There has been a lot of talk about metacognition recently among educators.
Through metacognitive process we hope to encourage students to understand why they are learning what they are learning. Metacognition helps us deconstruct the learning process so we can come to understand how we learn what we learn. Potentially all of this leads to a more productive process of gaining and using knowledge.
Looking around Northpoint Park and its surroundings it's remarkable how geographically isolated it is from nearby neighborhoods. Yet the recent improvements in the park have led to very great connectivity between parts of the park and between neighborhoods on either side. Walking around the space you get a feeling not only of expansiveness but of connection with the built environment of the city. All this with surprising moments of visual intimacy.
The site is large and complex and as we walked we grappled with the problem of how to introduce it to the students. With its long history of multiple uses and the current iteration which suggests those uses, why not provide students with a series of historical maps and accompanying images to help with them contextualize the site. Then we thought we would be able to bring students to the site at least a couple of times for them to get their bearings and make observations. Finally, we hope to engage students with a set of questions that will help them frame their designs for the future of this built environment.
So in preparation for our course in January we exercised metacognition in planning how we will utilize the site with students. We also built in a metacognitive component for the students. By observing recording and analyzing the site they will gain a connection with the unfolding process of its development.
This on top of the fact that the Northpoint site is so connected in its design. In a built environment the feeling of connection seems so important. The same can be said for any intellectual model. By feeling connected, by understanding the context of a problem, and by participating in analysis of the problem, we come to understand the process of our understanding. This, I think, is the essence of metacognition.
As someone who has been lucky enough to take that portion of the course, I can say that the site visit added a lot of richness to the project that wouldn't have been there otherwise. So many factors of the site would have never been done justice with just words and photos. The noises, the air, feeling the pleasant and unpleasant microclimates all helped inform our design choices. Walking between the site and the mall showed us the challenges of navigating traffic in the city while strolling through the NorthPoint Park demonstrated how much more enjoyable city life has the potential to be.
ReplyDeleteOur site visits last week taught me that I really need to be intentional about the way I approach a new situation, concept, or subject. Checking in to say to myself: "what are the tools I need to implement in this context, and what are the best methods to process the new information?" really makes all the difference. It is not an easy thing to remember to do though; I certainly didn't approach the site visits last week as deliberately as I should have (even though we had been discussing learning tools for the past two and a half weeks!). At the end of the day, I had learned a lot, but I wanted a do-over because I also felt like I had missed a lot. Our discussions about how we learn, and why we learn it have been transformative in shaping my understanding how to approach a problem, a new concept, or a new situation and I will have to continue practicing these methods so I make it a routine of putting these tools to use.
ReplyDeleteI believe that when working on creating a good solution for a problem or a site such as North Point it is essential for the designer/participants to become familiar with the site/problems and interact with it first-hand. In order to understand or comprehend a problem, one must engage and play with it until one establishes a certain kind of relationship with that factor, because only than does one feel in the right to pass judgement or suggestions for a good solution. "The solution is in the problem and the problem in the solution" is a good sum-up phrase. Had I not physically gone to North Point I would not have been able to neither design nor understand the group's decisions because I would have had zero first-hand exposure or knowledge of the site on which to base my judgement on.
ReplyDeleteAt the Intensive we looked over both sites in comparison to see which one appealed to us. We had Google Earth maps, development proposals, and general information of the areas. Some of us had already formed an idea of which one we wanted to work on but it took our trip out there to finalize our decision or change our minds. Experiencing the site and the surroundings first-hand was the defining moment of how most of us made that choice. I keep thinking of how easy it was to plot our ‘transit’ map on paper when we walked there. I keep wondering how great it would have been if the next day we rode bikes to the site, the following day we took the city bus, and the last day a car ride. We would then really have a feel for all transportation methods to the site. A different perspective each time and trying to connect them all. I will say that with what we observed and the limited time we had, we still found ways to connect them to the neighborhoods.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find it at times challenging to effectively observe a site, learn how the surrounding context relates to the site, as well as interpreting the endless amount of information that make up a certain area. I sometimes feel overwhelmed. I have a tendency to not always know where to begin when studying an existing site. Perhaps it is the lack of understanding my personal metacognition approach when evaluating a site.
