Do you know how to learn? Many people don’t. Specifically, they don’t know how to look inward to examine how they learn and to judge which methods are effective.
That’s where metacognitive strategies come in. They are techniques that help people become more successful learners. Shouldn’t this be a crucial goal of instructional design?
Improved metacognition can facilitate both formal and informal learning. It can improve the performance of new tasks on the job and help teams problem solve more effectively.
But let’s start at the beginning. Here are some things learning professionals should know about metacognition.
What is metacognition?
- Metacognition is often referred to as “thinking about thinking.” But that’s just a quick definition. Metacognition is a regulatory system that helps a person understand and control their own cognitive performance.
- Metacognition allows people to take charge of their own learning. It involves awareness of how they learn and an evaluation of their learning needs. It involves generating strategies to meet these needs and then implementing the strategies. (Hacker, 2009)
- Learners often show an increase in self-confidence when they build metacognitive skills. Self-efficacy improves motivation as well as learning success.
- Metacognitive skills are generally learned during a later stage of development. Metacognitive strategies can often (but not always) be stated by the individual who is using them.
- For all age groups, metacognitive knowledge is crucial for efficient independent learning because it fosters forethought and self-reflection.
The Two Processes of Metacognition
Many theorists organize the skills of metacognition into two complementary processes. According to theory, metacognition consists of: 1) the knowledge of cognition and 2) the regulation of cognition.
- Knowledge of cognition has three components: knowledge of the factors that influence one’s own performance; knowing different types of strategies to use for learning; knowing what strategy to use for a specific learning situation.
- Regulation of cognition involves: setting goals and planning; monitoring and controlling learning; and evaluating one’s own regulation (assessing results and strategies used).
Metacognition and Expertise
- Many experts cannot explain the skills they use to elicit expert performance. This is considered tacit knowledge. (See Strategies for Tacit Knowledge Transfer.)
- Metacognitive strategies often separate an expert from a novice. For example, experts are able to plan effectively on a global level at the start of a task. While a novice won’t see the big picture.
- Some adults with expertise in one domain can transfer their metacognitive skills to learn more rapidly in another domain.
- On the other hand, some adults do not spontaneously transfer metacognitive skills to new settings. These learners will need help transferring their skills.
Examples of Skills You May Use When Learning
Successful learners typically use metacognitive strategies whenever they learn. But they may fail to use the best strategy for each type of learning situation. Here are some metacognitive strategies that will sound familiar to you:
- Knowing the limits of your own memory for a particular task. Therefore, you create a means of external support, like taking notes.
- Self-monitoring your learning strategy, such as concept mapping. You adapt the strategy if it isn’t effective.
- Noticing whether you comprehend something you just read. You then modify your approach if you did not comprehend it.
- Choosing to skim subheadings of unimportant information to get to the information you need.
- Repeatedly rehearsing a skill in order to gain proficiency.
- Periodically doing self-tests to see how well you learned something.
Metacognitive Strategies
Metacognitive strategies facilitate learning how to learn. You can incorporate these, as appropriate, into eLearning courses, social learning experiences, pre- and post-training activities and other formal or informal learning experiences.
- Ask Questions. During formal courses and in post-training activities, ask questions that allow learners to reflect on their own learning processes and strategies. In collaborative learning, ask them to reflect on the role they play when problem solving in teams.
- Foster Self-reflection. Emphasize the importance of personal reflection during and after learning experiences. Encourage learners to critically analyze their own assumptions and how this may have influenced their learning. (Read about transformative learning.)
- Encourage Self-questioning. Foster independent learning by asking learners to generate their own questions and answer them to enhance comprehension. The questions can be related to meeting their personal goals
- Teach Strategies Directly. Teach appropriate metacognitive strategies as a part of a training course.
- Promote Autonomous Learning. When learners have some domain knowledge, encourage participation in challenging learning experiences. They will then be forced to construct their own metacognitive strategies.
- Provide Access to Mentors. Many people learn best by interacting with peers who are slightly more advanced. Promote experiences where novices can observe the proficient use of a skill and then gain access to the metacognitive strategies of their mentors.
