The Importance Of Metacognition Practice For Students And Adults

Metacognition as a process of thinking about one's thinking and a process of critical self-reflection is a necessary practice for both students and adults. Metacognition as self-reflection can be used in reframing mindsets within a restorative justice lens, at effecting change in the amygdala and developing a sense of empathy within students. Many educators work to effect positive changes for student growth in both academics and socio-emotional health. Any event that occurs that causes a break in relationship or discipline infraction that occurs in a school can be viewed as a learning opportunity for adults and students. restorative justice provides tools for adults for allowing them to use these events and discipline infractions as learning opportunities. Payne & Welch (2017) point out that “the use of restorative justice techniques has decreased student delinquency, resulted in better academic outcomes, and improved school climate”. As professional adults, the expectation is to help children learn in all settings and to contribute to their well-being, as well as, their well-roundedness. In addition, this literature review aligns with concepts and ideas that are being discussed at schools and districts in every state in our country. Within Illinois, Senate Bill 100 (S. B. 0100, 2015) changed how districts approach discipline. The bill has implemented parameters on suspensions that are legally allowable for students and asks for evidence of intervention supports for students that are being considered for suspensions and/or expulsions outside of these parameters. Restorative justice is a foundational element that can provide these supports and enhance practitioners by providing usable concepts.

The foundation of this review is to provide a framework to build a development of empathic understanding within children exhibiting maladaptive social information processing. There are two guiding questions: Can antisocial behavior tendencies (anti-school perceived manners of action) and attitudes be changed/altered through neural synaptic plasticity? Neural synaptic plasticity is the strengthening and weakening of neural connections in the brain over time. These synaptic connections are strengthened through learning, as an activity, or weakened through a lack of activity. Can this change assist students in developing a capacity for empathy and a willingness to emotionally connect? The neural synaptic connections represent memory for both base academic knowledge and emotional knowledge. They can be strengthened by both positive and negative reinforcement.

How does one break the neural connections? How does one rebuild the neural connections? What retraining elements must be utilized? Looking to research from England in which researcher Dan Reisel has been using MRI’s to illustrate that convicts have a different physiological response to emotions such as distress and sadness than other “normal” people. Reisel’s research has shown that the inmates all have deficient amygdalae, which has connection to their lack of empathy and a preponderance of immoral behavior. The amygdalae are two sections of the brain thought to be part of the limbic system that are responsible for survival instincts, emotions and memory, as well as controlling aggression. Reisel is researching how to apply and utilize restorative justice to retrain the brain and affect growth in the amygdala. Reisel found that when raised alone in restricted environments, mice will develop repetitive behaviors and when introduced to other mice after a period of time, exhibit aggressive socially maladaptive behaviors. In contrast, mice raised with other mice in a positive environment “experience neurogenesis, the birth of new brain cells”. Neurogenesis is present in all mammalian life and is susceptible to stress. When raised in a stressful environment, such as the mice in the first example, “stress hormones … released by the brain suppress the growth of new cells”. Looking at this through the lens of restorative justice, Reisel worked to show that “perpetrators can see. . . the victims as a real person with thoughts feelings and a real emotional response”. Reisel’s work with MRI during the process of restorative justice is aimed at stimulating the amygdala and promoting neurogenesis.

Choe’s longitudinal work on amygdala activation to social threat showed that childhood social information processing and IQ could be used as a predictor amygdala response to threat a decade after the children were initially tested. Using MRI results and questionnaires, the researchers were able to document data to support this statement. This is further illustration that childhood social-cognitive characteristics are associated with the development of neural threat processing. The link between this work and Resiel’s is the use of MRI imaging to show the deficient areas of amygdala development. Choe’s (2015) work shows direct correlations with how adolescents develop into their adult counterparts. By looking at Choe’s (2015) and Reisel’s research we can see that the neural network can be affected positively by working with adolescents in changing their environmentally taught responses to threat by utilizing empathic understanding to facilitate better acclimated adult growth.

By applying Reisel’s work with restorative justice in settings with at-risk students that show these tendencies from an early age, we can work to build responsibility and a base level of empathy. Restorative justice looks to establish responsibility for actions with the perpetrator. Establishing dialogue for healing after an event occurs with all stakeholders and developing community builder concepts within a classroom to enhance capacity are set components of this practice. Positive Behavior Facilitation is a tool for adults to reframe their views of student actions through a culturally relevant lens. The concept behind this practice is to help students to feel more acclimated to and involved in the educational surroundings by having adults develop their understanding of what trauma and behaviorally formational events have occurred within a student's background. The adults develop ways to communicate with the students to provide guidance and retraining. “Through effective communication, we can begin to understand the needs of our children and assist them in making choices that are self-supportive vs. self-defeating”. Training in PBF can be extremely helpful for an active practitioner in delivering the restorative conversations with the students that have offender and those that are the victims. PBF can also help an adult to develop positive relationships with youth.

