The process of student learning is just as important as the outcome, but students are not always aware of their thinking throughout the process. Metacognition is a difficult concept for middle school students to grasp. In an effort to make my students more aware of their thinking, I had my students make a video journal to document their thought process and improve their metacognition in our recent project.
I was assessing the students on NGSS MS-PS2-2. The standard asks the students to “Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of forces on the object and the mass of the object.” To meet this standard I asked the students to create a station activity for their classmates to complete that proves force and mass will effect an object’s motion. I wanted the students to realize how their ideas change to meet their goal as they try out their ideas, so I asked them each day to video their discussions. I used the guidelines below to help guide them with their video clips each day.
I had to emphasize the fact that for these videos, I do not expect perfection. I told them that I want to see things that don’t work and you don’t have to rerecord if you didn’t say or do something perfect. I explained that I wanted them to see their trials and errors and how they fixed them and these video are only for you and me. At the end, I asked them to put the clips together and watch them.
As I watch the clips, I could see the students realize when their ideas didn’t work and automatically think of a way to make it work. After watching their videos, they created thoughtful reflections on their process and what they could do differently. I am excited to continue having my students create these videos as they get more comfortable with the process of recording themselves and become more aware of their thinking.
