Alternatives to Art of Argument; talking about Metacognition

[Chrysalis Academy]

It's so true.  we had such an interesting experience watching Cosmos - Neil deGrasse Tyson is obviously not a big fan of religious dogma dominating science, and a big praiser of the scientific method.  But, in almost every episode, he talks about a scientist - who was persecuted by other scientists, by the scientific community of that time - for their new/non-orthodox beliefs! And Shannon and I are watching The Origin of Life on Coursera, and week 2 was all about how Carl Woese revolutionized evolutionary biology using microbiological techniques - and again, his ideas were rejected by the community for quite awhile before being accepted.  It led us into a great discussion of biases in general - and how scientists are not immune to them.  It also reminded me that Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions belongs on my Metacognition list.

 

You  know, this is really why I picked Metacognition as a topic, rather than just logic or critical thinking.  I think if we can understand how our brains work and have evolved to create biases, what those biases are, where they come from, etc. then it can help us to be more vigilant, and to realize that *all* humans are prone to this kind of thinking - scientists are not immune, by a long shot.  The scientific method is certainly some insurance against wishful/magical thinking, but it isn't a panacea.  Science is practiced by humans, within communities, and as such is susceptible to the same kinds of thinking errors that humans bring to, well, everything!

[Woodland Mist Academy]

To me it seems a matter of semantics. I'm not sure why, but I still like the term critical thinking. For some reason metacognition reminds me of an educational buzz word. I'm not sure what the term as a subject name offers that critical thinking doesn't. Isn't it thinking critically about thinking? In the square marked THINK in my planner (no room for more letters) we think critically about lots of things--including thinking. Metacognition is thinking about thinking, right? For some reason that seems limiting to me. I want to think about other things too. ;)   It sounds like we're doing much the same in our thinking studies, just using different course names. I actually think of metacognition as a branch of critical thinking.  I'm not sure how critical thinking can be taught properly without including it. Critically thinking seems to encompass more, thus it is a more accurate description of what we're doing. Thinking about thinking isn't my goal--the goal is becoming a critical thinker.

 

Obviously it doesn't matter what it's called-- the important thing is doing it. :)

[Chrysalis Academy]

I don't disagree with your points, and maybe it is mostly semantics.  But I guess for me the distinction is this:  Critical Thinking implies that you are training yourself to think in a certain way - logical, skeptical, wary of logical fallacies, etc.  Which is cool.  What I think the idea of metacognition adds is that you are also learning about how brains - your own and other people's - will naturally think, if they've haven't been trained to think critically (and even if they have, sometimes!)  So I think this incorporates the study of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and social psychology, which to me isn't necessarily included in Critical Thinking.  That's what I'm trying to get at - an understanding of how brains process information under normal circumstances, how groupthink works, stuff like that.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

I include all of that in our critical thinking time. I think it's vital to understand how brains work in general, as well as how the student's brain works in particular. Of course, this type of talk is ongoing here, and I imagine it is in your home as well. Yesterday's strength training session ended in a conversation about thinking and how our brains can trick us as well as protect us and how it is sometimes difficult to know which is happening. Talking about thinking is a never ending conversation. :)

[Chrysalis Academy]

Hear hear!  :cheers2: (Ginger beer of course!)

[Woodland Mist Academy]

Well, I hope you're happy. I can't get this out of my mind! :toetap05: :sneaky2:     It's always there... taunting me...giving me examples... not listening to my carefully reasoned arguments....metacognition... it whispers....metacognition...

 

So apparently this is what happens when all the books are chosen, and the days are in a peaceful rhythm...I wring my hands and worry about the truly proper name for the subject we read and talk about every day late in the afternoon... :001_huh: ;)

 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yep, it's official, you're a dork!  :smilielol5:  :001_tt2:

 

;)  :D

[Woodland Mist Academy]

Yep, it's official, you're a dork!  :smilielol5:  :001_tt2:

 

;)  :D

 

 

As if there were ever any doubt.... :biggrinjester:

[Kerileanne99]

Anybody done this Coursera offering?

Hubby and I are planning it as a family, adapting for the little one...

https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

[Chrysalis Academy]

Anybody done this Coursera offering?

Hubby and I are planning it as a family, adapting for the little one...

https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

 

I started watching it awhile back and dropped it, but I'm definitely planning on picking it back up and using it with the girls too at some point.  I think this is the one that includes a great Monty Python bit - my kids watched it over and over!

[RootAnn]

I like this thread, Rose. Great resources & thoughtful conversations.

