Metacognition

Thinking about One’s Thinking

Putting Metacognition into Practice: Metacognition is connected with thinking about one´s thinking. It
mainly refers to the mental processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and
performance. In the classroom it refers to the students´ ability to be aware of what they are thinking about
and choose a helpful thought process. It shows the students´ability to:
Analyse how they think.
Have high self-awareness and control of their thoughts.
Choose an appropriate and helpful strategy for the task at hand.

The importance of metacognition in education is on the rise after research suggested that it is one of the most
effective and cost-efficient ways to help students progress in their learning. Evidence shows that students who
use metacognitive thinking and related strategies improve in a range of subjects,
including Maths, Science and English.

Let’s have a look at concrete examples of metacognition in schools. We should see it as:

The ability to critically analyse how you think. We don’t often like to believe we are wrong but being able to
take a step back and assess your own thoughts plays a key role in becoming an independent learner.

Having high self-awareness and control over your thoughts. It is important to be aware of our skills and
what we can and can’t do. Those who lack metacognitive thinking tend to overestimate themselves. As a
result, when they don’t succeed, they suffer a major setback. Knowing your capabilities as a student and as a
teacher is particularly useful when you are looking for areas you can improve.

Developing appropriate and helpful thinking strategies at each stage of a task.

- Before a task, students can use metacognitive thinking to think about which strategy has worked previously
for something similar and what the best first step may be.
- During a task, they can use it to make sure that they are staying on track and that what they have done so far
is working.
- Finally, after a task, having a self-debrief that is consistent regardless of outcome will ensure that excessive
positive or negative emotions don’t cloud their judgement and learning. It will also allow them to identify
which areas they can improve, and whether the strategy they used needs to be tweaked next time a similar
task comes up.

There are different types of metacognition. These include:

Metacognitive knowledge – this refers to a student’s awareness of what they do or don’t know about their
cognitive processes. It includes knowing their strengths, weaknesses, and identifying gaps in their knowledge.
This type of metacognition also refers to knowledge of skills that students may use to solve a problem.

Metacognitive regulation – this refers to the different strategies that students may use to manage their
thoughts and emotions. This includes how well they plan, monitor and evaluate their performance. For
example, identifying that a particular strategy is not giving them the results that they want and deciding to try
a different one is an instance of metacognitive regulation.

Metacognitive practices increase students’ abilities to transfer or adapt their learning to new contexts and
tasks (Scardamalia et al., 1984).  They do this by gaining a level of awareness above the subject matter: they
also think about the tasks and contexts of different learning situations and themselves as learners in these
different contexts.  When Pintrich (2002) asserts that “Students who know about the different kinds of
strategies for learning, thinking, and problem solving will be more likely to use them” Notice the students
must “know about” these strategies, not just practise them.  As Zohar and David (2009) explain, there must
be a “conscious meta-strategic level of H[igher] O[rder] T[hinking]”.

1
Metacognitive practices help students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses as learners, writers,
readers, test-takers, group members, etc.  A key element is recognizing the limit of one’s knowledge or ability
and then figuring out how to expand that knowledge or extend the ability. Those who know their strengths and
weaknesses in these areas will be more likely to “actively monitor their learning strategies and resources and
assess their readiness for particular tasks and performances” (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, p. 67).

The absence of metacognition connects to the research by Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger, and Kruger on “Why
People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence” (2003).  They found that “people tend to be blissfully
unaware of their incompetence,” lacking “insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills.” 
They identified this pattern across domains—from test-taking, writing grammatically, thinking logically, to
recognizing humor, to hunters’ knowledge about firearms and medical lab technicians’ knowledge of medical
terminology and problem-solving skills (p. 83-84).  In short, “if people lack the skills to produce correct
answers, they are also cursed with an inability to know when their answers, or anyone else’s, are right or
wrong” (p. 85).  This research suggests that increased metacognitive abilities—to learn specific (and correct)
skills, how to recognize them, and how to practice them—is needed in many contexts.

Putting Metacognition into practice: In “Promoting Student Metacognition,” Tanner (2012) offers a handful
of specific activities that can be adapted to any discipline

1- Pre-Assessments
Pre-assessments allow students to express and examine their prior knowledge of content. Teachers can increase the
effectiveness of this practice by having students examine the information provided by preassessments to determine
what questions they might have about the content and how they might plan their personal approach to learning the
new skill or information. Encouraging Students to Examine Their Current Thinking: 
“What do I already know about this topic that could guide my learning?” Preparing for an assessment such as a quiz
or exam has the potential for metacognition, when a student constructs and executes a personalized plan for their
preparation. Before an assessment, the teacher might ask students to compare study strategies with classmates to
decide if someone else’s strategy might benefit them. Students can also consider their performance on previous
assessments and reflect about which preparation activities yielded benefits and which did not, in order to design the
most efficient and effective study plan.
2 -Identifying confusions This can help students monitor their thinking on a topic. Teachers might ask students to write
about what they found most confusing: “What was most confusing to me about the material explored in class
today?”
Active-Learning Tasks: Active-learning tasks are a way for students to participate in monitoring their own learning
and include tasks such as, “Write three things you were surprised to learn from today’s lesson and three questions you
still have about the topic,” or “Write yourself a note explaining what you would do differently, if you were starting this
assignment all over again.”
3- Post-Assessments: Students (and, at times, instructors) sometimes see the assessment as the “goal.” However, if
learning is the true endgame, then post-assessments are valuable for the insights they provide. When students are
asked to reflect on an assessment performance, the preparation strategies used, and the different approaches they
might take going forward, an assessment becomes a teaching tool and a blueprint for future thinking.
“What about my exam preparation worked well that I should remember to do next time? What did not work so well
that I should not do next time or that I should change?