Cross, Morrison, Peterson & Domene (2012) researched a rural Canadian juvenile custody facilities implementation of positive psychology in case management and youth activity programming. Cross, Morrison, Peterson & Domene (2012) analyzed the design of the programming and identified elements of positive psychology and interviewed youth and service providers in the facility. The data that they found showed that the positive psychology was integrated in various throughout the programming in individual needs, autonomy and how relatable and connected the inmates felt with the staff. Positive psychology has roots in developing relationships between adults and youth and impacts the effectiveness of the programming. Since restorative conversations use an adult as a mediator, there can be a gain of greater effectiveness if there is a positive relationship that has or does exist. Can we help students to build a capacity for empathy and a willingness to emotionally connect? The answers can be found through the application of restorative justice. Reviewing literature that relates to effectiveness and questions raised by implementation and practice of restorative justice is necessary. Latimer, Dowden & Muise (2005) performed a meta-analysis of data gathered “from studies that compared restorative justice programs to traditional non restorative approaches to criminal behavior. ” The researchers looked at the satisfaction of the process by the victim and offender, how well restitution was given and the recidivism of occurrences from offenders. Latimer, Dowden & Muise (2005) found that restorative programs were statistically more effective. Daly (2002) used research on conferencing in Australia and New Zealand to show a version of restorative justice that differs from advocates’ accounts of restorative justice. Daly (2002) showed that there are documented connections between retributive acts and restorative acts. Daly (2002) useed previous research to explain how origin stories are sometimes used to overcome opposition and may not truly relay the truths of the origins. Comparing advocates’ stories, Daly (2002) offered a critical review of their efforts. She summarized her article with a reflection about the future of restorative justice and whether the origin story as currently told or the real story as she determines will be more beneficial to the practices moving forward. Daly (2000) raised the question of what role punishment takes in the restorative justice process. The article does not answer the question but brings up the topic to begin discussion about the issue. Punishment is a term that resonates, positively and negatively (in terms of application to an event), with many people. Daly (2000) discussed how this resonates within people regarding the use of the idea of punishment “when it is linked to a restorative justice process, that is, an informal legal process that includes lay and legal actors, which is partly, but not entirely state punishment”. Daly (2000) is adamant that we need to discuss this as a concern and an issue with the practice of restorative justice.

Gavrielides (2008) “claims that the restorative movement is experiencing a tension between normative abolitionist and pragmatic visions of restorative justice. ” Gavrielides (2008) looked at six issues that contribute to the tension between the views and that these affect the theory and the practice behind restorative justice. These tensions are felt by people at the practice level and those that research, as well as, those that create policy and are interpreting the findings and the reports that are provided for them to make decisions for implementation and programming. Gavrielides (2008) stated that in order to begin to mediate the issues, we must understand all of the facets of the issues and how they are intertwined, as well as, the impact that these areas have on practice at the offender/victim level. As restorative justice has been created and implemented, the restorative process has been viewed through the paradigm of Critical Social Theory by social scientists. At the XIII Congress of Criminology, Watchel & McCold (2003) provided a summary of restorative justice, as well as the application of this to social scientists in explaining the validity of the practice. Watchel & McCold (2003) defined the foundation of restorative justice as working from the belief that “crime harms people and relationships and that justice requires the healing of the harm as much as possible”.

Criminology uses a Social Process Theory with three branches in learning, control, and reaction. The learning branch operates from how we learn by what we have viewed, control operates from how crime is born from a lack of connection with elements within society and reaction operates from an idea that criminals are identified as such and fully assume the given identity as their own. Restorative justice was developed as a social response to the branches and as a method to provide connections for offenders back to society. Critical Social Theory works from a definition that study should improve understanding of society by integrating major social sciences. Restorative justice addresses emotional needs of victims and helps offenders find ownership in their actions, as well as the lasting effects of these actions on the victims. This paradigm matches the practices of restorative justice in an extremely cohesive fashion. Using the lens of Critical Social Theory on restorative justice can provide valuable information to social scientists looking for methods to provide improvements within social relations.

