Yesterday I wrote a post about evaluating your professor., but today I would like to focus on how to evaluate yourself. When finals are over you should not run off and begin partying, there are few things that you should sit down and do. Evaluating your performance during the semester is one thing you need to do.

Metacognitive Letters

What does metacognitive mean? Here is a section taken from the wikipedia page.

Metacognition is classified into three components:

• Metacognitive Knowledge (also called metacognitive awareness) refers to what individuals know about themselves and others as cognitive processors.
• Metacognitive regulation is the regulation of cognition and learning experiences through a set of activities that help people control their learning.
• Metacognitive experiences are those experiences that have something to do with the current, on-going cognitive endeavor.

What do you do with this metacognitive stuff? You write a letter or a journal entry evaluating your performance. In one of my classes I had to write a metacognitive letter for every final paper, research, and presentation. At first I felt as if the task was just another time waster, but after writing a few metacognitive letters I discovered they are valuable.

Thinking About Your Progress

By sitting down and writing an evaluation of yourself you really get a good picture of your progress. You are able to ask yourself questions such as:

• Did I put my full effort into the assignment?
• What did I learn from the project?
• How could I have improved my final project
• Did I properly manage my time?
• Did I enjoy the assignment?

When you ask and answer these questions you get a chance to learn about yourself, and how you can improve the following semester. I suggest you write a metacognitive letter for every large project or paper. I also suggest writing one for each class.

Ask Your Professor

Through out the semester you should have attempt to communicate with your professors, and you should feel comfortable asking the professor about your progress in the class. Visit your professor. Ask him how he thought you did in the class. Ask how he believes you could improve. Even if you believe you are the top student in the class you should still ask the professor where you could improve. Doing so will allow you to go beyond the normal student and really fine tune your skills.

Before you go out and party try to sit down and write a few metacognitive letters. Writing one does not take much time. I also suggest that you reread the letters before you begin the next semester, that way your strengths and flaws are fresh in your mind and you can use them to excel.