Schoenfeld, A. H. (2014). What Makes for Powerful Classrooms, and How Can We Support Teachers in Creating Them?

Schoenfeld's theory of problem solving

p.405  If one seeks the reason(s) for someone’s success or failure in a problem-solving attempt in any knowledge-rich domain, the cause of that success or failure will be located in one or more of that person’s:

a. domain-specific knowledge and resources,

b. access to productive “heuristic” strategies for making progress on challenging problems in that domain,

c. monitoring and self-regulation (aspects of metacognition), and

d. belief systems regarding that domain and one’s sense of self as a thinker in general and a doer of that domain in particular (in more current language, one’s domain-specific identity).

Schoenfeld, A. H. (2014). What Makes for Powerful Classrooms, and How Can We Support Teachers in Creating Them? A Story of Research and Practice, Productively Intertwined. Educational Researcher, 43(8), 404–412. doi:10.3102/0013189X14554450

What’s all the fuss about metacognition?

Schoenfeld, A. (1987). What’s all the fuss about metacognition? In A. Schoenfeld (Ed.), Cognitive Science and Mathematics Education, pages 189-215. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

It's about how teaching metacognitive skills can increase students'
understanding and help them become better problem solvers. I liked that this
article discusses strategies and examples of how to teach metacognitive skills.

What is it?
1. How accurate are you at describing your own thinking?
2. Control or self-regulation
3. Beliefs and intuitions

Why is it important?
1. Students need good study skills, using what you know efficiently, managing time
2. Students with metacognitive skills will learn more, have greater & deeper conceptual understanding, are generally better problem solvers, and will likely enjoy learning more.

What to do about? How do you teach metacognitive skills?
1. Use video tapes
2. Teacher as role model for metacognitive behavior
3. Whole class discussions of problems with teacher serving as "control"
4. Problem solving in small groups

Questions that he used to prompt student thinking and metacognition:
What exactly are you doing?
Why are you doing it?
How does it help you?
Is this likely to be productive?