Metacognition & Problem Solving
April 8, 2019
Successful learners use metacognition to facilitate their problem solving. This is one of the key findings of the National Academy of Sciences’ synthesis of decades of research on the science of learning explained in How People Learn: Mind, Brain, Experience and School Below we explain metacognition and provide the vocabulary to teach it. In part two of this series we will focus on strategy selection. If you’d like to try our full metacognition approach, please contact us here. Start with Cognition Cognition is how you learn. Depending on the topic, the context, personal experiences and genetics, each of us relies on different proportions of cognitive skills to understand and remember what we read, see or hear. We begin learning the moment we are born and we never stop…. Read More
Is Your Student Hiding a Gift?
November 28, 2017
Do you know a kiddo who can assemble a Lego set in the blink of an eye? Tells the bus driver how to find his street? Helps you design your bulletin boards to perfection? What do these seemingly nice-to-have but not particularly useful skills have in common? They are all reflections of a student’s spatial perception. And while we might not ask students to apply spatial skills very often in school, spatial skills are essential for careers in engineering, advanced mathematics, robotics, and design. What’s more, spatial skills have a unique role in the development of creativity. Many researchers believe that superior spatial skills are the “X factor” that separates creative geniuses like Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Frank Lloyd Wright from the rest of us. If spatial… Read More
Spatial Skills: STEM Success Depends on Them
December 9, 2014
Spatial skills are strongly linked to creativity and achievement in fields like math, science and the arts. While students might not use spatial skills in school as often as other reasoning skills, it is critical in many professions. Note: This is one of a 10 blog series on learning traits. Read about all 10 learning traits here. What is Spatial Perception? Spatial perception is the ability to visualize how objects relate in space. You may hear it referred to as spatial reasoning or visual-spatial perception. Why are Spatial Skills important? Spatial perception is very task-specific. You don’t always rely on them, but when you need them, they are essential. Drawing, design, reading graphs and maps, and working with geometric figures all rely heavily on spatial skills. Weak spatial skills might affect reading efficiency and standardized test taking efficiency…. Read More