STEMvisions Blog

Metacognition is one of those terms thrown around education circles like tryptophan during Thanksgiving. It sounds good, and makes us seem smart, but we aren’t really sure what’s happening below the surface.

I’ve always believed that one of the best ways to understand something is to compare it with something it’s not. Turkey is NOT chicken. Hitting the snooze button is NOT getting out of bed. Metacognition is NOT cognition.

Cognition is the way we organize and store new information. It’s how we think and process information.

According to scientists, you’re probably neither.

Many of us have asked ourselves this question at least once. The idea that people are either “left brained” (more concrete and analytical), or “right brained” (more abstract and creative), has been circulating in popular culture for decades. The lasting influence of this concept may be due to the natural human inclination to categorize everything —including the people around us.

The world of Good Thinking! is full of interesting characters, each of whom bring their own brand of humor and information to the series. None are as vital to the show's mission, however, as its main protagonist and star--science teacher Isabella Reyes. Ms. Reyes is the only character who appears in every Good Thinking! episode, and much of the series takes place either in her classroom or in her imagination.

"I'm chuffed to bits that I could help!" --Terry

"I did an around the world...around the actual world" -- Albert the Yoyo

"Here's the deal, Jack. Children need to find ways to make sense of the world around them -- we all do." --Gummerson

If you've seen Good Thinking!, SSEC's new web series on "the science of teaching science", you've probably seen Gummerson -- and perhaps wondered who (or what), exactly, he is?

The latest episode of SSEC's Good Thinking! series, Fired Up About Energy, features a new classroom guide: Bunsen the (you guessed it) Bunsen burner. The episode focuses on teaching and discussing energy in the classroom, and explores common student misconceptions related to the topic.

"Go to your happy place" -- Blossom the Orchid

Last week we debuted a new animated web series for science educators, Good Thinking! As I described in my launch-day post, the series is a character-driven exploration of research-based practices in science education.

Findings from science education research rarely make their way into classroom practice. As I've discussed before on the PLOS Sci-Ed blog, there are a lot of entrenched barriers that continue to separate these efforts. For one, most science education research is still primarily published in journal articles that are often difficult to access -- and always dense, lengthy reads.