#127 - Preparing to Teach Metacognition

Hi Everyone

Having looked at metacognition from an adult perspective last week in the light of new year resolutions, I promised a return to talking about metacognition in the classroom this week. I thought it might make interesting reading for you, if I were to share the content of a ‘review’ I’ve just created for a group of teachers who will be training with me again next week.

In the new session they will be looking more closely at their teaching practice and how to develop metacognition in learners ,whilst continuing to teach the curriculum. Before we do that however, it will be important to re-visit some of the concepts from previous sessions to establish the rationale for how we go about doing that effectively.

Firstly, we have to ask whether there’s really such an urgent need to focus on metacognition? Yes, there is, because personal ‘reflection’ is the most important part of making progress in any endeavour. We’ve established previously that every child (barring serious health issues) has the potential to learn, because we’re all born with ‘cognition’, the natural ability to gain knowledge and use it to our advantage.?

Having already been excellent learners for several years, and with a massive unconscious database built from pre-school experiences, almost all children enter school with the ability to learn firmly established. The problem lies with how the ground rules for learning change at this point, as we expect them to switch from personal experience to being taught a curriculum. That, requires a different mindset, which relies on becoming more conscious about the learning process itself.

Metacognition now becomes essential, as learners need to consciously analyse their thinking and work out what changes are required in order to make progress. We rarely however provide guidance to children on 'how' to make that important switch from one way of learning to another. Some schools, willing to try and redress this balance have tried to formalise the use of metacognition in the classroom. Unfortunately this doesn’t often work very well, because many students are not yet ready to think that way.

Any learner who is going to use a metacognitive way of thinking to make progress has to have; a positive self-concept, an understanding of how the learning process works, and an appreciation for the specific role they play in that process. Until those pre-requisites are in place, a student is unable to use metacognition in order to take responsibility for improving their own achievement. The most able students will continue to make progress due to a natural instinct for taking a metacognitive approach, but we have to consider that other students need to gain the same skill.

Another contributing factor to student success is what we focus on when praising or rewarding them in the classroom. Traditionally, learners receive recognition for; completing work, neat work, answering correctly, working quietly, not questioning the teacher and getting good grades. If a learner is naturally compliant and has a reasonable memory, all of this can be achieved without using much in the way of metacognition at all.

The students who often face disciplinary action are those who; like to experiment, make mistakes, are over-enthusiastic, want to work it out for themselves, put more effort into reasoning things out than getting them down on paper, want to collaborate with others, and question the teacher. These students are using metacognition and being punished for it!

Whilst maintaining order in the classroom, we may need to reconsider where we’re directing our praise and rewards. If we want metacognitive students, we need to praise effort, a willingness to learn from mistakes, and an enthusiasm for understanding concepts through finding out for themselves. A page of crossings out that has a correct answer at the end of it, is not untidy, it’s a demonstration of metacognition in practice.

As a teacher, we also need to take responsibility for creating a stress-free environment in the classroom. When a child is stressed, the bulk of the brain’s blood supply is taken up in dealing with the perceived threat and not enough of it enough remains in the pre-frontal cortex for thinking with. Our students need a good blood supply to their working brains in order to use metacognition, so we need think carefully about what stressors we might be able to relieve them of, and make sure that we are not inadvertently contributing to it.

If metacognition is to develop naturally, It’s essential that we provide ‘experiential’ opportunities for our learners so that they can improve their thinking ability. We know that a brain develops mostly through personal ‘involvement’, not from just being told or shown information, which is the traditional, albeit less effective way of teaching. We therefore need to plan carefully for activities that allow students to achieve their learning outcomes on a more independent basis.

I know that 'review' is a lot to take in if you’re new to the topic, but don’t worry, I will continue to share more details about the ways and means we can use to naturalise metacognition in the classroom, and if your school would like some training, then just get in touch.

Take care till next time.

Warm regards

Liz