MODULE in EDUCATION 8 – FACILITATING LEARNER - CENTERED TEACHING

Welcome to this subject, Educ 8 - Facilitating Learner Centered Teaching!

In your previous lesson, you have learned many things about learner-centered teaching and
the value of giving students the responsibility to manage their own learning. You have realized the
importance of helping them to be actively engaged, to be smart in doing things so as to facilitate their
own learning and eventually succeed. As pre-service teachers, this is your mantra: LEARNERS must
KNOW HOW TO LEARN.

LESSON 1 - METACOGNITION

 Intended Outcome/Learning Objectives: In this lesson, you are expected to:

1. Explain metacognition and other related terms in your own words

2. Determine metacognitive knowledge required in a specific competency
3. Apply metacognitive strategies in your own quest for learning as a novice or expert
learner
4. Differentiate novice from expert learners

 Stimulating Learning (To be assigned ahead)

Before you start your lesson, please work on the learning activities that follow and try to
discover some important facts about yourself as a student.

Learning Activities:

Last time, you did a survey to find out your study habits skills. Now using the responses you
had, let us try to answer the following analysis questions:

a. What did you discover about yourself using this questionnaire? What aspects are you strong in?
What aspects do you need to improve in?

b. What strategies will you employ to improve your study skills?

c. What is the significance of this activity to you?

 Lesson Proper

In the activity you did a while ago, you stopped for a moment and thought about how you
study and learn. You analyzed your strong and weak points, then tried to identify some ways on how
you can improve your study habits. This is what you call METACOGNITION.

How important is metacognition to you as a student and as a prospective teacher?

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 As student, it is important that you know how to become an independent learner, that you
gain a better awareness of how you process information, that you are able to evaluate your own
thinking and think of ways to make your own learning process more effective. This, you should master
so that when you become a teacher yourself, you can emphasize metacognition in your instruction to
make your students become agents in the learning process, to help them become active, strategic
learners.

What is metacognition? Here are some important points you should know about it:

 Refers to higher order thinking which involves active awareness and control over the cognitive
processes engaged in learning
 “thinking about thinking” or “learning how to learn”
 was first coined by John Flavell (1979, 1987)

To help you understand metacognition better, Dr. Natalie Saaris

(https://www.activelylearn.com/post/metacognition) compares it to mastering an athletic skill.
According to her, in the early stages, a novice player needs to think carefully about how his or her
actions affect performance. For instance, in figuring out the best way to swing a golf club, a novice
player might deliberately adjust his or her stance, assess whether the adjustment leads to better
performance, and then decide whether to adopt the strategy going forward. This is essentially the
active thinking about the learning process that she wants you to encourage with your students later
on. She also says that metacognition can include any of the following elements:

 Understanding what one already knows about a topic

 Figuring out what one wants to know about a topic
 Realizing what one has learned in the course of a lesson
 Monitoring one’s understanding during the course of an activity
 Choosing which learning strategies to employ and when
 Evaluating whether a particular learning strategy was successful in a given circumstance

Components of Metacognition

The elements of metacognition are metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation

(Flavel as cited by Bulusan et al., 2019). These two elements are interrelated; the presence of the first
one enhances the second element.

A. Metacognitive knowledge (also called knowledge of cognition) refers to acquired knowledge

about cognitive processes, knowledge that can be used to control cognitive processes.
Flavel (as cited by Bulusan, 2019) states that metacognitive knowledge involves three kinds of
metacognitive awareness: knowledge of the person variables, task variables, strategy variables.
Schraw (also cited by Bulusan, 2019) mentions this classification using the following terminologies:
declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and conditional knowledge:

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 1. Knowledge of Person Variables (declarative knowledge)

This refers to learner’s knowledge about things. It also refers to learner’s understanding of
own abilities and the knowledge about oneself as a learner and of the factors that moderate one’s
performance. This type of knowledge is not always accurate as the learner’s evaluation of his or her
capabilities may be unreliable. For instance, that Manila is the capital of the Philippines and that oases
is the plural form of oasis are examples of declarative knowledge. That a learner has limited
information as to the semantic rules is also a declarative knowledge.