ReplyDeleteI feel that becoming consciously aware of metacognition and metacognitive approaches, I can begin to learn how I learn. This will allow me to effectively understand environmental, social, and economic information, which can be used when making design decisions. On a general sense, grasping metacognitive approaches can allow for effective advocacy for sustainable design solutions.
I haven't thought much into the idea of metacognition and how to go about it, but I would like to believe it is a way of thinking that I've tried to base my life on. During the past few years I've been teaching myself to take a step back and understand that I don't understand or know everything, not only that but that I'm not meant to know everything. The start of this line of thinking began when I tried to eliminate hatred from my life. I no longer hate anyone or anything for that matter. I realize that I don't know everything that has to do with a person, a situation or anything. No matter how horrible someone, something, or some event has been I don't allow myself to hate.
ReplyDeleteWhen relating metacognition to our group site I think it is a good idea to look into its history. The history would allow us a small glimpse into the why behind everything. Not just that, but when our group zoomed out to see the city around our site; we were able to see that this area was much larger than our assigned site and that it was important to take that into consideration. On a personal note with taking a step back, I'm not from the city and love nature, woods, lakes, rivers, and just being able to get away. To approach a site that's in a city I have to remove my biases and do what is best for the particular site, not what I would personally want.
Metacognition "knowing that you know" is a complex outcome for me,however using the tools we've been provided in the last 3 weeks in design methods class I feel I'm on the right step to reach metacognition. Observing, documenting and analyzing will lead to defining the issue then solve it. It was amazing to apply these critical thinking methods on our sites visit, each one of them has unique features and issues, walking around, trying to observe, document, and asking all these questions connected me to the sites not only as a designer or a problem solver but as someone who wants to enjoy the outcome of these projects.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that metacognition leads to a more productive process of understanding. Asking questions, so many questions, can actually lead you to the answer. I had never worked this way.. it was usually a quick explanation and get to work. The time that was spent asking all the questions was the time gained from redoing something that didn't go with what the project needed.
ReplyDeleteI believe that visiting the site is a very important factor when it comes to a design proposal.. as I said before.. sit on the chair to know it is uncomfortable.. go to the site to see, feel, smell, hear everything that is going on.. and start asking right there, with everything seen and living it.
I find it interesting that the metacognitive process entails both trying to understand why you are learning what you are learning, as well as deconstructing the learning process to understand how we learn what we learn. It's pretty complex.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed learning the history of the area.
The site visit to NorthPoint was crucial for our project. Without a site visit I feel like our project would have looked completely different and our process would have been much longer. The complement of the Design Research Methods class to Margarita's class and the project drastically helped us re-evaluate and move forward with our design process. I felt like the metacognitive processes were found in these portions of the Intensive week. And without this we may STILL be sitting in that room discussing some of the aspects of the site that were less crucial to the final project.
ReplyDeleteThe site visit to Northpoint was the moment it became clear how interconnected this site would be to its surrounding neighborhoods. When looking at the site on an outlined map, it was easy to forget how important it would be to connect the site to the rest of the Boston area, not only physically, but through social pathways, as well. I feel similarly about how these two courses are connected. At first, it is not clear how they relate to one another, but once we all worked on-site together last week, it became obvious how the two complement and relate to each other.
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting to play with the ideas of connection in the physical world and connection in the cognitive world. In both "places," connection and connectedness helps define where one is at the moment. One's ideas and one's physical location have very little meaning without contextualizing them. And contextualizing is pretty much about identifying location and time connections and cleavages around a place or an idea. Does any of this make sense? Diana
ReplyDeleteDesigning buildings for me has always been about connections, I never knew what metacognitive processes were. Architecture is finding ways to connect space to space, creating an experience in the transition from one space to another and most importantly connecting the user to the space.
ReplyDeleteWell, here goes again. Posted a comment and of course list it when I attempted to post here. So my thoughts were that the physical site visit was very valuable and giving us a sense of the vulnerability and connective needs of the site. We could not have formulated the design and alternates that we did construct without the site visit. Although there was a lot of information provided to us on NorthPoint the critical topographic lay of the land and proximity to Boston Harbor need to be visited in person. We did opt for a more "conventional" sustainable design in the end but reserved options including retreat fro the site and restoration to a marshland albeit still connected to neighbors.