 

I will add - for anyone who stuck through this far & still has AoA on the pile for this or future years - that AoA was great in our house last year (one semester). HOWEVER, it was great because we had a small group (four kids), two teachers (one more liberal-leaning, one more conservative-leaning), games, bring-your-own-real-life-examples, read-aloud fun, and a quick pace. 

 

We sometimes had to spin off into background on one of their examples (person we've never heard of, event that was before-their-time, etc.), but that actually added to the fun.

There was a section in the Appendix of a Bill-and-Ted type adventure. None of the kids had heard of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure before that, so I assigned the watching of the preview as homework so they could get the "tone" down for when we "performed" it the next time.

 

I think it would have been really dry to just read-and-do by yourself, but it was great fun to discuss/debate & play with in a small group. (At one point, we watched & discussed a certain company's anti-cable ads. Good stuff.)

[Pen]

It's so true.  we had such an interesting experience watching Cosmos - Neil deGrasse Tyson is obviously not a big fan of religious dogma dominating science, and a big praiser of the scientific method.  But, in almost every episode, he talks about a scientist - who was persecuted by other scientists, by the scientific community of that time - for their new/non-orthodox beliefs! And Shannon and I are watching The Origin of Life on Coursera, and week 2 was all about how Carl Woese revolutionized evolutionary biology using microbiological techniques - and again, his ideas were rejected by the community for quite awhile before being accepted.  It led us into a great discussion of biases in general - and how scientists are not immune to them.  It also reminded me that Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions belongs on my Metacognition list.

 

You  know, this is really why I picked Metacognition as a topic, rather than just logic or critical thinking.  I think if we can understand how our brains work and have evolved to create biases, what those biases are, where they come from, etc. then it can help us to be more vigilant, and to realize that *all* humans are prone to this kind of thinking - scientists are not immune, by a long shot.  The scientific method is certainly some insurance against wishful/magical thinking, but it isn't a panacea.  Science is practiced by humans, within communities, and as such is susceptible to the same kinds of thinking errors that humans bring to, well, everything!

 

 

The Coursera course sounds interesting. Is it? And if so, is it still open and can you post a link?

 

Why Metacognition rather than cognition?  Whenever one considers cognition one is necessarily in a meta state thinking about the thinking.

 

the book Nonsense by Gula is shortish and simple, might appeal more than AoA.

[Garga]

I haven't used any of these yet, but will be this year. So, research on your own and use at your own risk :D

 

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men, and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs.

 

I looked over all the logic curriculum out there and didn't really like the look of any of it, so I turned to these paperbacks instead. They may be advanced for my 7th grader, but we'll read them together and discuss.

[Chrysalis Academy]

The Coursera course sounds interesting. Is it? And if so, is it still open and can you post a link?

 

Why Metacognition rather than cognition?  Whenever one considers cognition one is necessarily in a meta state thinking about the thinking.

 

the book Nonsense by Gula is shortish and simple, might appeal more than AoA.

 

We're finding the course fascinating.  It's not exactly what I expected - rather than a smooth and connected survey of the development of life, it focuses a lot on techniques, on how we know what we know about origins. Since I already have the TC course A New History of Life, which is much more of a comprehensive, smooth survey of the chronology of the evolution of life, this is a nice complement.  It's not enough as a stand-alone for a student new to the topic, but for Shannon it is whetting her appetite to learn more, and for me it's filling in holes, and it has led to a lot of interesting discussions.  I especially love getting to hear from field scientists about work that is so cutting edge it's still finding its way into the textbooks.  I've learned a lot.

 

Here's the link:

 

https://www.coursera.org/course/emergenceoflife

 

As far as the Metacognition/Cognition distinction:  well, I think your contention is the ideal, but rarely the reality.  I have a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, and I can tell you that it was rare to hear anyone, profs, students, or textbooks, take a step back and actually think about the thinking process.  It's so easy to focus on parts of cognition:  perception, learning, memory, etc. as isolated "functions" and lose the forest for the trees.  It's what really turned me off about actually studying a topic that I find inherently fascinating.  I think Metacognition captures the idea that you are actually putting the process of thinking - reasoning, deciding, judging, planning - under the microscope, and that this includes trying to understand the conscious as well as the unconscious processes that affect it.  A good example is thinking about multitasking.  It's something we think we all do, some better than others, but when you really examine it, you see that in fact we don't actually multitask at all, we just shift attention quickly from one thing to the next.  And you can't think in a focused way while rapidly shifting attention, so this has implications for how you  might set up your world when you're trying to learn something new, solve tough math problems, etc.  This isn't a brilliant example, just one off the top of my head as I sip my first cup of coffee.  But the point being that thinking about what is actually going on in your brain while you are "multitasking" and understanding that better actually has implications that might change the way you study.  And understanding how various biases work might make you more self-aware about how you make judgments about other people.  And the list goes on.  There are so many interesting psychological and cognitive phenomena that have huge implications for everyday life, yet the real wonder and magic of that often gets lost in textbook formats.  

