Posts Tagged: Metacognition

Achieving Visible Learning with Naiku

Visible Learning is an excellent resource illustrating the effectiveness of student-centered learning which Naiku wholeheartedly supports. In Visible Learning and Visible Learning for Teachers, Dr. John Hattie (2009, 2012) synthesizes research studies involving hundreds of millions of students to show the effectiveness of different approaches to improve learning. Dr. Hattie found that student-centered learning strategies have the highest impact on learning. In particular, he found that strategies that help make student learning visible for the teacher are most effective.  Because of that, Naiku allows teachers to transform the assessment experience into a learning … Read More


Accelerate Student Achievement through Student Expectations

Gain Visibility into Student Expectations to Accelerate Student Achievement The number one influencer of student achievement is student expectations (or self-reported grades) as found by Hattie (2012) in Visible Learning. To gain visibility into student expectations, Dr. Nhouyvanisvong proposes a 4-step process for teachers to develop their students metacognitive skills through goal setting, test prediction, confidence ratings, and reflection  Download this white paper by Dr. Adisack Nhouyvanisvong to learn more about how you can gain visibility into your students’ expectations and to guide them reaching those targets: Accelerate Student Achievement Through Student Expectations … Read More


Meaningful Reflection

Many Naikus (teachers) are familiar with the MindShift blog. If you’re not, get familiar with it. There are always great articles there to help teachers be better teachers.iconhead A recent article that caught my eye was “What Meaningful Reflection Student Work Can Do for Learning“, an excerpt from a book by Larissa Pahomov, an English and Journalism teacher in Philadelphia. In this article, Larissa describes three characteristics of meaningful reflection (Metacognitive, Applicable, and Shared) and how they improve student learning. Read More


The Teenage Mind and Naiku

In the October, 2011 issue of National Geographic, David Dobbs explains what’s happening in the brains of 12 – 25 year-olds. His observations are based on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) project that studied over a hundred young people as they grew up during the 1990s . The study provides some rationale for why teenagers act the way they do. Understanding how a students’ brain works is key to engaging students in learning. Naiku is a way for teachers to connect with students the way they learn, an  opportunity to be more effective teachers. … Read More


Two Stages of Metacognition: Prediction and Reflection

In Naiku, metacognition is a big deal! I often wonder how  metacognition came to play such an important role in the Naiku Assessment Platform. Is it because I spent roughly two years doing research on the feeling-of-knowing, an important metacognitive decision-making process (Nhouyvanisvong & Reder, 1998) as a psychology graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University and have subconsciously advocated for its inclusion in our assessment software? Or is it because metacognition, when students engage in these regulatory thinking processes, plays an important role in changing testing moments to learning moments (i.e., changing … Read More


Student Reflection: “It’s like a game”

I’ve written about the importance and benefits of student reflection in the testing/learning process before. Reflection is a great way to engage students in metacognition. But basically, it’s a fun way for students to give feedback to their teachers. At least, that’s what third graders tell me. Recently, I had the opportunity to observe third graders take their first test on the Naiku system. Taking tests on computers was not new to these students. So, they went about it in their usual fashion. They worked diligently and tried their best, as … Read More


The Importance of Student Reflection

Student Reflection When I do professional development for teachers and administrators on how to incorporate Naiku into their formative assessment practice, the part that gets them most excited is when I talk about student reflection. Merriam-Webster.com defines reflection as “a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation.” Here, I define reflection as a process by which students engage in metacogntive thinking about what they have done, what they are doing, and what they will do in the future. This type of thinking helps students … Read More



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