Contributed by Tracy Alloway I was surrounded by a sea of small and eager faces, the children all in neatly pressed uniforms. As part of a government-funded project, I was working with kindergarteners to understand what cognitive skills are important for academic success. I met Andrew
The key to successful learning lies in a learner’s knowledge of various strategies, how they can be used, and when and why to employ them. Success also depends on the self-regulatory skills of planning, monitoring, and evaluating learning. Metacognitive awareness encompasses these two components: 1)
If you believe you have an excellent memory and can “keep information in mind” easily, you probably have a teacher to thank for it. This would be the teacher who forced you to memorize a poem, the preamble, the periodic table or some other information.
Did you know that your brain has to be made “ready to learn”? Your job as a classroom teacher will be to create a “brain friendly” environment. A happy, friendly environment will allow two chemicals to be released: dopamine and serotonin. These chemicals are neurotransmitters-