Making neuroscience simple by promoting metacognition.

Abstract

This article describes strategies used to transform an international neuroscience initiative into an integrated service-learning component of a neural-related course. The structure of the project promoted reflective practices and experiential learning, which resulted in metacognitive development. Although the material reviewed is specific to the development of a neural-related project, it also addresses general service-learning issues that might be of interest to those from many different fields.

Introduction

Picture a small group of college students prepared to teach a class of elementary children concepts in neuroscience. Rather than displaying a picture of a brain, spinal cord or neuron, the students ask for two volunteers to blow through a straw to inflate a balloon. Every hand is raised, and two volunteers are selected. The activity proceeds as follows. At the go signal, both children begin to blow fast and hard, trying to blow up their balloon faster than the other. In one case the balloon expands with each breath, pleasing the child immensely. In the second case the child blows so hard that her face becomes red, but the balloon remains deflated. This child finally determines that the straw is cracked and announces this to the rest of the class. There was no mistake. In fact, the activity worked perfectly. The college students ask the children to explain why the cracked straw would affect balloon expansion. After the children explain that the airflow through the straw was disrupted and diverted through the crack, the college student correlates the cracked straw to neural damage and the balloon expansion to movement caused by muscle contraction. The inability to expand the balloon with the cracked straw was linked to diminished movements that can occur with neural damage, and the children understand an important scientific concept. Moreover, the college students have attained important learning objectives about neuroscience and communication skills.

Background

This article describes a service-learning project that directly impacted community children while meeting the needs of college students enrolled in a neuromotor control course. The project design required undergraduate students at Louisiana State University (LSU) to research, plan and present an interactive fact-and-activity session with children in the local schools. Students researched a chosen neural process and applied their knowledge by creating an activity that, when performed, gave others insight into the process. Project development was inspired by an initiative from the Society for Neuroscienee (SFN) in an attempt to disseminate accurate information about nervous system function, to eliminate misconceptions regarding neural activity and to raise public awareness of the importance of neural research.

Neuroscientists continue to learn about the numerous functional roles of the nervous system. Generally, the dissemination of accurate information concerning these functions is limited, and misconceptions are common (Cameron & Chudler, 2003). For example, one commonly-held misconception is that people only use 10% of the brain. In an attempt to disseminate correct information regarding neural function, the SFN took an initiative to implement an international outreach: Brain Awareness Week. The Brain Awareness Week presentations are based on our current understanding of the nervous system as well as its protection and are designed to increase public awareness of neural research as well as the function and degeneration of the brain that occurs with disease, injury or age. Although the event continues to grow, the outreach remains concentrated in areas around medical schools, where many neuroscientists are located. A curriculum was designed to create a similar outreach project that would directly impact those in the local community, while meeting the needs of undergraduate students enrolled in a neuromotor control course at LSU.

As with any school system, the school system near LSU has a mission to provide quality education for all students to help prepare them to function and contribute to the changing needs of their community. Increasing a community's knowledge of neural function may eliminate some of the mystery associated with neural function, while filling a void in the science teaching materials used to prepare children for the state standardized tests. For example, the state tests children on aspects of the nervous system, omitted from the educators' materials (Principal C. St. Romain, personal communication: January 11, 2002). College students met this community-defined need by using their knowledge, gained in the class, to help disseminate information about neural function. Neuromotor Control of Human Movement is an undergraduate course implemented for junior and senior Human Movement Science majors in the Department of Kinesiology at LSU. In accordance with the goals of the Department, the goals of this course are for students to learn about, acquire a better understanding of and gain an appreciation for the neural aspects of human movement. Although properly designed test questions can ascertain whether students meet these goals, another option for scrutinizing learning involves having the students teach the material to individuals that could benefit from such knowledge (Burgh & Schul, 1980). Therefore, both customary examinations and interactive projects were used in the current project to better implement the course goals and objectives and evaluate students.

The course, like most service-learning courses, is discipline specific. Incorporating a discipline-specific project in a course can make the project more effective (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Zlotkowski, 2000). Nonetheless, the project development before and after preparing a Service-Learning Faculty Incentive Award presented below may guide similar projects in various curricula. Such development fosters student thinking and learning (Giles & Eyler, 1998), while meeting the needs of the local community--the definition of service-learning (Weigert, 1998).

