Teaching Students How to Learn: Practical Tips for TAs

Every TA quickly realizes that their discussion or lab sections are not only about delivering content but also helping their students learn the content. Assessing one’s learning, however, is not so straightforward! Students will often say that they spent hours studying but still felt unprepared for the exam, or that they understood the examples discussed in class but got lost when working alone. These comments can leave TAs wondering: “What can I do to help?”

Enter metacognition! Metacognition entails thinking about one’s own thinking and mental processes in order to assess one’s learning. Research has demonstrated time and again the positive impact that teaching metacognitive skills can have on both students’ learning outcomes and their confidence as learners. TAs are well-positioned to offer their students opportunities to develop these skills, even in contexts where they don’t have control over the entire course. In this workshop, TAs will learn how to easily incorporate self-reflective activities into their teaching in order to facilitate student metacognition. Through discussion with fellow TAs and some hands-on practice, participants will create a concrete plan that they can immediately implement into their own classes or discussion sections.