Making Sense of Metacognition
What it means and how you can harness its power
by Sarah Burden, M.A. CCC-SLP and Meredith Kaylor, M.A. CCC-SLP, TJS Speech-Language Pathologists
What Does Metacognition
Help Us Do?
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Plan
Set Goals
Prioritize
Organize
Be Flexible
Improve Working
Memory
• Monitor Ourselves
• Recognize Common
Errors
The idea of thinking about how you think can be a pretty confusing concept, but you
actually do it all the time when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, take part in an
end-of-year review, or try to explain something differently. In fact, there’s a name for this
process: metacognition.
Metacognition refers to understanding how you learn, as well as strategies you can use
to accomplish specific tasks. In other words, you use metacognition for processes like
planning, goal-setting, prioritizing, organizing and more.
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Self-awareness is the foundation of metacognition, and there are three key aspects of
self-awareness that help us develop better metacognition:
1. Understanding our strengths and challenges
2. Knowing what strategies help us learn and perform best
3. Grasping when and why a strategy works
Students & Metacognition
By developing a clear understanding of their personal learning styles and their strengths
and weaknesses, students can better determine which strategies work for them, as well as
when and where those strategies will be helpful.
For example, if a student struggles with reading the word “debt”, is it because he feels
like he is under pressure and needs to become comfortable with the word on his own
before reading it in front of others? Does he just need to know he has time to sound it
out? When students can utilize self-talk and answer questions like these, they begin to
understand what they need to be successful and how to ask for it.
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Making Sense of Metacognition
Continued from page 9
Helping Students Find Success
Academic success for all students, and particularly for students with learning difficulties,
is linked to motivation, effort and persistence,2 all of which affect metacognition. Diagnoses
and challenges aside, students who use metacognition to take someone else’s perspective
and think about their own ideas and thought processes are most successful.
Strong metacognitive awareness helps students understand:
• Which learning environments are best for them
• What motivates them
• Why certain strategies work for them
• How to advocate for themselves
When students learn strategies that work for their specific learning styles and apply
them effectively, they inevitably begin to experience academic success, which boosts
their confidence.This confidence stays with them after they leave The Joy School.
High School, College & Beyond
Metacognition is not just important for kids to understand. Rather, it develops and
matures over time – even throughout adulthood.The social skills we learn on the
playground are the same social and critical thinking skills we use to write a persuasive
essay in eighth grade, complete a research project in college, or take part in an endof-year review as an adult.
Teaching Metacognition
Whether you’re a parent or an educator, modeling and feedback are powerful tools for
teaching metacognition.These teaching methods allow a child to build a sense of who
he or she is as a learner.
Using Metacognition to Set
a Child Up For Success
Say “Here’s where you are: _______.
Here’s the goal you want to reach:
_________.
How do you think we ought to get
there?”
Modeling your own self-talk and self-reflection, or “thinking out loud”, is incredibly
beneficial to children.Teach your kids this skill by asking questions to find out what they
are thinking.Then you can help set them up for success.
Feedback allows children to think about how to meet expectations in the future.
Good feedback helps students develop independence and a realistic sense of self. Good
feedback is accurate, factual and compassionate.
Providing Helpful Feedback
After a child completes a project or task, help her reflect on how it went by asking
questions like:What went well? What did not go as well as you thought it would?
What would you do differently next time?
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Metacognition at TJS
Metacognition is not a solitary process, and our students are not the only ones who
are challenged to think about their thinking!
At The Joy School, we have many opportunities to use metacognition to improve
the way we serve our students, their families and each other.We spend time in staff
meetings reflecting on school-wide events, classes and lesson plans.We see our
colleagues’ teaching in action.We visit other schools and challenge ourselves to think
about the ways we learn and teach. After special events, we ask our coworkers and
parents for feedback on areas of improvement or how we can do things differently.
On occasion, teachers at The Joy School have been known to ask their students to
grade them on their teaching. Asking for feedback from students provides us with
a different perspective and allows us to think about the way we learn from others.
Metacognition is for Everyone
The ability to think about and improve the way we relate to others is an essential key
to success – in our families, at home, at school, at work, in our friend groups and as
members of society as a whole.
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Citation 1: as defined originally by Flavell (1979) and Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, and Campione
(1983). Citation 2: Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Grassman (1998); Helliwell (2003); Kasser & Ryan
(1996); Meltzer, Reddy, Sales Pollica, & Roditi (2004); Pajares & Schunk (2001); Sheldon & Elliot
(1999).
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Q&A
with Anya Edelman,TJS Middle Schooler
What does metacognition mean to you?
When I first heard the word metacognition, I was completely stuck.
Then, I figured it out. Metacognition is not only thinking about how
you think, it’s about how you think differently about things than others,
but can still be compatible with others.
When my classmates and I use metacognition, we learn what strategies
do and do not work for us.That’s important because when we mainstream
from TJS, we’ll know how to study for a test and be successful in class.
How do you use metacognition on a daily basis?
At home – I make grocery lists for my mom.When I need something,
I text my mom a picture of what I need and what it looks like.
Metacognition makes me more independent.
At school – I use a lot of strategies at school, and not all of them work;
maybe for somebody else, but not always me. I have to try a strategy
over and over again in different situations before deciding if it’s right
for me.
What do you get from understanding
metacognition?
Besides getting a physical reward (like soda or candy), for me the reward
is getting things done faster, and learning how to improve.
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