Cognitive Development Links

Students participating in a service-learning project can learn from the experience (e.g., Rockquemore & Schaffer, 2000). Because the cognitive processing associated with this type of learning remains unclear, a better understanding of this processing must occur in order to improve the effectiveness of service-learning as a teaching strategy (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Giles & Eyler, 1998; Howard, 1998; Rockquemore & Schaffer, 2000; Steinke & Buresh, 2002; Zlotkowski, 2000), Cognitive researchers have suggested that although content of knowledge is important (Bransford et al., 2000; Schank, Berman, & Macpherson, 1999), abilities such as knowledge application and the use of metacognition are qualities of the expert (Bransford et al., 2000). Schank and colleagues (1999) reasoned that teaching goals based on the student learning "how" are linked to intelligence because such learning becomes meaningful to the student. Metacognition encourages "how" learning.

Metacognition requires an individual to think about how others might think and/or learn and thus encompasses the idea of true understanding. Metacognition is an integral pan of Goal-Based Scenarios, which some agree to be essential to effective instruction (Schank & Joseph, 1998). Goal-Based Scenarios are those that require expectations and promote learning by having students attempt to achieve expected goals (Schank & Joseph, 1998). Failure to achieve a goal is part of the process. Thus students learn from their mistakes with the purpose of eventually achieving the goal. When required to reflect on the thought process that helped them achieve the goal (i.e., use of metacognition), students may devise strategies to achieve future goals and learn how to problem-solve (Eyler & Giles, 1999). Current findings demonstrated that the project promoted metacoguitive development. By devising an illustrative activity to help explain a chosen neural process, students applied their knowledge to help others better understand neural concepts. Therefore, students understood their own thought processes and regulated the cognitive processes through this understanding to encourage development of metacognitive skills (Bruning, 1994).

Project Description

The purpose of the project was to have undergraduate students research, plan and present a fact-and-activity session, interactive in nature, with children in the local schools. The students received an outline listing the project objectives: (1) to identify neural topics on which the children will be tested, (2) to describe nervous system functions and create activities that describe these functions and (3) to disseminate information regarding neural function, including that on which the children will be tested. The project involved two parts: the individual and group efforts.

Individual Effort The individual work, used to achieve objective 2, was presented in the syllabus as follows:

   You are to become an "expert" on a single neural process of your
   choosing. More specifically, you should verify that you fully
   understand the chosen neural process. This includes obtaining
   and presenting background information on the chosen topic and
   applying this information by creating an activity that gives
   others insight into this process.

These instructions prompted students to begin to "think about their own thinking" and accompanied specific information, such as how to choose a process, develop activity ideas, organize references, write and present.

Since the students are not teacher education majors, an experiential teaching and learning structure was used to increase student confidence prior to preparing the group outreach. The students had a 3-minute time limit to present their activities in class, using fellow students as participants. Following each activity, students listed a positive aspect of the presentation and a suggestion for improvement. Feedback from classmates and the instructor helped ensure that the interactive sessions remained informative and appropriate for children. Although initially well received by the community, the project did not become fully integrated into the course learning goals until a service-learning grant was developed. Additional advantages of the outreach were identified and implemented after reviewing the "principles of effective practice" (Howard, 2001). Criteria for an "exemplary service-learning syllabi" (Heffernan, 2001) were also reviewed to guide project development. To make the experience more meaningful for students and to provide insight into future project planning, students reflected on the experience in a journal and instructor feedback was based on Bradley's Criteria for assessing levels of reflection (Bringle & Hatcher, 1999). The students also wrote individual assessments of their presentations in the project journal. Reflections included immediate post presentation assessment and presentation assessment niter viewing evaluations by other students and the instructor. When writing, students followed certain assessment criteria provided in the syllabus. Ideally, students based their perceptions on reasoning and/or evidence rather than personal beliefs, as is suggested by Bringle & Hatcher (1999). Periodic feedback on journals was designed to help the student improve his/her abilities in critical analysis, to help assess the project effectiveness/impact and, when combined with the feedback from evaluations, to help students identify and organize material for the project outreach--the group effort.

Group Effort The group assignment, used to achieve objective 3, was presented to the students as follows:

   Each group of 2-3 students will give 2 presentations to a 4th, 5th
   or 6th grade class on some aspect of the nervous system. The first
   presentation will include a short introduction on brain function,
   spinal cord control and/or synaptic transmission and involve
   activities that help explain certain neural processes in the human
   body. The second outreach will be a follow-up visit based on
   evaluations by the teacher and children.

