Weekly Record Book Term 1, Week 3 (2019)

English Language and Literature Department

Name: Mr Timothy Joshua Ong

Term 1, Week 3 (ODD WEEK) :

ORID elements Focus Guiding Questions

Facts, Data  What were the key points you noted about the lessons?
 What did the students actually do during . . . ?
O What?  What did you observe during the . . . ?
Objective  What were the student behaviors you observed?

Reflective questions, Reactions  As you look at the students’ works, what concerns/pleases you?
 How did you feel as you were . . . ?
R  As you reflect on the lessons, what was exciting, surprising, or frustrating about . . . ?
What about the “What”?  Which activities/actions do you think fostered high engagement?
Reflective
Interpretive questions, critical thinking:  What could you have done/could you do to increase . . .?
 What could you have done/could you do to minimize the undesirable . . . .?
I  What other ways could you check for students understanding?
So What?  What did you learn about yourself through this experience?
Interpretive

Decision questions:  What things will you do differently?

 What things will you do the same in future . . . ?
D  Which of your skills will you further develop? And what will you do to develop them?
Now what?  What are your next steps? What actions/ideas has this triggered for you?
Decisional
My Reflections

The thrust of my reflection this week will espouse on the tenets of metacognition and operationalising this in my
T&L for English Language.

My rudimentary impressions and thoughts pertaining to Metacognition include : -

 Thinking about thinking
 Being aware / charting one’s thinking processes in a systematic manner
 Comprising frames / structures that make one’s thinking explicit
 Knowing the metalanguage that underpin cognition / cognitive processes

And here are some key words or phrases I would use to describe metacognition: -
 Systematic  Logical  Sequential  Process-oriented  Flow  Awareness

I was particularly taken with operationalising a unified conception of Metacognition for Teaching and Learning. The
first notion I grasped was the fact that metacognition involved becoming more aware of one’s OWN thinking (and
not someone else’s thinking).

I was further intrigued by other models of metacognition from various scholars and I first began to see that
‘thinking’ could be seen to ‘supervise’ TWO aspects of one’s thinking: micro-thinking skills and goal-oriented
processes. Extending above and beyond these various ‘thinkings’ and their instantiations would be the level at
which metacognition operates. This made me conceive of metacognition as a cockpit of a plane from which
executive decisions / functions / operations are made and performed.

Another model presented metacognition as being enacted through TWO means: Knowledge and Regulation. This
further broke down the concept of metacogntion to THREE sub-levels involving planning (AWARE), Monitoring
(MONITOR) and Revising (REGULATE). And the tenets of being aware, monitoring and regulating could occur
offline (reflective) as well as online (interactive).

Moreover, one’s emotive brain would also factor into the equation when coming to a more well-rounded idea of
metacognition as indeed, emotions and thinking are correlated.

Having been presented with much information pertaining to metacognition, I wish to apply these to my own
personal reflection as I did the ‘Quarters’ task presented during the session. I was observed to remain very quiet
despite numerous requests to share my thoughts, and I learnt that fundamentally, voicing my thoughts was key in
chartiing my own thinking.

Being the only ‘Math’ teacher amongst everyone, I was determined to find out a superior solution and I was not
about to voice out my suggestions unless I could solve the problem in 1 weighing alone. I was so fixated on this
and wanted to think of this briliant solution so much, that my affective resources were disallowing me to thinking of
other more viable solutions albeit with the use of more weighings. Thoughts of weighing smaller groups of coins
did buzz in my mind and I began calculating various combinations of the number of coins to be weighed. I did
these silently as I was truly determined to find the best possible solution as the expense of engaging in discussion.
I’ve learnt that this could very well be representative of my students and being in their shoes certainly broadened
my perspectives in terms of cultivating deeper thinking in my day to day T&L.

I am still coming to my own understanding of what metacognition is and how it can feature in my T&L but for now, I
am acquainted with the theoretical notions of metacognition and I will strive to connect these tenets to actual
classroom instantiations / practices. This is to see how metacognition can truly be operationalised in my teaching
and learning of English language with its various receptive and productive language skills. I will watch out for
potential pitfalls in that certain structures and frames do not simply becoming clutches for my students, lest
metacognition would simply operate at the level of cognition.

Reporting Officer Signature: _______________________

Date: _______________________