The Engineer’s story: Check your resources.

The most obvious metacognitive resources for homework are generally in the class of learning and memory. A supporting category is motivation, goal setting, and engineering the job.

A common homework task is to take in content knowledge about some small instructional unit and prepare some product that demonstrates effective “understanding” of the content. Understanding is instructionally defined here; in practice, it means that the child becomes able to respond to questions presented by some part of the instructional system.

Here are some Thinkerer pages that may be useful in this context.
Memory Sparks: http://thinkerer.org/Cuepons/CueMemory.htm
Memory tools: http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsMemory.htm
Memory Clipit: http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsMemPage.htm
Memory methods (the 4 doors): http://thinkerer.org/Tools/Tools4DoorMemory.htm
Imagery: http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsImagery.htm

The memory sparks (Cuepons) carry suggestions in card format. We might make up a new set specifically designed for parents to use with children. We might also bring in some characters from the Head Staff.
Head Staff: http://thinkerer.org/HeadOffice/HOffIntro.htm
Characters relevant to homework are:

Hunters: How will you know when you’ve won this game today? How will you know when you have won this game tomorrow?

Engineers: What memory doors will work best for finding the answers you are going to need? What memory tricks might be useful?

Storyboarders: What kind of story can you tell about this topic? What pictures can you see in your head?

Networkers: Connect what you are learning to other things you know: Things you learned earlier in class. Things you learned last year. Things you know from outside of class.

Empaths: How will other people feel about this topic? How do you feel about it? How would you tell other people about this topic?

Learning power-packs: Cooperative learning, cooperation scripts, structured maps, Galton’s walk (fits well with processes and structured maps), mnemonic naming. There are relevant materials on the TCU site. See booklets (pdf) on memory and thought teams: http://www.psy.tcu.edu/acr/skills.htm

Comprehension in general

A little Vulcanization:
I take it that comprehension, in general, is demonstrated by performances such as:

1. Vocabulary: Subject uses relevant terms correctly in conversation.
2. Recall: Subject can correctly answer questions that call for information in the presentation.
3. Inference: Subject can make reasonable inferences derived from, but not included in, the presentation.

I think this list is complete taxonomy at the top level of abstraction. I think we know how to measure these performances in any give instructional case. I think we also foster these abilities.

I take it that instruction, in general, has two major goals: 1. Development of content relevant skills. 2. Development of metacognitive skills. Metacognitive skills support generalized applications and may be specific to some domain that includes the original content. I don’t think we have a good taxonomy of metacognitive skills. But we can probably identify major metacognitive skills in grade and middle school education.

Here is an initial taxonomy of methods (not explicitly limited to reading as input.)

Acquisition methods: span of attention, controlling input, chunking and chunk selection, content selection, engagement of processes, spaced learning, cue selection, mnemonic tricks, similes, metaphors, imagery, dramatization. Other methods may be found under terms such and memory or cooperative learning. (Note that parent helping child is a for of cooperative learning.)

Rehearsal methods: spaced practice, cues for practice, cue differentiation, multi-modal practice, generalization by simile, timing of rehearsal.

Production methods: questioning, use of methods matching acquisition and memory, selecting level of abstraction, production tricks.

System integration: Coordination of methods to match production objectives.

Other taxonomies may also be useful: A taxonomy based on production objectives might be of interest, although the initial planning of the instruction (by the educational system) may have already adjusted for that. A taxonomy based on skills will probably be in interest to us if we can produce a small and credible taxonomy. Perhaps we could get some use from a task analysis of reading comprehension.

Starting

I called up my Startalittle, who suggested:

1. Make a plan in your head of how you will do the job.
2. Make a list of several things you will need to do at the beginning.
3. Collect ideas about how other people do a job like this.

My Explorer liked the third item and wanted to start with a search of the web. A Google search on parent guide help homework 4th grade got a thousands of results. I found some well-organized sites with content-specific material. The material looked useful. It included reasonable suggestions about games and other activities. (Un: It also looked like a lot of work.)

My impression at this point is that a parent could find plenty of content-specific material. On the other hand, parents would not easily find help on the development of metacognitive skills presented in the Thinkerer.
To narrow down the search, I limited it to .org and added the terms: “cognitive psychology” “study skills” strategy. I also did a search though research materials with Google scholar, using the same terms.
Perhaps the most strongly related item I found was

http://www.seameo-innotech.org/training/compete/higher%20thinking%20skills.pdf
This is a 46 page document that appears to be an instructional module for teacher education.
Title: Higher Thinking Skills
Objectives: After studying this module, you should be able to:
• analyze and explain your thinking process;
• demonstrate curiosity and inquisitiveness in your daily life;
• identify, analyze and find solutions to problems and issues using critical and creative thinking;
and
• practice independent thinking and action.

I found other material for teachers that is supposed to improve their thinking skills, apparently with the expectation that they will transfer some of those skills to their students. I also found an instructional system with classroom materials that has objectives:

Enhancement of learning and thinking skills by correction of specific deficient cognitive and metacognitive functions to increase achievement.
Enhancement of self-concept and intrinsic motivation to learn and solve problems.
http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/ie/hur.htm

More search is needed, but my impression is that parents would not easily find help in fostering metacognitive objectives. An obvious and standard metacognitive objective is reading comprehension. I will have to do some further searching to see what is available for parents on this topic. But I think it will be useful to look into the metacognition of reading comprehension and the tools that exist or might be developed to help parents.

Objective

The goal of this blog is to support the development of material that ties principles from the Thinkerer to methods for helping parents work with their children on homework. The primary focus would be on ages 10 to 12 at present.

Since the Thinkerer presents common skills of cognition and learning, the main difference between a child and an adult is the stage of development. An associated issue, in the case of homework, is that the objectives of the activity may include the development of these common skills.

I don’t expect much public interest in this blog, since it will be developing ideas rather than presenting finished work. Any finished work that comes out of it will appear on the Thinkerer site. But I am leaving it public and open for comment in case somebody has an interest.