A recent report by the AAC&U (2002) advocates greater emphasis on educating students to be "intentional learners" who are purposeful and self-directing, empowered through intellectual and practical skills, informed by knowledge and ways of knowing, and responsible for personal actions and civic values. Self-directing learners also take initiative to diagnose their learning needs, they formulate learning goals, they select and implement learning strategies, and they evaluate their learning outcomes. It is commonly assumed that students will develop these sorts of skills, motivations, and attitudes in the course of mastering content, but this is not necessarily the case.

In an effort to help students develop these skills, Dexter Perkins and I began introducing a learning co-curriculum into our courses. This curriculum includes readings, classroom activities, discussions, and reflective journaling about learning. These activities not only provide a foundation for developing skills for life-long learning, they also provide scaffolding as students undertake greater responsibility for their own learning. Additionally, students now have a shared vocabulary about thinking and learning, they have a clearer understanding of our expectations for their learning (i.e., that student learning goals should go far beyond memorizing content), and they are more intentional about their own learning. Student motivations and attitudes have changed remarkably with the greater focus on thinking and learning. Furthermore, students more fully understand the value of their learning and their own development.

Reading reflections are designed to encourage students to complete readings before coming to class, to reflect more deeply on the content of the reading, to make personal meaning from the meaning, and to develop their metacognitive skills for lifelong learning. The reflections consist of three questions: (1) What is the main point of the reading?, (2) What information did you find surprising? Why?, and (3) What did you find confusing? Why? Students submit short responses to two of three questions prior to coming to class.
Metacognitive components of the activity
Reading reflections address many elements of metacognition, including knowledge, control, and reflection. Reading reflections are designed to help students develop knowledge about themselves as learners, learning tasks (reading), prior knowledge, content, self-monitoring, self-assessment, and reflection.
Metacognitive goals
The primary goals of this activity are to help students develop their skills of self-assessment, and to reflect more deeply on the content of their reading assignments. Reflective thinking is an essential element of expert learners, so this activity helps students develop skills as intentional learners for lifelong learning.
Assessing students' metacognition
Reading reflections (n = 35 in a typical semester) count for approximately 10% of the course grade. I do not grade these reflections, but give students credit if they are turned in on time (before class) and if they clearly demonstrate significant reflection.

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Magmatic differentiation is an important concept in the geology curriculum. Students are generally introduced to magmatic differentiation in the introductory course, whereas the details are typically developed in mineralogy and petrology courses. In particular, students often struggle to understand the processes of fractional crystallization.

Fractional crystallization by gravity settling can be illustrated using a model magma chamber consisting of M&M'sÂ. In this model, each major cation (e.g., Si, Ti, Al, Fe, Mg, Ca, Na, K) is represented by a different color M&MÂ; other kinds of differently colored or shaped pieces could also be used. Appropriate numbers of each color M&M are combined to approximate the cation proportions of a basaltic magma; this is the "parental magma". The M&M's are then placed in a group on a tabletop to form a magma chamber. Students then fractionate the magma in ten crystallization steps. In each step the M&M's are moved to the bottom of the magma chamber forming a series of cumulus layers; the M&M's are removed in proportions that are identical to those of the stoichiometric proportions of cations in the crystallizing minerals (e.g., olivine, pyroxene, feldspars, quartz, magnetite, ilmenite). Students observe the changing cation composition (proportions of colors of M&M'sÂ) in the cumulus layers and in the magma chamber and graph the results using spreadsheet software. Students classify the cumulates and resulting liquid after each crystallization step, and they compare the model system with natural magmatic systems (e.g., absence of important fractionating phases, volatiles). Students who have completed this exercise demonstrate increased understanding of fractionation processes exhibit greater familiarity with mineral stoichiometry, classification, solid-solution in minerals, element behavior (e.g., incompatibility), and chemical variation diagrams.

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