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Open Learning Initiative

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Introduction to Psychology (Open + Free)

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Strategies for Learning

OLI Psychology is not your typical course. Our goal is for you to work through the course materials online on your own time and in the way that is most efficient given your prior knowledge.

While you will have more flexibility than you do in a traditional course, you will also have more responsibility for your own learning. You will need to:

Plan how to work through each unit.

Determine how to use the various features of the course to help you learn. Decide when you need to seek additional support.

What You Need to Know About Each Unit

Each unit in this course has features designed to support you as an independent learner, including: Explanatory content: This is the informational “meat” of every unit. It consists of short passages of text with information, images, explanations, and short videos.

Learn By Doing activities: Learn By Doing activities give you the chance to practice the concept that you are learning, with hints and feedback to guide you if you struggle.

Did I Get This? activities: Did I Get This? activities are your chance to do a quick "self-check" and assess your own understanding of the material before doing a graded activity.

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Introduction to Psychology (Open + Free)

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Developing Skills for Independent Learning (1 of 2)

Completing this course efficiently and effectively

When starting an online course, most people neglect planning, opting instead to jump in and begin working. While this might seem efficient (after all, who wants to spend time planning when they could be doing?), it can ultimately be inefficient. In fact, one of the characteristics that distinguishes experts from novices is that experts spend far more time planning their approach to a task and less time actually completing it; while novices do the reverse: rushing through the planning stage and spending far more time overall.

In this course, we want to help you work as efficiently and effectively as possible, given what you already know. Some of you have already taken a psychology course, and are already familiar with many of the concepts. You may not need to work through all of the activities in the course; just enough to make sure that you've "got it." For others, this is your first exposure to psychology, and you will want to do more of the activities, since you are learning these concepts for the first time.

Improving your planning skills as you work through the material in the course will help you to become a more strategic and thoughtful learner and will enable you to more effectively plan your approach to assignments, exams and projects in other courses.

Metacognition

This idea of planning your approach to the course before you start is called Metacognition.

Metacognition

Metacognition, or “thinking about thinking,” refers to your awareness of yourself as a learner and your ability to regulate your own learning.

Metacognition involves five distinct skills:

1. Assess the task—Get a handle on what is involved in completing a task (the steps or components required for success) and any constraints (time, resources).

2. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses—Evaluate your own skills and knowledge in relation to a task.

3. Plan an approach—Take into account your assessment of the task and your evaluation of your own strengths and weaknesses in order to devise an appropriate plan.

4. Apply strategies and monitor your performance—Continually monitor your progress as you are working on a task, comparing where you are to the goal you want to achieve.

5. Reflect and adjust if needed—Look back on what worked and what didn't work so that you can adjust your approach next time and, if needed, start the cycle again.

These five skills are applied over and over again in a cycle—within the same course as well as from one course

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to another:

Mouse over the individual skills to learn more.

Metacognition in Action

You get an assignment and ask yourself: “What exactly does this assignment involve and what have I learned in this course that is relevant to it?”

You are exercising metacognitive skills (1) and (2) by assessing the task and evaluating your strengths and weaknesses in relation to it.

If you think about what steps you need to take to complete the assignment and determine when it is reasonable to begin, you are exercising skill (3) by planning.

If you start in on your plan and realize that you are working more slowly than you anticipated, you are putting skill (4) to work by applying a strategy and monitoring your performance.

Finally, if you reflect on your performance in relation to your timeframe for the task, and discover an equally effective but more efficient way to work, you are engaged in skill (5); reflecting and adjusting your approach as needed.

Joe's Learning Strategies

E X A M P L E

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Unless otherwise noted this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Metacognition is not rocket science. In some respects, it is fairly ordinary and intuitive. Yet you’d be

surprised how often people lack strong metacognitive skills; and you’d be amazed by how much weak metacognitive skills can undermine performance.

learn by doing

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Introduction to Psychology (Open + Free)

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Developing Skills for Independent Learning (2 of 2)

Learn By Doing

Now take the opportunity to practice the concepts you've been learning by doing these two Learn By Doing activities. Read each of the scenarios below and identify which metacognitive skill the student is struggling with. If you need help, remember that you can ask for a hint.

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You've now read through the explanatory content in this unit, and you've had a chance to practice the concepts. Take a moment to reflect on your understanding. Do you feel like you are "getting it"? Use these next two activities to find out.

Did I Get This?

Strong metacognitive skills are essential for independent learning, so use the experience of monitoring your own learning in OLI Psychology as an opportunity to hone these skills for other classes and tasks.

References

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: 7

research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Chi, M. T. H., Bassock, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P., & Glaser, R. (1989). "Self-explanations: How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems." Cognitive Science, 13, 145-182.

did I get this

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Unless otherwise noted this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Dunning, D. (2007). Self-insight: Roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Hayes, J. R., & Flower, L. S. (1986). "Writing research and the writer." American Psychologist Special Issue:

Psychological Science and Education, 41, 1106-1113.

Schoenfeld, A. H (1987). "What’s all the fuss about metacognition?" In A. H. Schoenfeld (Ed.), Cognitive

science and mathematics education. (pp.189-215). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Introduction to Psychology (Open + Free)

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About This Course

This Introduction to Psychology course was developed as part of the Community College Open Learning Initiative. Using an open textbook from Flatworld Knowledge as a foundation, Carnegie Mellon University's

Open Learning Initiative has built an online learning environment designed to enact instruction for psychology students.

The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is a grant-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, offering innovative online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. Our aim is to create high-quality courses and contribute original research to improve learning and transform higher education by:

Supporting better learning and instruction with high-quality, scientifically-based, classroom-tested online courses and materials.

Sharing our courses and materials openly and freely so that anyone can learn.

Developing a community of use, research, and development.

Flatworld Knowledge is a college textbook publishing company on a mission. By using technology and innovative business models to lower costs, Flatword is increasing access and personalizing learning for college students and faculty worldwide. Text, graphics and video in this course are built on materials by Flatworld Knowledge, made available under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. Interested in a companion text for this course? Flatworld provides access to the original textbook online and makes digital and print copies of the original textbook available at a low cost.

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