Episode 3: Metacognition

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LD State of Mind

Education


[Introduction] Welcome to the LD State of Mind, a podcast about learning together and making a difference for college students. Join us as we discuss tips and useful information with our peers and experts in the area of learning variability’s. [Marcus] My name is Marcus Soutra. I’m the President of Eye to eye, I’ve been involved with Eye to Eye since 2006. I got involved with Eye to Eye for the same reason most students and most volunteers get involved. I myself was a student with a learning difference I was diagnosed with dyslexia and AD/HD around 3rd grade. Which is kind of the typical time for kids getting diagnosed. It’s the time period when school goes from trying to learn to read to using reading to apply it to learning. That was real struggle for me. I think I got involved in Eye to Eye because I wanted a community I wanted to meet others who had learning differences and connect w them and I also wanted to give back to younger students. Because I know if, when I was 12 yrs. old, I had met someone in college with ld who had challenges in school it would have made a difference to me. [Patrick] What exactly does Eye to Eye do? What do you guys try to accomplish? [Marcus] Sure, sure, At Eye to Eye we are trying to benefit students with ld in the country. We do that in three main ways. The first and most known to everybody is our mentoring program. We have 50 chapters around the country doing mentoring. Next year we’re expanding the program. We’re gonna have about 62-63 chapters around the country in 20 states. And these chapters all operate in pretty much the same way. These are high school and college students with learning differences mentoring middle school children with learning differences. And they’re teaching them using an art curriculum, teaching them self-advocacy skills, teach them about how they learn. We often use the word metacognition, we’re hopefully gonna get to that later. We teach kids the strategies that can help them do well in school…how they can use their accommodations and how to advocate for themselves. Those really important socio-emotional skills that students with learning disabilities need. So that’s the first set of our work we have about 1,000 mentors in our country that will do about 80,000 hours of community service. The second layer of our work is our diplomats work. They are basically a speaker’s bureau. Eye to Eye recruits the best of the best students from around the country to be trained speakers for Eye to Eye. They give presentations at middle schools, and they go to conferences (state and local conferences). They advocate for people with learning differences by meeting with the Secretary for Education or going onto Capitol Hill when there are bills be authorized around students with learning differences. Or most notably this past summer went and met with Michelle Obama as part of the Reach Higher Initiative. The third layer of our work is our cultural campaign work. These are things like partnering with the Indy 500 to create a public service announcement at the race about people with dyslexia. Or working with the WNBA and Wasserman media to develop a billboard that’s currently up in Times Square to bring awareness to learning disabilities. Or having David Fink, our founder, featured in GQ this past fall. So those are really the three pieces of our work. The way I succinctly explain it is we are sharing the stories of people with learning differences, sharing their success stories. In our mentoring group we do it one to one, in diplomat work we’re doing it one to hundred, and in our PSA work we’re doing it one to a million. [Patrick] Awesome, thank you Marcus. And if you’re looking for more information about Eye to Eye or how to get to involved look them up at www.eyetoeyenational.org. So Marcus earlier you mentioned something about metacognition, and for those who don’t know metacognition is basically understanding how your mind works and how you learn the best.