 

Does that make any sense?

[Chrysalis Academy]

I haven't used any of these yet, but will be this year. So, research on your own and use at your own risk :D

 

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men, and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs.

 

I looked over all the logic curriculum out there and didn't really like the look of any of it, so I turned to these paperbacks instead. They may be advanced for my 7th grader, but we'll read them together and discuss.

 

Thanks, I will definitely check these out!  I'm familiar with Cialdini, he has done really important work on persuadability.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

I haven't used any of these yet, but will be this year. So, research on your own and use at your own risk :D

 

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men, and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs.

 

I looked over all the logic curriculum out there and didn't really like the look of any of it, so I turned to these paperbacks instead. They may be advanced for my 7th grader, but we'll read them together and discuss.

:laugh: ...I like your disclaimer!

 

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men, and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula is in our mix for this year.  Some of it will be review, but I there is enough new info to make it worthwhile. I also think some of the old info might be presented in a slightly different manner than my daughter has seen it discussed before.

 

After this year of *insert class name*, I think I might start having a different focus each semester. It might be easier to do credits that way, and I avoid this pesky issue of naming this confounded course! :sneaky2: ;)

[slackermom]

I purchased this one to use with dd10. It is designed for grades 6-12. I don't know how it will go, but I am cautiously optimistic about being able to use it this year.

 

Teaching Argument Writing: Supporting Claims with Relevant Evidence and Clear Reasoning

 

http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Argument-Writing-Grades-6-12/dp/0325013969

[Chrysalis Academy]

:laugh: ...I like your disclaimer!

 

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men, and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula is in our mix for this year.  Some of it will be review, but I there is enough new info to make it worthwhile. I also think some of the old info might be presented in a slightly different manner than my daughter has seen it discussed before.

 

After this year of *insert class name*, I think I might start having a different focus each semester. It might be easier to do credits that way, and I avoid this pesky issue of naming this confounded course! :sneaky2: ;)

 

Right, for me it's easy for the next two years - I don't have to worry about credits and naming courses.  Once we hit high school, I'm definitely planning on segregating things a little bit more (maybe by semester, good idea) and having some more traditional course titles - like Psychology, Philosophy/Theory of Mind, etc.  Ooo, that's a good one - what are some more "standard" course titles that would cover the stuff we're talking about?

[Chrysalis Academy]

I purchased this one to use with dd10. It is designed for grades 6-12. I don't know how it will go, but I am cautiously optimistic about being able to use it this year.

 

Teaching Argument Writing: Supporting Claims with Relevant Evidence and Clear Reasoning

 

http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Argument-Writing-Grades-6-12/dp/0325013969

 

That looks interesting.  Let us know how it goes and how you like it!

[Pen]

We're finding the course fascinating.  It's not exactly what I expected - rather than a smooth and connected survey of the development of life, it focuses a lot on techniques, on how we know what we know about origins. Since I already have the TC course A New History of Life, which is much more of a comprehensive, smooth survey of the chronology of the evolution of life, this is a nice complement.  It's not enough as a stand-alone for a student new to the topic, but for Shannon it is whetting her appetite to learn more, and for me it's filling in holes, and it has led to a lot of interesting discussions.  I especially love getting to hear from field scientists about work that is so cutting edge it's still finding its way into the textbooks.  I've learned a lot.