Students presented to 16 classrooms at 4 schools. Student and teacher schedules were used to assign students to groups. The plan was to assign students to a class early in the semester so they could contact the designated teacher, allowing the students to gain insight into the children's current knowledge base indirectly and identify gaps in the current neural curriculum. A delay in identifying teachers' class schedules prevented student-teacher contact early in the semester. Therefore, science topics listed in the guidelines of the appropriated state curriculum guided question development. After receiving the guidelines, students developed a set of questions to pre-assess the children's knowledge base directly. Teachers reviewed and revised the questions prior to pre-testing the children. To ensure the needs of the children were met (objective 1), answers to the questions guided organization of the main student presentations.

The students then prepared a presentation outline, which included the precise subject matter, the planned activities and the estimated time for each (including allowances for introductions and a question/answer period). During this process, the students began to think about how others (the children) might think. The students also helped design their performance evaluation forms for (1) the teacher of the class, (2) the children, and (3) their peers. Thus their performance expectations were clear. Again, students documented their personal assessment of the pre-assessment and presentation in their journals. Students used interests of the children to organize the second visit. At the end of the first visit, each of the children identified an item they learned and wrote a neural-related question (not necessarily related to the presentations) for students to address. The items learned allowed students to better assess the effect of the presentation on the children and helped create review questions for the next outreach. The children's questions guided the development of the second fact-and-activity session, allowing students to think about thinking once again. The evaluations and journal entries followed the session.

Project Feedback

Feedback about the outcome of the fall 2002 outreach was received from the students, children and teachers. The general consensus from the evaluations was that the interactive sessions were effective. Teachers rated student attendance, instructor skills, working relations and personal characteristics. Only occasionally did students receive less than superior ratings from the teachers. For example, students who gave a short presentation or were tardy received lower ratings. Most often students received superior ratings across all ten items evaluated. More impressive were the optional comments. Teachers wrote brief comments such as "well prepared" and "excellent" and more appreciative comments, such as "the students (referring to the children) were proud that they caught on quickly." Most impressive and self-explanatory was one comment from a 4th grade teacher who stated: "My students were able to recognize and identify parts of the brain on a field trip ... and exhibit knowledge gained by the LSU students' visit." The children's evaluations revealed that most remembered something from the presentation. It was also clear that many posed questions closely related to the presented material. The children's requests for wanting to learn further information were varied and abundant and would take several pages to list.

Responses to the project seemed to achieve the goal for which it was designed: to benefit students, children and the various neuroscience disciplines. Although this experience initially seemed daunting for some students, it developed into one that was reported as "fun" and "worthwhile" that "definitely should be continued in the future." The positive impact of the experience must have outweighed any negatives because none were reported in an anonymous post-course evaluation. Student excerpts included: "I really enjoyed doing the project," "I think it's just a really motivating thing," and "... I'm just hoping that other students will get the opportunity to experience what we did." Students who have participated in a service-learning experience have a tendency to continue participation in outreach projects (Astin, Sax, & Avalos, 1999). Hopefully, the positive experience with the current service-learning project will create the desire to participate in community outreach as the students' careers develop. Most have plans to become physical therapists and physicians.

Project Reflection

Organization of the proposed project keeps initial costs minimal and expensive materials optional. There are many educational institutions like LSU for which more expensive materials, like human cadaver brains, are not immediately accessible (unlike a medical school that may already have the appropriate materials and/or funds). Projects like the one presented are one method that these institutions could use to establish a public outreach while meeting community needs. In order to do so effectively, it is important that the project remain functionally dynamic. Remember that the pre-assessment, second outreach and personal reflection journals were incorporated into the project only after reviewing material from Howard (2001), Heffernan (2001) and Bringle and Hatcher (1999) when preparing the grant proposal. It was not until the adoption of this new format that students showed clear signs of advanced cognitive development, that of metacognition. The following excerpt is from a student who participated in the anonymous post-course review:

   So, the activities that we did, we had to think of 'Okay, how am I
   going to, ... This is the concept that I want to address and now I
   need to show them what we're talking about.' ... from all
   perspectives we really learned the material. I mean, I know I
   learned a lot in the class, but I know for sure the stuff I taught
   to those kids, I won't ever forget that stuff ...

