3. In “How to Get the Most Out of Homework”, what study technique(s) from your previously watched videos was Professor McGuire suggesting her audience to implement?
4. Professor McGuire also suggested that students should do the examples in the book (not reading).  Did you do the examples in the book and follow up problems in my lecture slides? 
5. Mistakes made while doing examples or homework are good because ….  
6. Did you have a dedicated (physical or digital) notebook for ALEKS that record all the mistakes you made while solving chemistry problems?  Note: You don’t want to erase your mistakes so you can review your past mistakes for upcoming exams.
7. Learning strategies take times to implement and refine.  The goal of all the weekly study skills videos is to help you become a more ________ learner by studying __________ not necessarily _______________. 
8. In your own words, what’s Metacognition in one sentence?  In the later part of the video, what are some effective metacognitive strategies? 
9. What are the 6 levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy?  In lower division Chemistry or STEM classes, what’s the minimum level of Bloom’s do you need?
10. Professor McGuire introduced Frank Christ’s Study Cycle in the video.  List the 5 processes of the Study Cycle. 
11. Compare you study habit with the Study Cycle, what are the similarities and differences?  How are you going to implement the study cycle to enhance your learning in chemistry and the next exam? 
12. Aim for 100% Mastery and be as meticulous as you can during the problem solving.  As UCLA Legendary Men’s Basketball Coach John Wooden said, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”  Did you relearn all the ALEKS topics that you forgot or did not do after your ALEKS knowledge check?
13. Have you met with our free CAS Chemistry tutors this semester yet?  They all did very well in general chemistry before they become a CAS tutor.   
14. What metacognitive strategies will you use for the next 4 weeks?  As Dr. McGuire said, “If you don’t try it in within the next 48 hours, you probably never will.”
15. Post your notes for the chapter of acids and bases.   

Reply

By Friday night at 11:59 pm, please reply to at least two of our classmates’ posts with ideas or suggestions as feedback by doing two of the following: 

1. You will share your reaction / emotional response to the poster’s good news, and/or ask follow-up question(s).
2. Provide specific feedback about their lecture notes.  Are all the important concepts there?  If you think your group member(s) missed a key point, please let them know.  After reviewing your classmates’ notes, is there anything that you would like to apply for your own note-taking?     
3. Provide specific feedback about your classmates’ plans to implement the techniques in this discussion.
4. Ask a probing or clarifying question in response to one (or more) of your colleagues’ posts, or
5. Describe a different technique that you have used.