 

Here's the link:

 

https://www.coursera.org/course/emergenceoflife

 

As far as the Metacognition/Cognition distinction:  well, I think your contention is the ideal, but rarely the reality.  I have a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, and I can tell you that it was rare to hear anyone, profs, students, or textbooks, take a step back and actually think about the thinking process.  It's so easy to focus on parts of cognition:  perception, learning, memory, etc. as isolated "functions" and lose the forest for the trees.  It's what really turned me off about actually studying a topic that I find inherently fascinating.  I think Metacognition captures the idea that you are actually putting the process of thinking - reasoning, deciding, judging, planning - under the microscope, and that this includes trying to understand the conscious as well as the unconscious processes that affect it.  A good example is thinking about multitasking.  It's something we think we all do, some better than others, but when you really examine it, you see that in fact we don't actually multitask at all, we just shift attention quickly from one thing to the next.  And you can't think in a focused way while rapidly shifting attention, so this has implications for how you  might set up your world when you're trying to learn something new, solve tough math problems, etc.  This isn't a brilliant example, just one off the top of my head as I sip my first cup of coffee.  But the point being that thinking about what is actually going on in your brain while you are "multitasking" and understanding that better actually has implications that might change the way you study.  And understanding how various biases work might make you more self-aware about how you make judgments about other people.  And the list goes on.  There are so many interesting psychological and cognitive phenomena that have huge implications for everyday life, yet the real wonder and magic of that often gets lost in textbook formats.  

 

Does that make any sense?

 

 

Yep!  Maybe I'll have to use "metacognition" too. 

 

I do not know if you and Shannon would actually like Gula's Nonsense book, but I am pretty sure it wouldn't be too advanced for her.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

 

 

I do not know if you and Shannon would actually like Gula's Nonsense book, but I am pretty sure it wouldn't be too advanced for her.

 

:iagree: 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Another Coursera offering to throw into the Metacognition mix  . . . I guess this thread has strayed pretty far from AoA-angst!  ;)

 

https://www.coursera.org/course/learning

 

I've watched the first set of lessons.  I think this is a great first course on how the mind/brain works for middle & high schoolers, with a specific focus on what might be most relevant to them, learning tough new things.  I've ordered the book that goes with the course, which is this one:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-For-Numbers-Science-Flunked/dp/039916524X

[Woodland Mist Academy]

 

http://www.amazon.com/Mind-For-Numbers-Science-Flunked/dp/039916524X

 

And to sidetrack even further....The author also wrote Evil Genes. :coolgleamA:   (I was just talking with someone about Evil Genes the other day, so it was funny to see the author mentioned here.)

[Chrysalis Academy]

Yep!  Maybe I'll have to use "metacognition" too. 

 

I do not know if you and Shannon would actually like Gula's Nonsense book, but I am pretty sure it wouldn't be too advanced for her.

 

 

:iagree:

 

Are you guys saying you think we might not like the book, or just commenting on the level? Did you guys like it?

 

Because my Metacognition stack isn't teetery enough yet . . .  :001_rolleyes:

[Woodland Mist Academy]

I was just commenting on the level. :)

 

So far, other than some of it being a review, I don't have any complaints.  We will be ready to move beyond this level when we're done with this book, though. You may not even need the book if you have lots of other resources. I already have it, so we'll use it.

 

Just out of curiosity, what is the term for thinking about thinking about thinking? :001_huh:

 

 

 

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Oh, I think Metacognition works for that too . . .  ;)

 

"Metacognition" is often simply defined as "thinking about thinking." In actuality, defining metacognition is not that simple. Although the term has been part of the vocabulary of educational psychologists for the last couple of decades, and the concept for as long as humans have been able to reflect on their cognitive experiences, there is much debate over exactly what metacognition is. One reason for this confusion is the fact that there are several terms currently used to describe the same basic phenomenon (e.g., self-regulation, executive control), or an aspect of that phenomenon (e.g., meta-memory), and these terms are often used interchangeably in the literature. While there are some distinctions between definitions (see Van Zile-Tamsen, 1994, 1996 for a full discussion), all emphasize the role of executive processes in the overseeing and regulation of cognitive processes.

 

http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm is the website this source is from, and it has links to other sources - kind of old, but still goodies.

[Woodland Mist Academy]

It's true! You really do have an answer for everything!!! :lol:

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well,  an answer, maybe.  The right answer???  YMMV, as they say . . .  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[momto2Cs]

Anybody done this Coursera offering?

Hubby and I are planning it as a family, adapting for the little one...

https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain

 

This looks like a great course! I just showed my kids the intro clip and they are very interested.

 

[RootAnn]

I guess this thread has strayed pretty far from AoA-angst!  ;)

 

... And enough people do feel it is helpful & interesting, perhaps you should change the title to reflect the rabbit trail.  :coolgleamA:

[Chrysalis Academy]

Good idea! I just changed it . . . 

