Stacy's Metacognition

I find it very difficult for me to truly comprehend what I’m reading when I’m told to read something instead of me picking up the book to read. When we are told to read 40 plus pages a night for multiple classes, its hard to keep everything straight. For me, I have to take detailed notes and if I don’t get something then I have to go back and reread most of the time. When doing the readings, I noticed how important it is for us to have our students know that they need to be thinking about what they are reading and have those “inner conversations”. People stray away from what they are reading and we should give our students tips as to what to do if they begin to stray. I noticed that in addition to taking notes, I like to highlight things that I think are important. I read through the whole assignment and highlight. I then go back and see what I’ve highlighted and write down my notes from there. This way I’m getting the assignment as a whole and then I can go back and get more specific details that I think I need to remember. Taking notes forces me to stay on topic paragraph by paragraph or subject by subject. It’s the only way I can really understand what it is that is expected of me when a reading is assigned.

When it comes to writing, I’m a procrastinator. I tend to put everything off until the last minute. Instead, I should be starting my papers further in advance than others because it takes me a while to get organized. I think that is my biggest problem: organization.  When I do take time to organize and not wait til the last minute, I make notes or outlines of what I am going to be writing about. I bullet what my main points are going to be or what I will be discussing for my paragraphs. For me, having other people read what I have written also helps, it gives you an outside perspective and they can catch things that you read over.

We all learn and think differently so as future teachers it is important to know that what works for  you might not work for someone else. We need to explore different strategies and make them available to our students so they can find what works best for them.