Module #4 (Metacognition & Reaching Every Student)


Metacognition & Reaching Every Student

Chapter 9

            Metacognition is the awareness an individual has about their own thought processes; the Woolfolk text refers to this as “Cognition about Cognition” or “Thinking about Thinking.” Metacognition is a complex system of learning and thought. So, metacognition is higher-order knowledge about your own thinking as well as your ability to use this knowledge to manage your own cognitive processes—such as comprehension or problem solving (Brazilai & Zohar, 2014).
            The Woolfolk text identifies three “essential” metacognitive skills: planning, monitoring, and evaluating. Once an individual decides what it they want to accomplish or learn, they can begin to take the steps to plan out how they will execute their desired task and reach its outcome. This involves time management, specific strategies and resources, and what order to place all of this information in—this is the planning stage of metacognition. The next stage is the monitoring stage, that involves “real-time awareness.” During this stage, one evaluates their progress: Are they grasping the concept? Is their speed through-out the process too fast or too slow? Evaluation is the third stage of metacognition. During this stage the learner “involves making judgements about the processes and outcomes of thinking and learning (Woolfolk 2019).”
As a learner I have used various strategies to increase my learning capabilities. Metacognition has always been a tool of mine—long before I knew the technical term. I have always made an effort to be self-aware of my learning and to consider my own thought processes. As a child, one of the first reading techniques I was taught (by my mother) was to skim the text for important information, later I learned that skimming for important information was a strategy used in metacognition. As a “loner” who struggled in school, I learned the importance of “self-teaching.” If I was going to learn the information, I had to think of the various ways I retained information. I have always evaluated and re-evaluated through-out my student life. I believe metacognition and all that it entails is basis for the most important tools in learning.
 “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten,” this philosophy by American phycologist/behaviorist B.F. Skinner is right on target with learning and understanding the individual differences in metacognition. The Woolfolk text explains that the purpose of a lesson may be lost on our youngest learners— “Younger children, for example, may not be aware of the purpose of a lesson—they may think the point is simply to finish.” Younger students who do not yet understand the purpose of learning a concept may believe that they are only to learn the information to “get through” the lesson. What these students learns from the lesson is stored in their short-term memory and is forgotten without frequent practice. The best way to reach and truly educate these students is to help them understand why it is important to learn and retain the information they are using—their “real-world” applications.  
The most common way I have observed metacognition within the classroom setting is by the use of “KWL charts;” I have seen these charts used in classrooms as young as pre-k.
K= What do I know about the subject.
W= What I want to know, or what I wonder about the subject.
L= What I learned about the subject.
This chart is a great strategy to expand on the students’ understanding and expansion of the subject. Children are full of wonder, when an educator inquires about a student’s interest—that’s where education truly begins.

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