Are you interested in "supercharging" your teaching and facilitating a classroom environment that helps students become more self-aware, self-regulated and strategic in their learning? Understanding metacognition will allow you to intentionally create curriculum, lead discussions, and develop activities that foster student ownership of their emotions, behavior, and learning. There is much written in educational literature today regarding metacognition. The National Research Council, in its book How People Learn, found metacognition to be one of three key findings because of its solid research base and its strong implications for how we teach. The key finding states, "A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them" (National Resource Council, 18). The implication for teaching is that metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject areas (National Resource Council, 21). However, when metacognition is discussed it is often ill defined and limited. This article will clarify what metacognition is, why it is crucial for teachers to understand its importance, review the development of metacognition, and provide practical instructional applications.

WHAT IS METACOGNITION & WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Metacognition is often defined as "thinking about thinking." It is a higher order cognitive procedure involving active control over the processes engaged in learning (Livingston, 1997; VonWright, 1992). It includes planning how to approach a task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating progress toward a goal. It also includes knowing how your mind works which means a student must have some understanding of attention, memory, language, social cognition, spatial and sequential ordering, motor skills, and higher order cognition (Levine, 2002). Finally, and most importantly, metacognition involves monitoring and controlling one's emotions, such as anxiety and motivation, as well as understanding one's intentions and motives. Metacognition is the internal dialogue or private speech that allows students to regulate their thinking and emotions. It is the key to helping students become self-aware, self-regulated, strategic learners.

To take this to a practical level, imagine the following scenario. Joey is sitting in math class taking a test. By all appearances, it looks as if he is thoughtfully working on his test as he reads a question, eyes glancing upward as he searches through information stored in memory trying to locate the correct formula, procedure, or fact. He occasionally erases information and seems to be keeping pace with the rest of the class. Now let us take a trip inside his mind to see what he is really thinking and how these thoughts may be affecting his performance.

"I'm so much better at analyzing character's motives in English class than I am at figuring out math problems. Now what is the rule for dividing a negative number by a positive number? Oh yeah, unlike signs so the answer is negative. I always forget that; I bet no one else has that much trouble. Maybe if I made a little prompt for myself on the back of the test I would be able to keep it straight. Hey, I can almost see Mike's paper. He usually gets good grades. No, I better not cheat. Gee, only 20 minutes left; I'm never going to get this done."

The above scenario is an example of metacognition in action and illustrates the fact that our emotional state drives cognition and has a direct impact on performance. In fact, research tells us metacognitive skills such as deciding how and when a task should be accomplished are central to intelligence which is why metacognition is crucial for teachers to understand (Sternberg, 2005). In addition, the good news is metacognitive skills can be taught.

METACOGNITIVE SKILLS VERSUS METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE

Much of what is written in educational literature and discussed by teachers focuses on metacognitive skills. Metacognitive skills are both general and domain specific. An example of general metacognitive skills is teaching students to monitor their general problem solving through making a drawing of a situation or through the use of questions such as "How am I doing; Does this make sense? Did it work?" (Bruer, 1993). An example of domain specific metacognition in history would be questioning the reliability of a document, while in math it might be understanding the concept of fractions. Both types of metacognitive skills should be explicitly taught in the curriculum.

There is often little if any focus on metacognitive knowledge which is the conscious knowledge of one's actions, motives, intentions, and beliefs (VonWright, 1992). It includes knowledge of our emotional state and is what allows us to have control over our actions and to engage in self-reflection. This is the basic building block of self-awareness. Metacognitive knowledge is a type of self-awareness that leads to understanding the need for metacognitive skills which leads to self-regulation and results in use of appropriate strategies.

Let's go back to Joey as he takes his math test. As we think about his internal dialogue, we see that it is his belief system that he is better at examining characters' motives in English than doing math (metacognitive knowledge). He thinks about making a prompt for himself so that he can remember certain rules and procedures (metacognitive skill). However, he seems at a loss in coping with the anxiety of completing the test on time and even considers cheating (lack of control of emotions resulting in the possibility of undesirable behavior).

Is he aware of his level of anxiety? Are other students taking the test also feeling anxiety due to time constraints? Does he get anxious when taking tests in other subjects? Does he get anxious in other activities in his life? Does he have strategies for completing tests on time? These are examples of questions that would lead Joey to a better understanding of himself as a person and as a learner. These questions also illustrate that metacognition is contextualized. It may vary depending on the task or the person (VonWright, 1992; Flavell, 1979).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF METACOGNITION

It is important to be aware that both children and adults use private speech to externalize and elaborate thinking in an attempt to gain control over challenging or frustrating circumstances. The dialogue you engage in with yourself as you race frantically to find your car keys on your way to an important meeting is an example of a time when adults typically use their private speech to guide them. Private speech occurs most often in children when they are working through ideas, overcoming obstacles, mastering cognitive or social skills, or managing intense emotions (Berk, 2001). Vygotsky further asserts that private speech is fostered when a child is confronting a task that is challenging, but not overly challenging. This is called the "zone of proximal development" (Vygotsky, 1934; Kozulin, 1986). Private speech is fostered when an environment is characterized by warmth, reasonable maturity demands, and helpful assistance. As children develop, much of the audible private speech which they engage in becomes transformed to inner speech such as Joey is engaging in as he takes his math test.