Many of the comments listed previously do not portray the fact that some students were frustrated when choosing a neural process or trying to come up with a unique activity to help others better understand their chosen process. Others became disappointed that they grew nervous when presenting or that their activity did not work perfectly when presented in class. By having students set several project goals, they could "fail" and regroup before having another opportunity to improve, directly linking this process with learning how to problem-solve using Goal-Based Scenarios (Steinke & Buresh, 2002).

The first project goal designed to help students develop in-class presentations, involved practicing on friends, family and other classmates. Students were informed that an appropriate activity would help those not familiar with neural concepts to understand their chosen process. This provided students with several opportunities to cultivate critical thinking skills. If they "failed" during practice, they had an opportunity to improve before presenting in class. This practice is analogous to a well-known fact in Neuroscience; neural circuits are strengthened with use and weakened without it (Singer, 1995). Also during activity development, practice sessions and outreach preparations, students had the opportunity to think, re-think, and further re-think about how others might learn. Students who practiced most often had more opportunity to reevaluate the activity and promote metacognitive development, leading to a better presentation.

Project Alterations Currently Implemented

The outreach presentations change each semester as the students change. Encouraging unique activities should result in fresh and dynamic presentations that promote knowledge application used to assess understanding. The fall semester (2002) evaluations from the teachers, children and students were used to improve the service-learning project for spring 2003. The feedback from each subsequent set of evaluations helps determine the project's success and future directions. For spring 2003 two major changes involving the pre-assessment and journal entries were made. For pre-assessment, former students suggested that it would be helpful if they could communicate with the teacher prior to the first presentation. As previously mentioned, direct communication between student and teacher early in the semester did not occur. The students now use the state curriculum science guidelines to identify possible topics covered for each age group, outlines from student presentations from the previous semester and children's evaluations as the pre-assessment to guide the initial presentations. In previous journal entries students responded to and defended their answers to several questions 5 times throughout the semester: initial responses to in-class presentations; follow-up responses to in-class presentation, after reviewing evaluations from the instructor and peers; responses to pre-assessment; responses to initial group outreach; responses to follow-up outreach.

Because review of their entries resulted in many redundant comments, a change was made. Students now reflect on the first four items orally in class, with a single written entry after the follow-up outreach. The oral discussions consume less time and allow students to learn from each other. Project changes helped improve the experience. Some changes, such as those to the pre-assessment, needed adjustments because of external constraints--late responses from the teachers. Other changes such as number of journal entries resulted in unreasonable time commitments needed for review--an internal constraint. For those readers planning to develop a similar project, design considerations that were most helpful in project development are listed.

Project Design Considerations

To increase the likelihood of effective instruction, the educator must also be able to integrate scholarly experience with service (Giles & Eyler, 1998). Using a teaching strategy that emphasizes cognitive development within a specific discipline by a well-informed educator should provide students with the best opportunities to enhance learning outcomes. Using an effective instructional tool such as Goal-Based Scenarios can make learning more meaningful to students (Schank & Joseph, 1998; Schank et al., 1999) and encourage understanding and problem-solving (Eyler & Giles, 1999). The goal of service-learning involves meeting the needs of students, faculty, university and community partners (Weigert, 1998). In this project, students learned about the neural control of human movement, while meeting specific community needs, which included supplementing curriculum with information about the nervous system not available in the educators' state approved teaching materials. Although initially evident that the children might benefit from the presented information, identifying the immediate need for improving state test scores added a new component to the project that increased its appeal. Identifying community needs are important when developing a good service-learning project (Bringle & Hatcher, 1995; Bringle & Hatcher, 1999) and these needs were an important factor that enhanced community, department, college and university support. Moreover, requiring students to simplify neural-related concepts for fourth grade understanding encouraged metacognitive development.

Notes

I thank Carrie MacNabb, a Community Program Associate at the University of Minnesota for her support and help in compiling activity references; Jan Shoemaker and the Service-Learning staff and faculty at LSU for their encouragement, suggestions and financial support; and the students, children, teachers and school contacts for their help in ensuring the project's success.

References

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Hondzinski, recipient of a 2002 service-learning award at Louisiana State University, is an Assistant Professor in Kinesiology. Her research interest is in neural control of movement.