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HASTI PUBLIC SCHOOL & JR.COLLEGE ,DONDAICHA

BLOG NO.219

Metacognition

metacognition is key to effective pupil learning:

it is a way for teachers to gauge how well their students understand their own learning processes and regulate their learning

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The term metacognition refers to an individual’s ability to plan, monitor, evaluate, and make changes to their own learning behaviours in order to confront challenges more effectively.

For students, having metacognitive skills means

that they are able to recognise their own cognitive abilities, direct their own learning, evaluate their performance, understand what caused their successes or failures, and learn new strategies.

It can also help them learn how to revise. This is because it optimises their basic cognitive processes, including memory, attention, activation of prior knowledge, and being able to solve or complete a task

It makes them learn more efficiently and more effectively, and so they are able to make more progress.

 a student with metacognitive skills might:

Recognise that they have trouble applying formulas in maths.

Think about the maths problems they have solved before, and the strategies they used.

Apply these strategies, assessing whether they are working or not.

Try a different strategy if the one they are using is not effective.

Reflect on how they performed in this task, and use this to inform their future work.

Metacognitive skills are useful across all subjects because they enhance the way one learns, as opposed to what you learn. They are also teachable.

The potential benefits of metacognition in learning

•           Higher achievement levels for the students. Metacognitive practices can also compensate for any cognitive limitations

•           Increased ability to learn independently.

•           Improved resilience. Identifying their successes and failures, increases students’ perseverance in getting better at their work.

•           It aids disadvantaged students.

•           Transferable knowledge. Metacognition helps students to transmit their knowledge and understanding including reading comprehension, writing, mathematics, memorising, reasoning, and problem-solving.

•           Effective

•           Emotional and social growth. Gaining awareness of their own mental states allows students to think about how to be happy, respected, and confident in themselves.

Levels of metacognitive learners comes from David Perkins (1992). There are four levels of learner:

1.         Tacit learners, who are unaware of their metacognitive knowledge and merely accept if they know something or not.

2.         Aware learners, who know about some of the kinds of thinking that they do, such as generating ideas, finding evidence, etc. However

3.         Strategic learners, who organise their thinking by using problem-solving, grouping and classifying, evidence-seeking, decision-making, etc.

4.         Reflective learners, who are not only strategic about their thinking, but also reflect upon their learning while it is happening.

Once you know what level students are on, you can plan your support accordingly. For example, with tacit learners, you will need to focus on all aspects of metacognition, guiding them through the process of learning. With higher-level learners, you can withdraw some support

Metacognitive Strategies & Activities for the Classroom

I have compiled a list of few  tips, strategies and activities involving metacognition that you could use alongside modelling and ‘You, Plan, Do, Review’. These are:

Learning/Thinking Journals

Try asking your students to keep personal learning journals, and assign them weekly questions for them to reflect on, such as:

•           What was easiest for me to learn this week, and why?

•           What was most challenging for me to learn, and why?

•           Which study strategies worked well?

•           Which study strategies didn’t work well, and what could I do differently next time?

•           Did my study habits work well for me? What effect did they have on my learning?

•           Which study habit could I improve upon next week?

•           What are my targets for next week?

Teacher may add many more questions you as per the type of learner and subjected to your methodology

Students  could also record ideas they have during a lesson and questions they want to ask, as well as reflecting upon how the ideas they have learnt connect to other topics.

The journal doesn’t necessarily need to be a notebook – your students could use any format that works well for them, including a *mind map, blog,, mobile phone app, or any thing else

KWL Charts

A KWL ( Know , what to know and Learnt) chart is a way of tracking the ‘You, Plan, Do, Review’ process. The idea is to create a chart for students  to use, with space for them to answer the following questions:

•           What do I know?

•           What do I **want to know?

•           What did I learn?                                                                                                                                                             These questions (know, want, and learn) make up the letters in KWL. At the beginning of the lesson, students can answer the first question what they already know that might help them in this lesson. This will activate their prior knowledge, and highlight any misunderstandings.

The second question provides you with ideas for future learning activities. Students could structure their answers in the form of ‘how…?’, ‘when…?’, or ‘why…?’ questions.

At the end of the lesson, students can answer ‘what did I learn?’, as well as filling in anything else they want to know that remains unanswered. It is good to reflect on their own cognitive growth, such as ‘before this lesson, I thought that _. Now I know that _.’

Rules About Asking for Help

Instead of getting students to put their hands up as soon as they need help, set some rules that make them more involved in the thinking process. For example, you could ask them to go to a fellow student – or group of students – to discuss it first, and only to ask you if they can’t find the answer together.

. Mnemonics

Teach your pupils techniques such as mnemonics to help them remember difficult information.

such as ROY G BIV to remember the colours of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet). The same thing could be remembered in a mnemonic sentence, such as ‘Ram Yamuna of India York gave battle in vain’.

 Exam Wrappers very crucial

These are worksheets containing reflective questions that help students to think about their performance in a test or exam. You could give them to your pupils both before and after they receive their results and feedback.

The worksheets given out before they receive feedback should ask them to think about how they prepared for the exam – for example, which study strategies they used. Those given out after the feedback should make the student reflect on the mistakes they made*, and how they could prepare differently to ensure greater success in the future, making them strategic learners.

 Metacognitive Talk

Metacognitive talk involves talking through what you are thinking while you carry out a task. This can help students to focus and better understand their thought processes*

The questions your students should ask and answer out loud are:

•           What do I know about this topic?

•           Have I done a task like this before?

•           What strategies worked last time?

•           What do I need to do first?

•           How am I doing?

•           What should I do next?

•           Should I try a different strategy?

•           Who can I ask for help?

•           How well did I do at this task?

•           What could I do differently next time?

Reciprocal Teaching

This strategy allows students to take on the role of teacher and attempt to teach learning strategies to other students. For example, if they were teaching reading comprehension, they might show their fellow students how to question what they’ve read*, clarify things they don’t understand, summarise the text, and make informed predictions about what they have read*.

. Traffic Lights

Traffic lights can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom; in this instance, students could use them to signify what they found confusing or *challenging in a lesson (red),

what made them think differently about something (amber)*, and

what they understood well (green)*.

They could fill in a traffic light worksheet answering these questions at the end of each lesson. This method makes them reflect upon their learning, developing their metacognitive abilities. Smiling, frowning, or neutral faces could be used in the same way – this might be a good strategy for encouraging metacognition in the primary classroom.

. Reflexive Thinking

Talking about and becoming aware of biases – for example, societal biases – is a metacognitive process called reflexivity. Having classroom discussions about these topics encourages students to consider what they’re unconsciously thinking. Try talking about moral dilemmas, racism, wealth, poverty, and justice.

Goals

Encourage your students to set their own goals. This is one of the best ways for them to monitor their learning progress, and review whether they need to make any changes.

Encouraging metacognition in the classroom is a way to ensure that your students are learning effectively. This will help them throughout their lives by developing their resilience, memory, self-awareness, reasoning skills, and problem-solving abilities*

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