Comment on this post Practice that builds expertise is self directed, which is the third condition of practice as discussed on pg. 77 of Teaching Students to Drive Their Learning. In math, this type of practice would come after targeted and distributed practice, especially in 7th grade where we begin some algebra basics. Algebraic concepts are not intuitive to students, so they will need more rote or targeted practice to learn the process of solving an algebraic equation. Plus there is a fair amount of vocabulary when working with algebra concepts most students are not familiar with, so they need that targeted practice to learn the process and definitions in order to tackle more advanced problems. The more advanced and complex problems will use the correct vocabulary so if they have not memorized or learned the definitions, they will be even more confused and may give up. I really liked the idea presented in the text of Mastery Monday. Taking just 15 minutes a week for students to reflect on their previous performances and make corrections goes a long way in having them actually learn and master a concept or skill. When they can identify what they did right or wrong and approach a problem or problems differently demonstrates they are developing metacognition. (Metacognition in the Classroom: Benefits and Strategies)