SELF-MANAGEMENT OF COGNITION IN A TEAM-BASED ENGINEERING DESIGN PROJECT: A CASE STUDY

摘要

Despite little direct guidance and instruction received from their professors, working on an open-ended task such as designing an engineering artifact is expected to be a rich learning experience for students. In order to be successful on such a task, students need to set reasonable goals for themselves and adopt intrinsic standards for success so that they will be able to solve problems strategically. Many studies have found that students' cognitive and metacognitive skills (i.e., monitor and control one's own cognitive processes) play an essential role in problem solving processes. The application of one's metacognitive skills can be observed through what that particular person does for a particular given task. Brown identifies metacognition through activities such as planning, monitoring, and revising. Paris and Winograd offer a more comprehensive view where metacognition can be observed through two essential features of metacognition; (a) cognitive self-appraisal and (b) cognitive self-management. These two metacognitive features involve cognitive and motivational issues such as skill and will, which are interwoven with one another, are shareable among people, and are influenced greatly by the social aspects of the situation. These aspects include affective and motivational characteristics of thinking that often lead to situations where students are less likely to invoke complex cognitive and metacognitive routines to improve learning.