- Solve Problems with a Team: Cooperative problem solving can enhance metacognitive strategies by discussing possible approaches with team members and learning from each other.
- Think Aloud. Teach learners how to think aloud and report their thoughts while performing a difficult task. A knowledgeable partner can then point out errors in thinking or the individual can use this approach for increased self-awareness during learning. Another approach to thinking aloud is the working out loud approach. Listen to this interview with Jane Bozarth about working out loud.
- Self-explanation. Self-explanation in writing or speaking can help learners improve their comprehension of a difficult subject.
- Provide Opportunities for Making Errors. When learners are given the opportunity to make errors while in training, such as during simulations, it stimulates reflection on the causes of their errors.
In summary, metacognition is a set of skills that enable learners to become aware of how they learn and to evaluate and adapt these skills to become increasingly effective at learning. In a world that demands lifelong learning, providing people with new and improved metacognitive strategies is a gift that can last forever.
References:
- Hacker, Douglas J., John Dunlosky and Arthur C. Graesser (Eds.). Handbook of Metacognition in Education, 2009.
- Pashler, H. et al., Organizing instruction and study to improve student learning. IES practice guide, 2007.
- Smith, Cecil M. and Thomas Pourchot. Adult Learning and Development: Perspectives From Educational Psychology, 1998.
- White, Barbara and John Frederiksen. A Theoretical Framework and Approach for Fostering Metacognitive Development. Educational Psychologist, 40(4), 211–223, 2005.
- Wilson, Arthur L. and Elisabeth Hayes, Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education by American Association for Adult and Continuing Education.
- Handbook of Metacognition in Education Douglas J. Hacker, John Dunlosky and Arthur C. Graesser (Eds.).
Hi Eunica,
This is a great question. I would be more comfortable if you could ask someone with more expertise in education than I have. I am sure there are books on this subject and I think you can start with the book Make It Stick, which has good tips for being successful at studying. It’s written for higher ed, but I’m guessing you could simplify it.
Connie
How should teachers handle novice and expert learners in the classroom so that they both develop metacognitive thinking skills?
Thanks for your contribution, Danyelle. Yes, there is research showing that making errors is a good way to learn. When you think about your personal experience, I’m guessing error corrections are quite memorable. I know they are for me. Fascinating, isn’t it. I’ll try to dig into the research more and write about it.
Best,
Connie
Hi, Connie! I really enjoyed this post. Like one of the previous commenters, I’m working in an Instructional Design course right now and reviewing a lot of blogs & other online resources. Your blog has a ton of usable tips, so I wanted to express my appreciation. I’m trying to figure out how I can teach students how to learn more effectively in online courses. Helping them become more aware of how they are learning seems like a good start. Being metacognitively aware seems to help students learn in the long run. The tips in your post that resonated the most with me are encouraging self-reflection and self-questioning. An idea I have that is inspired by your post could be requiring students to list a few areas of the content they have questions about and explaining how doing so could help them learn new content not only in the course but throughout their lives. The other tips you listed seem like strategies someone could easily build into an online course. The tip I was most surprised by, but I think makes sense is to “allow for errors.” It does make sense to allow room for students to make a mistake during a course (or during a training), so that they have a chance to self-correct and learn. I’m learning a lot from your blog. Many thanks!
It was updated and republished on September 30, 2018. Not sure of the original date.
Hi Kristina,
You sound like such a devoted teacher. I imagine that social media and cell phones create new problems for teachers and students. I’ve seen some interesting articles of how teachers and professors are using mobile phones in the classroom. I wonder if you can somehow use them to improve metacognitive skills. Good luck!
Connie
Hi Connie!
This post is extremely well written and maps out Metacognition very clearly for me. I am a Graduate student in the field of Instructional Design right now and we are studying this topic.
I found it especially interesting that Metacognition does not come innately engrained in our brains! Before I started teaching I hadn’t given much thought to this concept and just thought staring into my textbook until it stuck was the way ‘everyone’ studied.
