Thinking About Thinking: How is Metacognitive Development Fostered in Undergraduate Atmospheric Science Programs?

Guiding students in acquiring discipline-specific content knowledge and skills is just one facet of atmospheric science educators’ work. As students progress through undergraduate programs in the atmospheric sciences, many factors, both inside and outside of the classroom, influence their learning. Students come with their own multi-faceted and unique experiences and disparate strategies for learning. Though there are many factors influencing education that cannot be controlled, educators can help students "learn how to learn" and self-assess what is and what isn't helping them learn, otherwise known as metacognitive skills. Our guiding research question is: To what extent are educators in our discipline incorporating teaching practices that encourage metacognitive development?

The National Research Council (2012) has encouraged research on metacognitive processes, especially across different STEM disciplines. Moreover, the recent NAGT Community Framework for Geoscience Education Research (2018) includes a chapter entitled, "Research on Geoscience Student's Self-Regulated Learning, Metacognition, and Affect," that identifies four grand challenges relevant to metacognition. We have approached these challenges broadly by designing and administering a survey to U.S.-based atmospheric science educators that teach atmospheric science courses at the undergraduate level. Through analysis of participant feedback, we aim to provide the atmospheric sciences community with an overview of different approaches to metacognitive development currently in practice and an analysis of trends in metacognitive teaching practices. We also aim to foster appreciation and understanding of the pedagogical soundness of this dimension of learning in higher education in our discipline. This survey also acts as a base for future research in the atmospheric sciences and geosciences, and contributes to the body of knowledge on metacognition in STEM.