2. Knowledge of Task Variables (procedural knowledge)

This type includes knowledge about the nature of the task (how to do things), the type of
processing demands that the task will place upon the individual. It involves knowing what exactly
needs to be accomplished, gauging its difficulty, and the kind of effort it demands. For instance, a
learner given a problem-solving task knows that prerequisite information and prior skills are necessary
to be recalled and prior skills are necessary to be recalled and readily executed at the given time to
solve the problem. Such knowledge gives confidence in working with problem.

3. Knowledge of Strategy Variables (conditional knowledge)

This refers to the ability to know when and why various cognitive acts should be applied. It
involves using strategies to learn information (knowing how to know) as well as adapting them to
novel contexts (knowing when a strategy is appropriate). This knowledge is evident in a learner who
seeks the help of a school nurse to make a report on communicable diseases prevalent in the
community as well as this learner’s knowledge that the best way to gather information is to interview
a nurse and go over health records of the Municipal Health Office in the town.

Metacognitive knowledge is the result of the individual’s metacognitive experiences. Flavel

(1979) explained them as experiences that “an individual has through which knowledge is attained, or
through regulation occurs.” A learner who obtained low scores in knowledge and skills test becomes
aware that he or she has low declarative and procedural knowledge. In contrast, a learner who has
always scored highest in both the content and skills test has strong confidence in his adequacy of
knowledge in the subject.

Similarly, metacognitive knowledge depends so much on the learner’s meta-memory, the

knowledge of what memory is, how it works, and how to remember things. Through instruction and
individual effort, metamemory develops overtime. For instance, learners who have been taught how to
organize information and use rehearsal strategies have richer metamemory. They can retrieve
declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge when required by the task.

B. Metacognitive regulation is the second element of metacognition. It pertains to the ability to keep
track of (monitor) and assess their knowledge or learning. It includes their ability to find out what,
when, and how to use a particular skill for a given task in this manner, they can control their
learning. Self-regulation is essential in metacognition (Bulusan, et al, 2019).

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 Example:
A student in a Speech class knows when he or she mispronounced the word as it sounds
unpleasant; thus, he or she consults an electronic dictionary to listen to how the word should be
pronounced. Following the model, his or her pronunciation is improved.

Metacognitive regulation involves three processes: setting goals and planning, monitoring and
controlling learning, and evaluating one’s own regulation.

Planning involves choosing appropriate strategies and the allocation of resources that affect
performance. Together with setting goals, it is considered a central part of student’s ability to control
learning processes and to learn outcomes through deliberate regulatory decisions and actions. Goals
may be mastery goals (related to process, learning and development) and performance goals
(associated with product orientations and demonstrating competence or social comparisons to the
peer group). For example, a student who desires to get high grade (performance goal) in a Science.
class portfolio determines how best to make all entries in the portfolio exemplary in all criteria as
described in the scoring rubric (mastery goal).

At this point of metacognitive regulation, the learners questions include the following:
ₒ What am I asked to learn or do here?
ₒ What do I already know about this lesson or task?
ₒ What should be my pacing to complete this task?
ₒ What should I focus on when learning or solving this task?

Monitoring refers to one’s ongoing awareness of comprehension and task performance.

Referred to as metacognitive monitoring and controlling learning, it also involves the monitoring of
the person’s thinking processes and the current state of knowledge. It involves the awareness of the
person that the prerequisite knowledge and process to manage the task is sufficient to succeed in it. It
also involves the ability to consider the accuracy of the knowledge and procedure to solve the task. If
ever inadequacy is felt, the person can control the processes undertaken to still succeed in the
resolution of the task.

Example:

A student who answers a word problem in Mathematics is aware of the steps to follow to solve
the task. In the process, the person monitors from metamemory if procedural knowledge is adequate
and could be executed. Along the way, the person monitors his or her thinking and then revises the
process if found ineffective in solving the problem.
At this stage, some questions to be asked include:

ₒ Do I have adequate knowledge to solve the problem?

ₒ Are my prior knowledge and skills appropriate for the task?
ₒ Are my strategies appropriate for the task?
ₒ What can I do to get additional information for this task?

