What is Metacognitive Integration

In this chapter, the authors examine examples of local, national, and global adaptations of UC Links programs to explore university and community engagement over time and across a range of contexts. The authors describe the development of a number of programs, including two Brazilian programs, two programs working with gitano (Roma) communities in Spain, and perhaps the most enduring Fifth Dimension program – the Whittier College Fifth Dimension. They examine the collaborative development of these programs in relation to the ways that they co-constructed activities to support the navigational play of children and university students in creating and participating in collaborative learning activities. The authors also describe the “border activities” – the sustained collaborative work of adults from different backgrounds and communities – crucial to developing these programs as themselves forms of navigational play that serve to integrate participants' metacognitive understandings of their collaborative work.