Metacognition is thinking about your own thinking, and helps students become self-directed learners.
Faculty can help students develop metacognitive skills by understanding this process.
Image adapted from Lovett et al's (2023) Cycle of Self-Directed Learning
Lovett, M. C., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Ambrose, S. A., & Norman, M. K. (2023). How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Support your students in assessing the task.
Students tend to fall back on old habits, even if they were not successful in the past (i.e. thinking they know what an essay looks like, or how to study for an exam). Students often unintentionally ignore or misunderstand their instructor's explanation of an assignment or task.
- Tip to try: Ask students to describe the assignment goal in their own words.
Provide opportunities to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
Novices tend to inaccurately assess their own knowledge and skill in relation to a particular goal.
- Tip to try: Give opportunities for students to assess themselves (Mid-Semester Evals, "what grade would you have given yourself?")
Help students recognize the importance of planning.
Students may not recognize the importance of planning or how to work more efficiently. It's also possible they have not had to plan in prior learning contexts.
- Tip to try: Assign low-stakes planning points (like drafts, or a proposed work timeline)
Promote monitoring their own understanding.
Without monitoring their own understanding or how they perform, students may continue to make the same mistakes or apply ineffective strategies.
- Tip to try: Have students reflect in process on the effectiveness of a task. "Is this strategy working, or would another one be more productive?"
Offer opportunities for reflection to help students adjust.
Research tells us that students tend not to reflect on their approaches without prompting.
- Tip to try: Prompt students to complete an "Exam Wrapper," which is a short reflection students complete when exams are handed back to them. Exam wrappers guide students through a brief analysis of their performance on the exam, then asks them to connect that performance to specific study techniques they used. Finally, they identify what they will (or won't) do differently to prepare for the next exam.
Additional Benefits of Engaging Metacognition
“Metacognition allows students to make decisions about how they learn best by helping them become aware of what they are doing when they are learning" (Kaplan et al. 2023).
- Empowers students to monitor and control their learning
- Improves learning transfer
- Increases student motivation
Additional Resources
Articles
Lang, J. (2012). "Metacognition in student learning." The Chronicle of Higher Education .
Zimmerman, Barry J. “Becoming a Self-Regulated Learner: An Overview.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 41, no. 2, May 2002, pp. 64–70. Taylor and Francis+NEJM,
Books
Bransford, J. D., et al. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Expanded ed. edition, National Academies Press, 1999.
Brown, P., Roediger III H., McDaniel A. M. Make it Stick: the Science of Successful Learning. (2014). Harvard University Press
Kaplan, M., Silver, A., LaVaque-Manty, D., Meizlish D. (2013). Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning : Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy: Vol. First edition. Routledge.
Lovett, Marsha C., et al. How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. 2nd ed., Jossey-Bass, 2023,
McGuire, Saundra Yancy. Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation. Routledge, 2023.
Nilson, Linda B. Creating Self-Regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students’ Self-Awareness and Learning Skills. Routledge, 2013
Nelson, Thomas O. Metacognition: Core Readings. Allyn & Bacon, 1992, pp. xi, 436. APA PsycNet.