#120 An Holistic Approach

Hi Everyone

When I use the word ‘metacognition’ (which, if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know is almost always), I know that it engenders a wide range of responses from both inside and outside education. It seems by some, to be listed amongst the possible strategies that can be used by the teacher in a classroom to support learning. That unfortunately misses the point.

Metacognition is a descriptive word for what happens in the human brain as part of the decision-making process. (Qui L, Su J, Ni Y, Bai Y, Zhang X, Li X et al (2018) ‘The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision making in the pre-frontal cortex’, PLoS 16(4)). That process has always existed, but became the focus of psychologist John Flavell who decided that we needed a word that explained the importance of ‘how’ a student was learning.

Flavell borrowed the Greek word ‘meta’ which was used by the ancients to describe a change in position from one place to another, and which in this instance means ‘going beyond’ or ‘rising above’. (Flavell,?J.?1979.?Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive‐developmental enquiry.?American Psychologist, 34:?906–911.)

When used as a prefix to ‘cognition’, which we often use to describe learning itself (because it incorporates all the mental processes needed to retain information in a useable format), metacognition literally becomes; to go beyond the learning.

That means we're not talking about a teaching strategy, but rather, what should be going on inside a learner’s head if their learning is to be effective. Metacognition is therefore not a here today gone tomorrow way of working in the classroom, it is an essential tool that will always be required by every learner if they are to make the kind of academic progress it allows. How can we ignore that as teachers if we care about improving the educational and life chances of all the children and young people we influence on a daily basis.

In my experience though, there remains a certain lack of clarity for many educators about exactly what metacognition is, and how we can use that information effectively in the classroom to have a real impact on teaching and learning. In order to understand the concept more clearly, some have looked into the research for themselves and found in fact, too much detail, where breaking the topic down into its myriads of potential component parts, results in even less likelihood of practical application.

The solution is to take a holistic view of metacognition. Remember that it literally means ‘to rise above the learning’, (not thinking about thinking) and involves being able to analyse the results you’re getting, recognise when they’re not in line with what you want, and change to a more effective way of thinking in order to get a different set of results. It’s not us as the teacher that uses metacognition, it’s the students who need it in order to make academic progress for themselves, and yet many just don’t know how.

In an attempt to rectify this, some schools have used the ‘reflection cycle’ and accompanying questions to encourage students to think for themselves. The problem is that it’s too prescriptive, and confusing for students who’ve never experienced that level of thinking for themselves before, in what is essentially a passive learning environment. If we really want a classroom full of learners who all make significant academic progress, then we need to ensure that learners gain the pre-requisites for being able to think metacognitively, before any formal structures are provided.

Ask yourself which students are sufficiently self-aware with a positive self-concept to see the value of changing their minds? ?Who actually understands what the learning process consists of so that they recognise when and why they’re stuck? And who takes an active role in their own progress by working out what they have to do in order to move forwards?

It’s unlikely that the majority of students have all of these facets of learning in place, so if you want a metacognitive classroom, then start with boosting the view your students have of their own ability to learn, teach them how to recognise and engage with the various stages of ‘learning’, and demonstrate how they can have an active role to open up their independent thinking abilities. All of this can be done through whatever subject area you need to teach them. Plan activities that require them to think more, do more, say more, and be more ‘involved’ in their own learning.

This week, why not put students into small groups and challenge them to come up with a way of demonstrating something they learned in the previous lesson. My example is for science, but I’m sure you can relate it to your topic area. Ask each group to demonstrate ‘somehow’ (that’s up to them) what actually happens during a specific chemical reaction. Some will ask you for resources (but this needs to be quick so don’t let them go too far beyond normal classroom provisions), others will act it out or provide explanations in various ways depending on the creativity and understanding of those in the group.

You can vary the challenge from group to group, provide support where necessary and discover any misconceptions along the way. You’re checking that everyone has grasped whatever big concept you want them to learn, in a way that has everyone engaged. You can provide verbal feedback in real time about accuracy and depth of understanding in a way that moves everyone forwards at the same time, whilst students build knowledge of ‘self’ in relation to challenge, mastery and active involvement.

More next time.

Take care till then.

Warm regards

Liz