Metacognition for revision

What is metacognition? Metacognition and self-regulation approaches aim to help you think about your own learning and your ability to take control of your thoughts. It’s a key part of performing in pressure situations like exams and has been shown to improve educational performance. Metacognition is your ability to use prior knowledge to plan a strategy for approaching a learning task like revision, take necessary steps to problem solve, reflect on and evaluate results, and modify your approach as needed.

Metacognitive Knowledge Task – Strategies - Self What is metacognition? Metacognitive Knowledge Task – Strategies - Self Metacognitive Regulation Planning – Monitoring – Evaluating Use chicken dinner analogy

Metacognitive Knowledge We approach any learning task or opportunity with some metacognitive knowledge about: our own abilities and attitudes (knowledge of ourselves as a learner) what strategies are effective and available (knowledge of strategies) the particular type of activity (knowledge of the task) eg “Am I motivated to stick at this tricky task?” eg “What revision strategies do I use that work?” Metacognition is part of self-regulation (those self-directed processes that direct our learning). It requires knowledge of ourselves as a learner, of appropriate strategies and knowledge of the task. An effective learner will monitor their knowledge and cognitive processes and use this understanding to make judgments about how to direct their efforts. We are always making decisions about our learning in the moment. These decisions happen intuitively but, with explicit teaching and scaffolding, they can be better enacted by pupils. eg “What are the difficult aspects of this task?”

Metacognitive Regulation Cycle Planning – to consider how to approach the task Monitoring – to check and emphasise general progress Evaluation – questions to concentrate upon the success of learning strategies adopted The cycle of planning, monitoring and evaluating and the different aspects of metacognitive knowledge (learner, strategies, task) are unconscious and automatic processes in an expert learner. The cycle is ongoing but provides a good structure for teacher to think about metacognition in more depth. Most often these learner behaviours are hidden from sight. We are the experts… we have this knowledge but our learners are not/do not. We have to teach them this explicitly. Studies have shown that self-regulated learning and in particular metacognition has a significant impact on pupils’ academic performance, beyond that predicted by prior achievement. Link to memory strategies in last session – students need to know they have choices about which strategies to employ in different contexts. Students need to monitor their application of study strategies Metacognitive awareness of their learning processes is as important as their monitoring of their learning of course content. Metacognition allows them to spot problems with learning: Errors in encoding – to stop them missing important info/data or separating relevant from irrelevant info (e.g basing interpretation of poem on just first stanza) Errors in operation – failing to select right skills to apply – failing to divide task into sub parts Errors in goal seeking – misrepresenting the task. E.g. writing a narrative rather than an analysis/not understanding criteria to apply Get them to unpack their thinking – tell you about how they are going to go about the task step by step

Stages of Metacognition 1. Planning Think about the goal of my learning. Consider how I will approach the task. Eg: - What should I do first? What are the different ways I could do this? What might be the best way to do this? What resources might I need to support me? What will success look like? How much time might I need to spend on this? Is this similar to a previous task?

Stages of Metacognition 2. Monitoring I need to assess the progress I am making whilst undertaking the learning. Eg: - Am I doing well? - Do I need any different techniques? - Am I finding this challenging? Is there anything I need to do to stop and change/improve my work? Have I used my planning? Have I followed a given strategy (e.g PEEL)? Have I checked what I’ve done so far? Often missed out (often people plan-do –reflect) Getting students to visualise their own learning and identify moments of struggle and challenge is an integral and necessary element of the learning process. We may encourage students to do this at the end of an assessment once marks have been allocated but not throughout the learning process

Stages of Metacognition 3. Evaluation I need to appraise the effectiveness of my plan and its implementation. Eg: - How did I do? - Was it the right method to choose? - How would I do a better essay/question next time? - Are there any other techniques I would like to try? Is there anything I need to do to stop and change? Can I apply what I’ve done to other situations? PMI journals

Are you meta-cognitive? Think about any learning tasks you did over the Easter Break. This could include completing Coursework, Revision or Homework. Did you use (or all) any of the parts of the Metacognitive Cycle? This week can you use a Metacognitive Approach to your work – Research shows that students who do feel more confident and less anxious about exams.