#108 Spotlight on Metacognition (Part 1)

Hi Everyone

If you’ve been following the contents of this newsletter, you might be interested in a recent podcast that I was invited to take part in by Calli Veludos of The Ark. I still find it incredible to think that 2 people on opposite sides of the world, (New Zealand and UK), experiencing different seasons and time zones can just dial in and talk to each other. Also remarkable is the fact that other people can listen in (it was originally live), or watch a recording later!

If you fancy following the conversation, you’ll find an explanation for why metacognition is so vital for effective learning, and how to go about naturalising it in the classroom. If you teach in any capacity, you should find the conversation really helpful for re-evaluating how to improve the academic results of your students whatever their starting point.

You’ll find it here; https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=search&v=862724135750730

If podcasts are not your thing, or you don’t have a spare hour at the moment in which to indulge in a bit of professional development, I’m going to share just a few snippets of the conversation to whet your appetite or provide a bit of inspiration to get you started.

Calli asked me to start with, why I felt it was so important to keep talking about metacognition. Here are just a few pointers from my reply.

When we talk about learning nowadays, often we’re just referring to the memorisation of facts. That skill does not require metacognition, which actually has nothing to do with what you’re learning, it’s all about the effectiveness of how you’re doing it.

We all need to be able to work out if the way we’re approaching a task is being effective or not. We do that by analysing the results we’re getting, and recognising if we’re not on the right track. If necessary, we then have to change what we’re thinking in order to try something else that might prove more successful.

This is all part of the human decision-making process that we use throughout our adult lives. We therefore need metacognition in order to reach any professional or personal goals, and when it comes to schooling, we need it in order to learn anything effectively. Metacognition is at the heart of ‘success’, so that’s why I think it’s really important to keep talking about it.

When Calli subsequently asked what significance that has for anyone with teaching responsibilities, I suggested that the most important shift for any teacher is to become more aware of what’s actually going on inside students’ heads in order change the focus of how they’re teaching.

The brain is designed to learn from personal experience which comes as the result of natural curiosity. If students have little interest in our subject area, and they’re not provided with any kind of ‘experience’ that ‘involves’ them during a lesson, then our words are likely to be lost in the ether and no learning takes place.

My recommendation to shift academic results is; when preparing lessons, don’t ask yourself what you’re going to teach, shift your perspective instead to exactly what it is that you want the students to learn? That forces us to plan for ‘how’ they’re going to learn it, (ie; what activities are you going to provide), rather than the ‘what’. No need to ditch the curriculum, continue to plan for what comes next, but just do it without handing knowledge to students on a plate!

When you start preparing lessons where the students are expected to think more for themselves, they don’t always feel comfortable to start with. I remember frustrated voices piping up with, “Just tell us Miss”!

Doesn’t that just make the point though, that students are not used to the idea of thinking for themselves. If you patiently push through those early stages though, I can reassure you that students do become more excited about taking up the reins of their own learning, and most start to engage on a completely different level.

Calli went on to ask me about how neurodiversity can be accommodated in a classroom where metacognition is at the forefront, and how you would recognise when a student was thinking in a more metacognitive way? In the interests of keeping the newsletter to its usual shorter length however, I will share my replies to those questions next time.

There was obviously more to the conversation than I’ve been able to record here, but remember this is just a taster, not a complete transcription. If you don’t want to wait another week to hear more, you could always listen to the whole podcast right now at;

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=search&v=862724135750730

Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you next time. Take care till then.

Warm regards, Liz