Most of the research studies done in the area metacognitive skills have focused on the memory domain. However, studies that are more recent include very young children's understanding of mental life. It is important for educators to be aware of this information because studies show even adolescents and young adults lack knowledge about powerful memory and higher order cognition strategies when given the task to read, comprehend, and memorize complex text material (Simpson, and Nist, 2002). The following information is a combination of student's developmental reasoning process and their belief system about how their mind works.

Preschool:

Children of this age regulate their own behavior through verbal self-instructions. You often hear these children "thinking aloud." They might say, "I need to hang up my coat, take my shoes off, and wash my hands." Problem solving begins to include requests and directives such as "Hey, let me have the ball, Can I sit by you?" These self-guided remarks typically occur when a child is 3 years of age. It is important to note that in the presence of an engaged social partner, peer or adult, private speech will increase (Berk, 2001). The fantasy play children engage in is critical in laying the foundation for many different types of social communication and learning. In terms of understanding how their mind works, children's use of the verbs "thinking, forgetting, and knowing, remembering versus understanding, recalling versus recognizing, planning and comparing" is very limited. Around the age of four years and beyond, children can begin to understand the basic terminology involved in memory and learning. They also seem to understand the effect of effort on memory at this early age (Schneider and Lockl, 2002).

Elementary School:

At this age, children are better able to use private speech to regulate their impulses. As children encounter more formalized academic instruction, private speech can double in frequency when compared to the preschool and kindergarten years, according to studies done by Vygotsky. When a situation becomes stressful or a problem-solving task is especially difficult, there may be an increase in external, thinking aloud behavior. By the end of elementary school as many as 20 to 30 percent of children continue to frequently engage in self-talk during problem solving (Berk, 2002). In early elementary school, children do not understand that a task which is easy for them may be difficult for another student. By 3rd grade, or around 8 years of age, the ability to see a situation from another person's perspective emerges.

At this age, children do not yet recognize that memorizing a list of opposites is easier to remember than a list of unrelated words. They also do not realize that memory skills and learning preferences vary from person to person. Children at this age tend to over-rate their memory ability; they are convinced that they remember well and that they are better at remembering than their friends. Therefore, they may need to be reminded of the importance of using schedules to guide their day or to remember what to bring to school the next day (Schneider and Lockl, 2002).

Adolescents

Adolescents accept that other people think differently, feel differently, and learn differently, but they become very focused on their own beliefs, values and ideas. Private speech becomes internalized. Interestingly, children younger than 12 do not always use study time effectively. When reading, children younger than about 12 years of age do not seem to know what kinds of things are important for a better understanding of that text. They tend to remember isolated facts and ideas from the text but not the broader underlying themes or how several themes might interrelate. In contrast, around age 12 and older, students remember important ideas, not just isolated facts, after additional study time is given (Bruer, 1993).

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The challenge is to incorporate what cognitive scientists refer to as "metacognitively aware" instruction in our teaching. This type of instruction gradually and intentionally transfers the critic's role from the teacher to the student. It is important to note that the teaching of metacognitive skills transfers to students when this instruction is made explicit across subject domains (Bruer, 1993). This type of intentional, metacognitively aware instruction can transform curriculum development in fundamental ways and improve students' understanding in mathematics, science, reading, and writing. Moreover, students begin to know themselves as learners and are better able to regulate their learning and behavior. Thus, they are equipped to choose strategies to help them problem-solve and/or cope with strong emotions as they take ownership of their learning and behavior. Following are just a few examples of what metacognitively aware instruction might look like.

• First and foremost, young children need to be given time to engage in make believe playtime. See Laura Berk's excellent book, Awakening Children's Minds, for an entire chapter devoted to this topic. "Play provides the roles, rules, and scenarios that enable [children] to concentrate at a much higher level than they typically do in nonpretend contexts" (Berk, 2002).

• Educators need to inform parents of young children of the importance of allowing downtime in children's schedules so they can engage in unstructured playtime. Perhaps parents could read an article or a chapter from a book and have guided discussions with early childhood educators about the challenges of parenting, and balancing schedules so that children have time to play. Presentations by early childhood educators could be another method for conveying information to parents.

• Opportunities for incorporating metacognitively aware instruction across curriculum domains should be strategically planned. Informing students how attention, memory, language, spatial and temporal ordering skills work at an early age can help them begin to see what learning requires. In addition, they can begin to understand how the mind works which gives them the language to have better control over their learning. Mel Levine's "Schools Attuned" training is an excellent resource for teachers to learn more about this.

