Learning Learning #02: Metacognition

Hi again! I'm back this month with another article and this time, we're digging into a topic that absolutely fascinates me: metacognition. In completing the coursework for the Masters course that I'm currently enrolled in, a part of every module was a mandatory reflection once a week. These reflections needed to be substantive and to be honest, I included some superficial text at the start to make the lecturers think I'd really learned everything that I had. But after a while, I came to really value and look forward to completing my reflections each Sunday. They were intellectually demanding, therapeutic, cathartic and indeed, valuable to my learning. They forever changed how I feel about reflecting and the act of metacognition - and in this article, I'm going to unpack some of what this is, why it matters, and how we and our learners can do more of it.

What is metacognition?

I typically use the terms 'reflection' and 'metacognition' interchangeably, but truth be told, metacognition does ask for a little more cognitive effort than reflection (or certainly, than what the term reflection would imply). John H. Flavell coined the term 'metacognition' in the 70s, and intended it to mean a higher level of thinking (Flavell, 1979); meta literally meaning after or beyond in Latin. Thus, we have the most common reference to metacognition: thinking about thinking. This is perhaps where I draw the biggest distinction between 'reflection' and 'metacognition': where reflection is thinking about the happenings of the past (which is no doubt valuable), metacognition demands a higher level of thinking, and encourages one to think about one's thinking in the past - that is, what was going through your mind when this occurrence happened?

Nancy Chick takes understanding metacognition a few steps further. In Metacognition, written for Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching, she expands on the notion of metacognition being thinking about ones thinking to, more precisely, it referring to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance (Chick, 2013). This understanding indicates that we as learners should examine our mindsets and thinking every step of the way as we journey to new understanding or improved performance.

Why does metacognition matter?

Now we're getting to the juicy bit: why metacognition matters, and especially why it matters in the learning process. Let's start by asserting that we humans actually enjoy thinking: and if you don't believe me, start a sentence with, "Do you guys remember when..." at the next social gathering you attend. This is sure to spark conversation for a moment, if not the next twenty minutes. Why is this? In their article Nostalgia: Past, Present, and Future, the researchers found that nostalgia "increases self-esteem, fosters social connectedness and alleviates existential threat" (Sedikides et al., 2008). From this, we can put forward that nostalgia (typically understood as a sentimental yearning for the past or days gone by) can actually have positive effects on us. If nostalgia is reflecting on one's feelings and has positive effects like the ones listed above, then perhaps metacognition is reflecting on one's thinking with similarly positive effects observed: if not for one's esteem, connectedness and continuity then certainly for one's own learning?

So why does all of this matter (or meta, for my pun-inclined readers)? What are the benefits of an element of metacognition in your training course? Three distinct benefits spring to mind:

1) Metacognitive practice can increase a learner's ability to adapt or transfer their learning to new tasks or contexts.

In my role as a senior learning professional in a professional services organization, this is monumental. One of the real challenges we face in this context (and undoubtedly others face in their own contexts) is how to embed learning quickly, and have learners use and apply learning on-the-job as soon as possible. Metacognition has been shown to lead to learning that is deeper, more durable and more easily transferable (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000) - all qualities of learning that appear elusive or impossible achieve to most, especially when learning is treated as a compliance exercise, rather than a genuine knowledge-building one. The irony here is that by including what management often refers to as "the fluffy stuff", we could actually achieve better learning from the outset, rather than resorting to assessments, punitive measures and deadlines to 'enforce' learning (an oxymoronic endeavor if I ever saw one).

2) Metacognitive practices help learners build self-awareness of their strengths and weaknesses.

In his book The Competent Manager. A Model For Effective Performance, Boyatzis found that hundreds of managers from twelve different organizations asserted that accurate self-assessment was the hallmark of superior performance (Boyatzis, 1982). If we assume that superior performance is desired by all, and that accurate self-assessment is key to obtaining it - then surely a deliberate practice or method is required to do this (assess one's self accurately)? Metacognition is such a practice. A key element of improvement is recognizing the ceiling of one's knowledge and/or ability; as I like to say to participants in my courses (in the context of reflection), "If you do not know, then you cannot grow".

