What is Metacognition
Introduction | Unit 1 | Unit 2 | Unit 3 | Unit 4 | Unit 5
Please view this introduction to the mini-course:
Learning Outcomes
The purpose of this unit is to introduce students to the concept of metacognition, including its components, and the relationship of metacognition to self-regulated learning.
At the end of this lesson, given a multi-part model of metacognition, you will be able to:
- describe the concept of metacognition
- outline the components of metacognition
- compare and contrast metacognition and self-directed learning
Warming Up
How metacognitively aware are you? Take the "Metacognitive Awareness Inventory" to assess your use of metacognitive strategies.
After completing the assessment, consider which the items you think are most important for you as an educator and for your students. Please share with other learners on the Discussion page.
Lesson 1: Understanding Metacognition
Before we get started, please review this video, A Brief Intro to Metacognition.
At it's most basic level, metacognition is thinking about thinking. However, the full complexity of metacognition may be lost with this simplified version of the concept. Robin Fogarty (1994: xi) provides a fuller definition based on the work of A.L. Costa (1981; 1984): Metacognition is "our ability to know wha we know and what we don't know. It is our ability to pla a strategy for producing what information is needed, to be conscious of our own steps and strategies during the art of problem solving, and to reflect on and evaluate the productivity of our own thinking."
Some researchers assert that metacognition includes two components, reflection and regulation:
Others, adapting Costa (1981; 1984) include knowledge and planning with monitoring and evaluating:
Moreover, students might fall into one of four levels of metacognition: tacit, aware, strategic, or reflective:
Lesson 2: Metacognition and Self-Directed Learning
Although scholarly research has not clearly identified the relationship between metacognition and self-directed learning, generally, metacognition is viewed as a necessary precursor and part of self-directed learning. The former, more based in congnitive function, informs the later, which is goal-directed. Self-directed learning includes: "(a) setting specific proximal goals for oneself, (b) adopting powerful strategies for attaining the goals, (c) monitoring one's performance selectively for signs of progress, (d) restructuring one's physical and social context to make it compatible with one's goals, (e) managing one's time use efficiently, (f) self-evaluating one's methods, (g) attributing causation to results, and (h) adapting future methods," (Zimmerman, 2002: 66).
As critical as self-directed learning is to academic success, since metacognition is a key foundational skill, in this mini-course, we will focus on how to integrate metacognition in the classroom. A complete exploration of self-directed learning is beyond the scope of our course, but the book The Self-Directed Learning Handbook: Challenging Adolescent Students to Excel (Gibbons, 2002) can provide more information on this topic once you have completed the mini-course.
Activities
Post-Test
Take a post-test on Unit 1 to assess your comprehension of the theory behind metacognition.
Refection Journal
From "Visible Thinking," Harvard Project Zero
You can adopt "the used to think/now I think" routine from Harvard Project Zero to help your students think about metacognition.
If you would like to share your reflections with other learners in the mini-course, please enter them on the Discussion page.
Conclusion
With our foundational knowledge of metacognition established, we will now continue to Unit 2 in which we will consider how metacognitive strategies affect student outcomes.
References
Background brief from the OLR News. (2004). ORL News. Retrieved from literacy.kent.edu/ohioeff/resources/06newsMetacognition.doc
Crawford, G. B., & Crawford, G. B. (2007). Brain-based teaching with adolescent learning in mind (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Costa, A. L. (1984). Mediating the metacognitive. Educational Leadership, 42(3), 57-62.
Costa, A. L. (1981). Teaching for intelligent behavior. Educational Leadership, 39(1), 29-31.
Fogarty, R. (1994). How to teach for metacognitive reflection. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin - A Sage Company.
Gibbons, M. (2002). The self-directed learning handbook: Challenging adolescent students to excel. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Scott, B. M., & Levy, M. G. (2013). Metacognition: Examining the components of a fuzzy concept. Educational Research Journal, 2(2), 120-131.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into practice, 41(2), 64-70.