ReplyDeleteThis topic is of connections among spaces is so important, but perhaps underlooked in some mainstream development schemes. In permaculture, corriders are repeatedly given reference to. The transition from one zone to another, and within these spaces, or corriders, is where the identity or role of the space is defined. I think the more we can utlize this tool, that exists, so deeply within the natural world, the more we can create connectivity within our built environments, as we continue to add layers of development.
ReplyDeleteI remember our walk in Northpoint and it was a big experience personally. Certainly the sense of connectivity was very evident there. As you walk through the site the sounds changed. The cars passing through the bridge were very close but as you walk under it the sounds felt more distant. It was like being in the middle of the street but it was somehow peaceful under the bridge, having the water by your side. Water is a buffering element that brings freshness and peacefulness, even when you are under a major transit bridge like this. The different types of ways, for cars, pedestrians, bikes, trains, and boats, all converging in the same space, creates a feeling of connection like no other that I have experienced before. The passage lead to a beautiful park, but this journey was even more special for me.
ReplyDeleteThinking about this experience relates to me about the train of thought we have when we are learning or analyzing a problem. There are several ideas on the mind going on simultaneously, but they all merge at some point. Some of these ideas are faster, some are slower but they are all equally important and require a different approach. As we begin to understand where all these ideas come from, the creative mind can start to make connections between them that make sense and help us solve complex problems.
OMG MY COMMENT'S NOT HERE EITHER AND IT DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME THAT IT DIDN'T WORK! I don't even remember what I wrote now. Something about how can you tell if something is connected? Is it the number of paths? The number of site lines? Connectives seems like a visual illusion, since even if you had loads of paths and waterways, but your park was all tall trees would you still count it as being 'connected'? Seems like if you take away the visual connectivity then the areas of the part become isolated and then all those pathways and waterways meant very little. Can 'connectivity' be rated or is it more that the amount and smoothness of pathways that get rated? The quality of material used? Type of material. How do you measure connectivity?
ReplyDeleteAnd then I wrapped it up trying to summarize what you were talking about doing in this article, which seemed to be trying to include reasons in your class for why what you're studying is interesting and relevant to convince the students' brains that they should pay attention of their own free will.
Like Latin.
"By feeling connected, by understanding the context of a problem, and by participating in analysis of the problem, we come to understand the process of our understanding. This, I think, is the essence of metacognition."
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your observations regarding the connectivity of the park. However I would liken the appreciation of the North point park to be tied not only to the interconnectivity of the space but also to the "Sense of Place" the park gives visitors. A sense of place requires the following elements:
1. There must be easy access to move in and through the space.
2. There must be something that forces the visitor to change speed and direction.
3. There are areas that encourage a pause in their journey to give them time to think.
4. Visitors must have something to observe while they are within the place.
I don't agree that feeling connected to a space immediately drives you to think about the source of your thought processes, though I think it is a great jumping off point. Had we only visited North Point park we would have no concept of the context within the region, much like visiting Boston is a distinctly different experience from visiting the rest of Massachusetts. Analyzing an urban space for problems requires input from the whole community. A room full of designers will think of a space in one specific way, representing their background and training which is why community dialogue is so critical to making good design. I believe that the task of any designer is not only to recognize their own ideas and thought processes, but also to recognize and incorporate the ideas of other key stakeholders.
-Courtney Walsworth
I wish we could have taken another walk through North Point during the most recent intensive. It almost seemed like there was too much going on to take it all in during a single visit. I enjoy the opportunity to stop within a new site, and take a few moments to observe what is happening around me. There was a lot to grasp and trying to develop a personal perspective of my surroundings was extremely difficult for me. I wish I had some background of the sire - like the chronological progression of all the individual parts of North Point, current and historic uses of each part, what is the currently functioning, which parts were being rebuilt, what places were public, which were private? I agree that the site connected a lot to a lot, but having no idea what it connected really limited my appreciation for the site.
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ReplyDeleteOne way that helps me learn and figure out what to do or how to go about something, is to picture myself there. Whether it is at the site or in a situation. This is my process for understanding.- Amanda Rochon
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