Research Published on Metacognitive Mapping and Implementation of Better Teaching Practices

LAWRENCE- The topic of Metacognition, or the process by which learners use their knowledge of the task at hand, of learning strategies, and of themselves; to monitor their progress towards a learning goal and then evaluate the outcome, has long been a point of interest for Dr. Dyan Morgan. With her focus turned toward solving the question, ‘What is it that the students find most challenging about developmental biology?’, Dr. Morgan has published research in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education (JMBE) discussing those findings.

“Metacognitive Mapping: Developmental Biology Students Struggle with Higher Order Cognitive Skills in Multiple Course Formats,” uses data collected from students in BIOLOGY 417, Biology of Development, over the course of two semesters. One semester was taught fully online due to Coronavirus shutdowns, and the other taught in person using a HyFlex format.

HyFlex is an instructional approach that combines face-to-face and online learning. For this class, each class session and learning activity was offered in-person, and asynchronously online. The model offers students a lot of flexibility in terms of mode of participation and requires instructors to design for this flexibility.

Dr. Morgan said, “A silver lining of the pandemic was that we were able to evaluate student metacognition in Biology of Development in two very different course formats. […] We were not sure if they were going to struggle with similar things or if something about the format might make certain topics or ways of learning harder or easier. What we found was that regardless of format, students struggled with the application and evaluation of their new knowledge.”

To gather the data, Dr. Morgan had students self-report through the use of a weekly extra credit reflective assignment, that asked students, ‘What did they learn’ and ‘What was most challenging or would require the most review for them?’ The results also accounted for students’ weekly quizzes, and an end of semester survey, where students were asked to reflect on their use of the extra credit reflective assignment.

Dr. Morgan said, “We had students take a survey about the assignment and we wanted to know whether this reflective assignment was playing some role in their metacognition-- in their thinking about their thinking-- and the majority of students told us, ‘Yes, this was helpful to my learning, and I used it to plan my study time.’

“We weren't sure because this assignment was an extra credit assignment. It was only worth one point of extra credit each week. We weren't sure if the students were taking it seriously or just quickly typing whatever came to mind and saying, ‘Okay, good riddance. This is submitted.’

“We were pleasantly surprised to learn that the majority of students took note of the open-ended questions each week and then developed their own study guides based off of it.

“Some students told us that they would complete the reflective assignment and then go back and put a little star by those spots in their notes or go back and highlight those sections they were forced to reflect on, taking notes of what they understood or didn't. Or some students said that as they typed up the extra credit response, they then copied and pasted that and put it in a document to use later for exam review.

“Students had their list of, ‘Here are the things I need to go back and really focus on more’. So that was exciting to see that they weren't just blowing off this reflective assignment, that they were really taking it seriously and using it to inform how they studied”

“Additionally, I was surprised by our data about what students found challenging each week. I was expecting some results such as, ‘Oh, this particular process is really confusing, or this type of pathway is really confusing,’ and what we found was that it was more about the type of thinking that the students were being asked to do. That was the biggest challenge for them.” Dr. Morgan said.

Assisting in this research were Wendy Aquino, a Molecular Biosciences graduate student currently in Dr. Brian Ackley’s Lab, and Meadow Scott, an alumna who graduated prior to the publication of this article with degrees in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and Applied Behavioral Science in Spring 2023. Meadow will begin medical school this summer at the KU School of Medicine. Wendy Aquino wrote, “I think the findings of this research have the potential to significantly impact how we approach the teaching of upper-class undergraduate students. We were able to identify topics and skills that students often struggle with in Developmental Biology class, meaning that we can better design interventions, materials, and support systems to help them bridge these gaps. In addition, one of our findings is that students are exposed to metacognitive assignments and approaches early on during undergrad, meaning that Juniors and Seniors are pretty good at identifying content weaknesses and developing a plan to address their weakness, but I think that a follow-up would be assignments that improve time management and actually following through with their study plan, which students have mentioned they struggle with, making them more effective learners in the long run.”

As a student in Dr. Morgan’s immunology and developmental biology courses, Meadow Scott, was excited by the prospect of helping with the literature review portion of the research, expressing particular interest since she had been part of Dr. Morgan’s class cohorts and had been on the receiving end of the student surveys.

“Having only participated in research with live subjects, the research I conducted for Dr. Morgan was much more qualitative,” Meadow wrote, “This consisted of identifying and reviewing various sources for the literature review portion of her manuscript. I used the software Zotero to compile the list of sources and reviewed each of them for topics related to her research. I then summarized each source and reviewed them with Dr. Morgan. Once we had decided which sources were most applicable, I constructed the literature review to introduce the study for the manuscript publication.”

Meadow continued, “I believe the act of looking for credible sources and being able to review their contents thoroughly and timely will serve me well as a medical student and future physician. The field of medicine requires an attitude of lifelong learning, and this experience solidified this skill for me.”

Incorporating undergraduate research experiences into a biology student’s education is often life changing. Seeing firsthand how research is conducted or how research labs work can change a student’s outlook on desired career paths, or introduce them to aspects of science beyond their previous understanding.  

“It was really exciting to me to get to work with an undergraduate student and a graduate teaching assistant on this project. They each brought their own unique perspective, as someone who had taken the course, and someone who had been a graduate teaching assistant for the course and I think our team was stronger because we had those unique perspectives.” Dr. Morgan said.

The development of better teaching methods is a long-term goal for Dr. Morgan, and she hopes the use of reflective assignments will “help instructors of developmental biology recognize how they need to help their students. But more broadly, I think it will help instructors of upper-level science courses remember that students may not necessarily begin effectively using these higher order cognitive skills on their own, that we still need to embed activities where they can practice those skills in order for students to develop them.”

The Society for Developmental Biology funded Dr. Morgan’s participation at their annual conference, so that she could present about this work and get input from the developmental biology community. She is also funded in part by the Open Access Authors Fund, which provided an award to cover the article processing charges and will allow “Metacognitive Mapping: Developmental Biology Students Struggle with Higher Order Cognitive Skills in Multiple Course Formats” to be published as open access, allowing more student and faculty to read it for free. “I'm thankful to the KU Libraries Open Access Working group at KU for their support in making this article accessible for educators and researchers across the globe.” Dr. Morgan said.

You can read “Metacognitive Mapping: Developmental Biology Students Struggle with Higher Order Cognitive Skills in Multiple Course Formats” for free at https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jmbe.00139-24