I thought I would share my version of success with this issue.  I hope the
experts can make sense of my quick post and share what I have done wrong or
what could be improved.  Overall though, it seems like a fairly simple
solution.  Ideally I would like to have a generic "metadata" xml form, and
not have to copy/past the fields into each form that needs this metadata.

In the model that I want to include' the metadata:

   1. Add the fields that exist in the shared table to your XML form for
   the model in question
   2. Override the getForm method in for the model you wish to have the
   shared metadata something like:

public function getForm($data = array(), $loadData = true)
{
// Get the form.
$form = $this->loadForm('com_yourcomponent.product', 'product',
array('control' => 'jform', 'load_data' => $loadData));
if (empty($form))
{
return false;

// This section loads the metadata and injects it into the form we are
returning
$metaDataTable = parent::getTable('MetaData', 'YourComponentTable', $config
= array());
$metaDataTable->load($this->getItem()->guid);
$form->bind($metaDataTable);
 return $form;
      3. Override the save method of your model in question like the
following:

public function save($data)
{
$result = parent::save($data);
if($result)
{
// save the metadata
$metaDataTable = parent::getTable('MetaData', 'YourComponentTable', $config
= array());
$result = $metaDataTable->save($data);
 }
return $result;