Metacognition sounds complicated. Conversations about it can certainly feel that way at times, partly due to the difficulty in containing it in one definition. At its core, it can be boiled down to “being aware of one’s thinking processes”, but there are several other elements that are sometimes less explicitly referred to: metacomprehension, metamemory and problem-solving. A breakdown of these is below:
Metacomprehension: a person’s ability to gauge their own understanding of material. A tricky one for students in that often the full range of ‘unknowns’ aren’t clear until some form of assessment takes place - hence the need for regular retrieval.
Metamemory: how a person manages their own retrieval and learning. Active revision strategies and study habits support this.
Problem-solving: the approaches one takes to solve a particular activity or task. Ideally, as students develop in self-efficacy, they would have a sort of mental toolkit to be able to break problems down.
The EEF elaborates on this; “metacognition can be seen as the instructions we give ourselves on how to do a particular learning activity or task, while cognition is the way we actually do them. Metacognition then returns as the monitoring of the success of these activities.”
Across subject disciplines, general metacognitive strategies might include:
Encouraging students to monitor their own progress and track their feedback.
Encouraging reflective actions through self assessment.
Framing questions to gauge one’s learning: ‘what do I need to know to be able to…?’
Feed-forward tasks: time to practise and implement feedback.
Building opportunities for students to transfer skills and knowledge from one domain to another. An example might be using similar paragraph writing formats in History, English and Drama (What/How/Why or any other format, the key is consistency) generating a ‘common language’ for essay writing and argument development.
What does this look like in an English classroom? A non-exhaustive, transferable list might include the following:
Having a planning process in writing: mind mapping ideas, lists, a bullet pointed essay plan. Directed time for planning before writing a response.
Periodically pausing to proofread and edit: I have found this one particularly challenging to embed in my exam classes as it goes against the urge to crank out content. Walking talking mocks have helped, or factoring in ‘pit stops’ to look over work before moving on.
Critical thinking: weighing up the merits of rhetorical pieces and questioning the points of an argument or playing ‘devil’s advocate’ - fostering an element of criticality..
Being aware of the requirements of the task as one is preparing a response: (keywords of questions, identifying what is being specifically assessed etc).
Exam wrappers: students reflect on their decision making pre, during and post exam. Though, this would be more effective if common practice school-wide.
Fortnightly feedback lessons where KS3 students work through teacher feedback: We have had successes with this in which dedicated time is given to responding to feedback and it allows classroom teachers to have follow-up conversations with individuals as the class addresses their feedback.
By incorporating some of these strategies, the hope is that students feel empowered to take control of their reflection and create a more self-aware classroom environment. We’d love to hear your experiences and any additional strategies in the comments below.
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