3 Ways to Develop Metacognitive Skills
Developing metacognitive skills in young people needs to be an important focus area for teachers. After all, metacognitive skills help learners to think about their thinking and this invaluable ability assists them in analysing, evaluating, and taking control of their learning experiences.
Metacognition and Why It Matters in Education
Metacognition refers to the mental processes we use to plan, monitor, and evaluate how well we understand and can do something. It is about understanding how we learn (cognitive understanding) and controlling how we learn (cognitive regulation).
Teaching Metacognition in the Classroom
It is this metacognitive awareness that initiates the student to take charge of their own learning. For a learner agency to be successful there has to be a fundamental shift from teacher to student in the responsibility for – and the control over – learning.
Understanding Metacognition and its Role in Mathematics
Metacognition is “thinking about thinking.” It is the ability to recognise, analyse and reflect on our own cognitive processes. Believed to be unique to humans, metacognition enables us to think about what we do know, what we need to know and what strategies we can apply to solve a problem. Metacognitive processes allow us to learn from prior experiences, and then apply those learned strategies to new situations. This provides invaluable opportunities to learners, especially in mathematics.