The last step is evaluating, assessing knowledge or learning. It refers to appraising the products
and efficiency of one’s learning. It involves the person’s ability to evaluate how well the strategies

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are used to lead to the solution of the problem or completion of the task. It tells whether or not the
procedure resulted to the correct answer or a different answer.

Example:

In the previous Mathematics word problem -solving task situation, the person comes to a
realization the equation formulated to solve what is asked in the problem was indeed correct based on
the cross-checking process done. If the answer is wrong, the learner surmises what went wrong along
the way.

Sample questions in this phase of metacognitive regulation are as follows:

ₒ What new learning was achieved?

ₒ Was the correct answer obtained?
ₒ Were the goals set achieved?
ₒ What could I have done to make my work better?
ₒ What should I do next time I encounter a similar situation?

THESE THREE VARIABLES (person, task, and strategy) ALL INTERACT AS YOU LEARN AND
APPLY METACOGNITION.

If until this point, you still have difficulty in grasping what metacognition is, let us identify the
following skills we manifest in practicing metacognition according to Omrod.
(Source: https://cmcacalda19.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/29/)

 Knowing the limits of one’s own learning and memory capacities

 Knowing what learning tasks one can realistically accomplish within a certain amount of time
 Knowing which learning strategies are effective and which are not
 Planning an approach to a learning task that is likely to be successful
 Using effective learning strategies to process and learn new material
 Monitoring one’s own knowledge and comprehension. In other words, knowing when
information has been successfully learned and when it’s not
 Using effective strategies for retrieval of previously stored information
 Knowledge is said to be metacognitive if it is keenly used in a purposeful manner to ensure
that a goal is met

Huitt ( https://cmcacalda19.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/29/) also believes that metacognition

includes the ability to ask and answer the following types of questions:

 What do I know about this subject ?

 Do I know what I need to know?
 Do I know where I can go to get some information, knowledge?
 How much time do I need to learn this?
 What are some strategies or tactics I can user to learn this?
 Did I understand what I just heard, read, or say?
 How will I know if I am learning at an appropriate rate?
 How can I spot an error if I make one?
 How should I revise my plan if it is not working to my expectations/satisfaction?

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Here are some teaching strategies to develop metacognition:

1. Have students monitor their own learning and thinking.

2. Teach students study or learning strategies (K-W-L, TQLR, PQ4R)
3. Have students make predictions about information to be presented and based on what they
have read.
4. Have students relate ideas to existing knowledge structures.
5. Have students develop questions; ask questions of themselves, about what’s going on around
them
6. Help students know when to ask for help.
7. Show students how to transfer knowledge, attitudes, values, skills to other situations or tasks.

NOVICE versus EXPERT LEARNERS

Learners can be identified in the manner they absorb or process information. They either are
novice or expert learners. Expert learners employ metacognitive strategies in learning. They are more
aware of their learning process as they read, study and do problem-solving expert learners monitor
their learning and consequently, adjust their strategies to make learning more effective. See the table
below to help yo identify their differences.

Aspect of Learning Novice Learners Expert Learners

Knowledge in different subject
areas
Problem – solving
Learning/thinking strategies
Selectivity in processing
Production of output
Have limited knowledge in
different subject areas
Satisfied at just scratching in the
surface; hurriedly gives a
solution to the problem
Employ rigid strategies that may
not be appropriate to the task at
hand
Attempt to process all
information they receive
Do not examine the quality of
their work, nor stop to make
revisions
Have deeper knowledge in
different subject areas because
they look for interrelationships
in things they learn
First, try to understand the
problem, look for boundaries,
and create a mental picture of
the problem
Design new strategies that
would be appropriate to the
task at hand
Select important information to
process; able to break down
information to manageable
chunks
Check their errors and redirect
their efforts to maintain quality
output

References:
Bulusan, F., Raquepo, M. R., Balmeo, M.L. and Gutierrez, J.C. Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching.
Rex Book Store, 2019.
Metacognition - Facilitating Learning. https://cmcacalda19.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/29/)

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 You have just completed your second lesson in this module. I hope you have read
all its contents, and understood them well. Take a break and be ready for your next lessons.

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