3) Without metacognition, the bad become worse.

Dramatic subheading aside, there is a wealth of research indicating that people incapable of recognizing their own misgivings are condemned to a downward spiral of repetitive failure. In Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence, Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger, and Kruger found that “people tend to be blissfully unaware of their incompetence,” lacking “insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills.” (Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger, and Kruger, 2003). Feedback is often touted as a common remedy for employees' lack of understanding or poor performance: I'd be rich I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase, "But have you given him/her the feedback?" after surviving an experience with an ill-skilled or ill-willed colleague. The importance of such feedback in remonstrating behavior cannot be understated, but I think that the piece that is often missing is feedback given to one's self. In giving feedback to one's self as the 'underperformer', it is valuable to understand the context of the lack of understanding or underperformance, where you struggled specifically and what you can do differently in the future: and this process bears strong resemblance to 1) the popular CEDAR model used in feedback and more importantly, 2) Chick's notion of what metacognition should entail, referred to above.

How can I include more metacognition in my training?

The two major opportunities for including metacognition in training come in the forms of explicit instruction and training culture.

In Promoting Student Metacognition, Tanner gives four suggestions for where metacognition can be built into training (Tanner, 2012). I have expanded on each of these with a few of my own suggestions and thoughts:

• Pre-assessments - Encouraging Students to Examine Their Current Thinking. Pre-assessments can be wonderful tools for allowing not only metacognitive opportunities, but also for subsequent personalizations of learning. Having encouraged learners to pre-assess their knowledge and think about what they know and don't know, we as trainers can tailor course content to what they need to learn. Technology of course makes this easier to do, especially when confronted by a large number of learners.
• The Muddiest Point - Giving Students Practice in Identifying Confusions. In asking for the 'muddiest points', we as trainers can provide a space for judgement-free expression of what is confusing or perhaps even unknown to learners. Not only are these admissions important for the learners themselves, but they also create a space for instructors to tailor (however slightly) the content to address these training needs.
• Retrospective Post-assessments - Pushing Students to Recognize Conceptual Change. Rather than just assessing learners after a learning intervention, we can assess and introduce a metacognitive aspect. Key to this is having learners notice their own learning and identify how their understanding or abilities have changed, and what got them to this point.
• Reflective Journals - Providing a Forum in Which Students Monitor Their Own Thinking. By having learners write down what they've learned, how it might apply to them in the future and what they still need to learn about the particular area of study, we as instructors can encourage a level of critical thinking among our students. Complimenting this, students could even opine on their study plans and methods of learning thereby understanding not just the content better, but their method of learning the content better too.

As far as culture goes, I always recommend an appropriate combination of attitude, acting and adherence.

For attitude, we trainers need to encourage an attitude and air of it being OK to acknowledge difficulty and struggle. In doing this, students will not live or learn in denial and this will create more fertile learning spaces. Your (as the teacher's) attitude towards students struggling will inform how people approach their own struggles going forward in the class.

For acting, we as trainers can and should act out what metacognition looks like. By walking and talking learners through a metacognitive activity, they will start to see how it's done, and (hopefully) how valuable it can be.

Finally, for adherence, you can start to include assessed reflective activities (just like I had in my Masters coursework). By including these elements as marked ones, learners will see how seriously you take metacognition, and will begin to treat the act of reflection with the deference that it so richly deserves.

Final thoughts

Can you see why I'm so fascinated by metacognition? The possibilities of this 'thinking about thinking' are nearly endless, and its ability to improve and enhance the learning experience is huge. So much of what I and others have written links back to self-awareness; though of course, in this context it links to self-awareness about learning. It is crucial that we make learners aware of themselves as learners - reminding them that it's not just what they learn but how and why they learn. If something isn't working in this learning process, we as learning professionals need to realize this, but also, give learners an opportunity to realize this for themselves. Metacognition makes this possible.

You've no doubt thought a lot while you've read this article: so what do you think about this thinking?

Copyright ? 2021 Clinton van Heerden. All Rights Reserved.