In our text Learning Theories and Instruction, Jeanne Ormrod says “even students who are aware of what helps them learn do not consistently engage in metacognitive activities. Learners also might be unwilling to invest the effort to employ metacognitive activities.” (Ormrod, 2008)
I teach high school right now and find the latter to be even more prevalent than ever. With the introduction of social media and cell phones, the amount of effort it takes to truly soak in certain kinds of information shows to be increasingly difficult for today’s teens who are so used to mindlessly scrolling through feeds.
I am looking forward to incorporating some of your practices in to my classroom to hopefully polish their metacognitive functions.
Thanks!
Thank you for explaining strategies that can be used to employ metacognition. This is useful not only as a student but also as a teacher or parent.
Love your insights, Steve. Thanks for adding the group aspect of metacognition via reflection. This is a valuable contribution.
Connie
Hi, Connie.
Thank you for the informative article. I would add that metacognition can occur at the levels of individual learners, teams, and organizations. For example, teams in the military use after-action reviews to reflect and improve on their performance. In these settings, reflection activities can include answering questions such as:
1. What did the team do well that they should keep on doing?
2. Where could the team have improved its performance and how should that happen? What additional help might the team need?
3. What should the team stop doing?
And teams that frequently engage in such reflective activities tend to outperform teams that don’t.
Nawa P.R.
i appreciated this journal. i have been finding it difficulty to teach my students. this time i am following suit and learners do enjoy my teaching strategies.
Thank you very much.
This article has helped me a lot. I always had difficulty explaining to people they need to know how to learn. Thanks so much.
Thank you for those important insights, Robin.
Connie
I always start out the year with a handout that discusses how students learn and it as questions that help the student realize what type of learner they are. I also start with concept maps which help visual learners.
Hi Vasheti,
Your comment is very insightful and will probably help many people become more aware of how they learn. And how important it is to figure it out. I’ve noticed that for me, it depends on what I’m trying to learn. So I need different strategies for different types of skills and knowledge. Thanks for your comment.
Connie
This article has been very informative and has validated thoughts I had regarding learning how to learn. One thing I have noticed over the year during both my educational and professional career is that individuals process information and learn differently. Once an individual recognizes the best learning method for themselves, learning does not seem like such of a difficult task. My personal experience has been that I do not learn very quickly just by listening to a lecture or even just reading material. I learn by seeing examples and tactfully working through problems. In addition to these strategies, I also ensure I understand fresh material by reviewing it via various methods. For instance, when I first began to learn about learning theories, I was experiencing a difficult time with understanding the differences. I quickly searched for other media to learn the material. I found that interactive videos and YouTube videos were very helpful with explaining the different theory. Once I gained insight on the material, I was able to go back and read a book with understanding. My sister on the other hand was fully understood the material by simply reading a book. In conclusion, it’s very imperative that we understand how we learn in order to make learning experiences more rewarding and successful.
you have explained in depth….thanks for the support provided…im able to learn more easy now
Connie,
Your article is very informative and easy to read. It gives a clear and detailed understanding of metacognition and the role of the learner in his/her learning process and how to develop such skills. Duell, Flavell and Wellman in their studies on the topic determined variables influencing metacognition, the learner, task, and strategy. The learners’ abilities help in their task of knowing how to learn and recall the information and their understanding of what strategies to use for learning for the best outcome. (Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning theories and instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York: Pearson. pp.101,102.)
After reading this article, I now have a better appreciation of how important it is to understand information processing. I appreciate the simplicity and the clear and concise explanation of how the instructional designer can facitate learning how to learn by incorporating the suggested strategies. I also realize that students can also enhance their own learning by developing their own metacognitive processing strategies. This site can be very useful to any new instructional designer, and I will return for future reference,
Great article. Over the past year I have tried your technique of metacognition with my children and new interns. Once they discover how they learn best, when I gave them new work or when my children studied for a test it wouldn’t be such a hassle. Thank you for all your help. I look forward to the outcomes I’ll get when introducing your technique to others.