Action Research as a research methodology seems to be best suited to answer these inquiries. Traditional social sciences are challenged by action research through theoretical application happening in the moment, as well as, data collection which happens amid structures which are being refined rather than being based upon knowledge relayed by outside experts using samples of variable data sources. Within the Action Research umbrella, we must be able to participate within the research being a portion of the process and experiencing what happens throughout while documenting the effects on the social community. Participatory Action research seeks to understand the world by trying to change it, collaboratively and following reflection of the changes attempted. The changes are implemented using an approach to research in communities that emphasizes participation and action on their parts in bettering themselves and their society. Wadsworth (2005) noted that participatory action research helps to remove the “I” from the study in place of the “we. ” As researchers that are people with a given society, we have a stake in making good come from our work - we must remove the “I” in place of the “we. ” Participatory action research can be used to look at the effects of utilizing this research in social values development, community development and within educational practices. Dupont (2008) called for the need of participatory action research within the field of criminology, as well as, dialogue about the social values of their research. This research also has the ability to empower those that participate within the research as well. Liu, Gastardo-Conaco and Wong (2008) used a “qualitative approach of recording bottom-up processes of social change and community self-awareness”. The idea that participatory action research can make bottom-up changes is exactly what my research question needs and is aimed at developing. After an event occurs that causes a break in relationship or discipline infraction that occurs in a school, restorative Circles can be held with the offender(s) and the victims(s). These circles are aimed at building community and offering a safe place for adolescents to share their joys and concerns. Conversations within this group can range from discussing what happened over the weekend to processing through adverse scenarios while using peers to problem solve. Using the approach helps the students in finding their place amongst a social group thereby affecting a modicum of change to their maladaptive behaviors.

Another element that is used within the restorative justice practice is the restorative chat. After a behavioral incident, a series of questions are asked of the adolescent identified as the offender. The questions that will be used are:

● Tell me what happened.

● What were you thinking at the time?

● What do you think about it now?

● Who did this affect?

● What do you think the other person’s perspective is in the situation?

● What do you need to do about it?

● How can we make sure this does not happen again?

● What can I do to help you?

These questions are aimed at helping the control group participants learn how to take responsibility for both their actions and their sense of damage to relationships. With these conversations, victims and others that are near to the situation (i. e. , teachers, other staff, parents, community members, etc. ) can also be brought in to be a part of the conversation in an effort to assist the students in truly understanding how their actions affect others around them. Metacognition as self-reflection provides one an opportunity to analyze what has occurred and the “why” about was has occurred. Metacognitive studies have looked into judgements of learning (JOL’s) and confidence judgements (CJ’s) as they relate to learning. As Destan & Roebers (2015) show JOL’s “being prospective in nature, participants are asked to judge how well they have learned a certain kind of information (i. e. , word-pairs) by making judgments on the item-level … CJs, on the other hand, are retrospective judgments for which individuals are asked to judge the certainty that their response (i. e. , the answer on a recognition test) was correct for every single item”.

Looking at Callender, Franco-Watkins & Roberts (2016) work, along with Destan & Roebers’, one can see how these ideas align with restorative justice principles to enhance a student’s ability to self-reflect and use their metacognitive skills to create a systemic change to their behavior as well as their learning. In Callender, Franco-Watkins & Roberts (2016) research, students were taught the concepts of overconfidence, given feedback on exams, and provided incentives for accurate perceptions of their achievement. Results showed that “lower performing students initially displayed overconfidence and the highest performing students initially displayed underconfidence”. There was also a second portion of the study in which feedback was not provided to one group, but was provided to another. Based on the results, they found that improvement and overconfidence was seen in those that received feedback but not in the others. This led to an idea that feedback is important in metacognition. The process of restorative justice provides feedback on how victims feel and their emotional response. If feedback can promote levels of improvement, then research looking into how this feedback is received by offenders during and after a restorative conference can prove beneficial overall.

Conclusion

Data has shown that Restorative Justice as a practice can reduce recidivism in youth offenders. Benefit can not only be seen in the data surrounding youth recidivism, but in relationship developing for adults with youth that they are responsible for. While there is more data that can be presented, research in this field can further practice of adults working with youth and help youth to find ways to reintegrate themselves into the communities after negative events occur. Youth can develop the ability to learn about themselves and how to trust others to help them to grow and develop. As adults in a community, our responsibility is to teach them and help them to develop in order to become productive, beneficial members of our society.