• Metacognition, as it is defined in this article, has obvious links to character development programs as we teach children and adolescents concepts and behaviors such as empathy, fairness, honesty, integrity, and morality. Moreover, there are many opportunities to deepen students' self-awareness through metacognitive activities. Intentionally infusing character development and metacognition in the curriculum allows practical opportunities to develop these critical thinking skills in students thus "super-charging" the curriculum. Larry Nucci's book, Education in the Moral Domain, is an excellent resource for this type of curriculum integration.

• When a young child is engaged in a task perceived as difficult, ask the child to rate how much mental effort they think the task will require on a scale of 1 to 10. Then time limit the task depending on the child's age to keep frustration at a minimum. After the child has completed the task, have the child rate how much mental effort the task actually required and compare the two ratings. These ratings provide the basis of a discussion that can be can be geared to any age.

• It can be helpful to engage elementary aged students in a conversation about what learning feels like. One way to enter this conversation is by drawing a chart with three columns. The first section is the "Easy Zone" and is comprised of information that is now automatic for the students. The second section is the "Comfortable Zone" and is comprised of tasks that are challenging and take some thought, but are not uncomfortable. The third section is the "Not Yet Ready for Zone." It is helpful to draw a red line to demarcate this zone. Sometimes in order for learning to take place, this red line is pushed and it can feel uncomfortable. Let students know that information in these zones is always moving from the "Not Yet Ready For Zone" to the "Comfortable Zone" to the "Easy Zone." Allowing students to let you know when they are "pushing the red line" gives a youngster the language to let you know what a task feels like to them rather than to just be controlled by the "uncomfortable feeling." At these times, praise the child for their self-awareness and then time limit the task followed by a task in their "Comfortable Zone."

• For older students, forms that help monitor the amount of time they think homework will take and then documenting how long an assignment actually took can be an excellent way to help them monitor time management.

• Forms that allow students to analyze test errors also allows them to take more ownership of the learning process and to reflect on classroom and study habits that are working as well as those that might need some support. (You can find an example of a test error analysis form at the end of this article.)

• Mini-lessons focusing on the difference between memory and understanding can be incorporated into any subject area. Grant Wiggins' six facets of understanding is an excellent source on which to base these lessons and can be used to guide and deepen students' study skills.

• Before taking a test, ask the students to predict their grade and write it in the lower right hand corner of the test. This prediction is based on the time and effort put into studying and their perception of their understanding of the material. After taking the test, again, ask the students to predict how they did on the test. This prediction can be written in the lower left hand corner of the test. After a test is graded, the students can see how accurate their predictions are.

• Designing mini-lessons to help older students understand terms such as "executive functioning" of the brain and what that involves is another way of integrating metacognition into the curriculum.

Conclusion

This is an exciting time to be an educator. There is a plethora of information from cognitive science that has been in existence for years and is now in the hands of educators. It is truly a time to examine and be energized by not just "what" we teach but "how" we teach and its impact on how students' learn.

References

Baker, Linda.2002. Metacognition in Comprehension Instruction. In Cathy Collins Block and Michael Pressley (Eds.), Comprehension Instruction: Research Based Best Practices. New York: The Guilford Press.

Berk, Laura E. 2001. Awakening Children's Minds. New York: Oxford Press.

Bruer, John T. 1993. Schools for Thought: A Science of Learning in the Classroom. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Flavell, John H. 1979. Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist 34(10): 906-911.

Levine, Mel. 2002. All Kinds of Minds. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Livingston, Jennifer A. 1997. Metacognition: An Overview. www.ges.buffalo.edu

National Research Council (NRC). 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Pretz, Jean E. and Sternberg, Robert J. 2005. Unifying the Field: Cognition and Intelligence. In Robert J. Sternberg and Jean E. Pretz (Eds), Cognition and Intelligence Identifying the Mechanisms of the Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Schneider, Wolfgang. and Lockl, Kathrin. 2002. The development of metacognitive knowledge in children and adolescents. In Timothy J Perfect and Bennett L. Schwartz (Eds), Applied Metacognition. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Simpson, Michelle L. and Nist, Sherrie L. 2002. Encouraging Active Reading at the College Level. In Cathy Collins Block and Michael Pressley (Eds.) Comprehension Instruction Research-Based Best Practices. New York: Guilford Press.

VonWright, J. (1992). Reflections on reflection. Learning and Instruction. Vol. 2. 59-68

Vygotsky, LS., Thought and Language. A.Kozulin, trans. [1934] 1986, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. 2006. Understanding by Design. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Kathleen Karigan, M.Ed., has been in education 30 years as a teacher, counselor, educational consultant and learning specialist. She is currently the Middle School Learning Specialist and Coordinator of Learning Specialists at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School.