[deerforest]

Can I bump this thread? I'm always about 2 years behind Rose and Woodland Mist, but I'm curious to see if any of the other recommendations worked out. I'm planning a course for logic of argument, persuasiveness, skepticism, etc. this upcoming year, and my Amazon cart is bulging thanks to this thread.

 

Thanks for any feedback! 

[Chrysalis Academy]

Well, let's see, I think I have a list of everything we used by grade.  If it made this list, we liked it: there were a few things that we tried and ended up dropping, but these were all keepers. Feel free to ask me about any specific resources you are considering and I'll let you know if we looked at them more closely and rejected them.

 

6^th Grade

The Ten Things Future Mathematicians & Scientist Must Know, but are Rarely Taught – Ed Zaccaro

The Five Elements of Effective Thinking – Edward Burger & Michael Starbird

How to Become a Problem-Solving Genius – Ed Zaccaro

 

7^th Grade

The Magic of Reality – Richard Dawkins

Coursera: Learning How to Learn

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel ant Math & Science – Barabara Oakley

Think: Why You Should Question Everything – Guy Harrison

 

8^th Grade

TC: How to become a Superstar Student

What Smart Students Know: Maximum grades, Optimum learning, Minimum time – Adam Robinson

The Art of Self-Directed Learning – Blake Boles

The Science of Everyday Thinking – edX

How to be a High School Superstar – Cal Newport

[Kalmia]

This isn't exactly a book of logical fallacies, but it might be an interesting supplement to the broader topic.

 

The Ten Things All Future Mathematicians and Scientists Must Know (But Are Rarely Taught) by Edward Zaccaro

 

https://www.amazon.com/Things-Future-Mathematicians-Scientists-Rarely/dp/0967991544/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465756486&sr=1-6&keywords=Zaccaro

[Woodland Mist Academy]

Can I bump this thread? I'm always about 2 years behind Rose and Woodland Mist, but I'm curious to see if any of the other recommendations worked out. I'm planning a course for logic of argument, persuasiveness, skepticism, etc. this upcoming year, and my Amazon cart is bulging thanks to this thread.

 

Thanks for any feedback! 

 

I've only had time to skim the thread, but I believe the only resource I now have greater reservations about is the James Madison Critical Thinking course. We ended up dropping it.  It was contrived and inauthentic.  Also, the answers the book gave didn't always seem correct to me. 

[Woodland Mist Academy]

 

 

Nonsense: Red Herrings, Straw Men, and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in our Everyday Language by Robert J. Gula is in our mix for this year.  Some of it will be review, but I there is enough new info to make it worthwhile. I also think some of the old info might be presented in a slightly different manner than my daughter has seen it discussed before.

 

 

This book was better than I originally thought it would be. It was definitely worthwhile for us.

[deerforest]

Well, let's see, I think I have a list of everything we used by grade.  If it made this list, we liked it: there were a few things that we tried and ended up dropping, but these were all keepers. Feel free to ask me about any specific resources you are considering and I'll let you know if we looked at them more closely and rejected them.

 

6^th Grade

The Ten Things Future Mathematicians & Scientist Must Know, but are Rarely Taught – Ed Zaccaro

The Five Elements of Effective Thinking – Edward Burger & Michael Starbird

How to Become a Problem-Solving Genius – Ed Zaccaro

 

7^th Grade

The Magic of Reality – Richard Dawkins

Coursera: Learning How to Learn

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel ant Math & Science – Barabara Oakley

Think: Why You Should Question Everything – Guy Harrison

 

8^th Grade

TC: How to become a Superstar Student

What Smart Students Know: Maximum grades, Optimum learning, Minimum time – Adam Robinson

The Art of Self-Directed Learning – Blake Boles

The Science of Everyday Thinking – edX

How to be a High School Superstar – Cal Newport

 

Thank you for this list! We've used several of those so far, but not all so I will add more to the list. I think I am doing less of a metacognition approach now and more of a logic of argument, persuasiveness, skepticism focus (at least that's how it's evolving so far.) 

 

She really likes persuasive essays so I decided to just run with that for writing more and further develop the skills leading to making that writing stronger.  

 

I have a lot of persuasion and skepticism books I'm evaluating already, but was also thinking of these mentioned in the thread:

- Nonsense by Gula

- Workbook for Arguments and Rulebook for Arguments 

- Influence, Cialdini

- Thank you for Arguing

 

DD loves these types of discussions (philosophy was by far her favorite thing we did this past year), and we could go pretty deep on this, but I suspect that this will be something we circle back to often in her future so I don't feel like we have to cover everything. She'll be a 7th grader.