A Continuum to Promote College Instructor Metacognition about Teaching
If you’re interested in metacognitive teaching, check out this article to see where you currently fall on the "continuum"! This could also serve as a great resource as you set goals for choosing and implementing student-centered instructional strategies.
Effective teachers consciously reflect on and take action with respect to their teaching, that is, they engage in metacognition about teaching (Duffy et al.2009; Hartman 2001). Though reflection is considered a prerequisite of quality teaching in higher education, being reflective and using that reflection to adjust action is not “self-evident” (Mälkki and Lindblom-Ylänne 2012). Nor do many college instructors have time to continuously and deeply reflect on their teaching (Pfund et al. 2009) given institutional reward structures that typically weigh research productivity over teaching (Splitt 2003; Anderson et al. 2011). Within this context of teaching in higher education, the continuum that emerged in this study provides a simple, efficient mechanism to promote reflection, metacognition about teaching, and selection of student-focused teaching strategies.