#69 Leading on Metacognition

Hi Everyone

I mentioned in my last newsletter that I had been invited to speak at the ‘Schools Positioned for Global Impact’ conference in London this week where I was very grateful to have the opportunity to talk about ‘The Neuroscience Behind Accelerated Learning and Critical Thinking’. The event was organised by Golden Links International Consultancy, and I loved that the organiser, Angelina Ikeako, made a point of specifying a workshop style presentation, which allowed me to get creative.

I declared the workshop a ‘digital free zone’, so that we could take a step back and think about what students actually need to be able to use accelerated learning and critical thinking in order to make progress. We went where many fear to tread, right inside the heads of learners to consider how vital that particular space is to the reputation of any school. When it’s results that count, (which they do particularly for international schools), you have to consider where those results are going to come from.

We’re not just talking about academic results here, because we also want students to feel happy and safe at school, have well developed social skills, a strong sense of belonging, and some idea of how they might use their strengths to make some kind of contribution. All of those desirable states are dependent on what a student thinks about school and how they view their own ability to engage effectively with education, so we can’t leave what they’re thinking out of the equation.

We started the presentation with volunteers holding up 8 cards which between them stated the title of the talk, before removing the linking words to leave the key ones. Each key word was then defined further in order to clarify exactly what we were talking about so that everyone was on the same page. I thought you might find it interesting to take a look at that same information.

‘Neuroscience’ was specified as cognitive neuroscience and the card replaced with ‘Brain’ and ‘Cognition’ to differentiate it from a general study of the nervous system as a whole. The brain is where cognition takes place, providing us with the ability to learn by taking in knowledge, understanding it’s significance and then being able to use it somehow.

‘Accelerated’ was replaced by ‘Independent’ and ‘Outcomes’, because it’s not necessarily about a student racing ahead, it’s about them being able to go at their own pace, using whatever method works best for them to achieve the learning outcomes faster than they might have done via a teacher led class activity.

‘Learning’ comes in two basic modes, the way we learn pre-school using an unconscious downloading of information from our environment by direct experience, and the one we need in school for being taught by someone else without having the experience of it ourselves. The common terms for those are ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ learning, so those words replaced the original.

The next Key Word was ‘Critical’, so we discussed its origins from the Greek word ‘kritikos’, (which means having the ability to judge), before replacing it with ‘Judgement’ and ‘Reasoning’. Obviously making any judgement call requires reasoning skills in order to make an informed decision.

Finally, the word ‘Thinking’ was swapped out for ‘Conscious’ and ‘Metacognition’. (I bet you were wondering how long it would be before I mentioned my favourite word!)

We were subsequently going to be focusing specifically on the type of thinking required to make progress in formal educational settings, requiring a conscious choice on the part of the student. The most successful way to achieve that is through metacognition with the Greek word ‘meta’, indicating someone rising above or going beyond the learning itself in order to analyse how they’re going to reach the desired outcome each time.

Having replaced all of the original key words from the title with some more explanatory ones, each of the new cards (now 10 in number) had a partial sentence on the back of it. Participants holding the cards were invited to read those out in quick succession to create a strong statement about effective learning. I’ll try to reproduce that moment here for you;

“So, we’re talking about students using their brain… and the natural learning abilities that they have… to work independently of the teacher… in order to achieve the learning outcomes… using both primary, instinctive learning… and secondary learning from direct instruction… making judgement calls about its relevance and accuracy… to reason on the information provided… and then using that information to make conscious decisions… changing their minds where necessary using metacognition.”

There isn’t space here to share the rest of my presentation with you right now, but needless to say, we also considered how vital it is to consider developing metacognition in all learners so that they’re ready to use accelerated learning and critical thinking. That included looking at where these leaders from African schools might focus more attention in order to achieve greater international impact.

When groups shared their significant takeaways at the end of the day, I was very happy to see constant references to the need to help learners improve their thinking ability, for stress free classrooms where learners could safely grow in independence, and support for teachers in developing their ability to facilitate more learner centred experiences.

More on that next time.

Take care till then.

Warm regards

Liz