Teachers should make task demands explicit, compelling, varied, and metacognitively supported when assigning text-study tasks¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

From the finding that tenth-graders show limited task awareness, the authors derive four instructional suggestions: provide sufficient information about intended task demands aligned with the tasks ultimately set; make task demands "convincing and compelling enough" so students cannot succeed with routine strategies alone; vary the types of study tasks (e.g., memorization versus deep comprehension, different disciplinary perspectives); and give metacognitive support by asking students to judge the importance of text units and explain their judgments. The article states students must learn that author-based, reader-based, and instruction-based relevance criteria exist.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Teachers must align the task-demand information they give with the tasks they ultimately set

Constraints¶

• Stimulating students to explain their selection activities may itself make them more aware of the task than they would be without the stimulation

Target Learners¶

• secondary school students studying instructional texts

Target Learning Goals¶

• adapting text-study strategies to specific task demands; selecting relevant information according to varied criteria

Claims¶

• Tenth-graders show few signs of global task awareness when selecting text fragments, rarely rereading or deeply processing task instructions [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Question Answer Relationships
• Provide explicit prompting instruction and expert scaffolding before or during novice LLM activities

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Gonny L. M. Schellings & Hein Broekkamp. (2011). Signaling task awareness in think-aloud protocols from students selecting relevant information from text. Metacognition and Learning 6:65–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-010-9067-z