#21 - Improving Results

Hi everyone. Thank you for your continued support with this newsletter, and I hope that it helps you to make a difference for the children and young people you work with.

So, what does metacognition have to do with improving results in school? Well I'll get to that shortly, but first we need to accept that 'results' in life are the consequences, good, bad or indifferent, from taking certain actions. Sometimes we experience a default result through choosing inaction, but either way, our experience of life depends to a great extent on those choices we make.

Many times, we realise that life is not quite how we want it to be, so we attempt to change the actions that have led us to this point, in order to improve the results that have been showing up for us. That very rarely works, (think New Year's Resolutions) and the reason for that is that we've not paid attention to the 'thoughts' that led to our actions in the first place.

All the actions that we take, are based on what we feel is the right choice at the time, but that 'feeling' is derived from what we were 'thinking' prior to that. All the results we get, can therefore be traced back to our thoughts, whether they were conscious or unconscious. Often we're basing decisions on information stored in our unconscious mind, that may even have been there since our own childhood.

So what does this have to do with education I hear you ask? Isn't this newsletter all about supporting the development of metacognition in learners? Yes it is, but we just need to set the scene for how important our thoughts are to the results we achieve. So far we have looked at results generally, but now we need to think about the academic results that learner's achieve in school.

As our thoughts precede everything, if we want to support learners to achieve beyond where they are at the moment, we have to help them to think differently. Ok, so now you can see where I'm going with this! How do you help children and young people to 'change their minds' about what they have been doing up to this point? In order to start thinking 'metacognitively', they have to appreciate how their minds work.

Metacognition matures along with our decision making skills once we are capable of making conscious decisions that are based on 'reason'. However, some children still have difficulty with basic cognitive skills due to delayed development, and others never learn to think for themselves. That can be the result of limited opportunities at home, but also from the impact of our insistence on teaching a massive curriculum that leaves little time for essential thinking.

The result is that we have a large number of children who never learn how to think metacognitively and will therefore never get the results they are capable of, not now whilst they're in school, nor later in life. How can we justify not teaching children how to reason things out for themselves? They need the practise of working through thoughts and ideas, challenging themselves, trialling possibilities and changing their mind in order to improve results.

We don't need to give them anything other than the required curriculum. It's about teaching them to engage with that curriculum in a different way to make sure that they're actively involved in their own learning. You can improve the results in your classroom just by creating an environment where children and young people are gently eased into thinking for themselves.

I will be continuing this conversation with teachers in a free webinar on Tuesday 1st Nov at 2.00pm under the heading of; 'Metacognition, The Key to Successful Learning'. Registration opens soon for that, and it will be followed on Tuesday 8th Nov by a paid Workshop (￡47) where I will share even more with you about what can be done in the classroom through 'Developing Metacognition in Your Learners'.

Please ask in school now about being able to attend these events if you are interested, and let me know if you want to register.

I would point out here, that these sessions are all about 'developing' metacognition, with lots of tips and hints about how to get children and young people who are not in the habit of thinking for themselves to start doing so. It's not about the the formalised use of templates or other strategies, it's about getting learners to the point where they are able to access those strategies more effectively because they understand the thought processes required. I look forward to helping you with that.

Warm regards. Liz