Week 6 - Metacognition (Part 1)

Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
1
Metacognition (Part 1)
Module 05: Metacognition (Part 1)
Course Learning Outcomes:

1. Discuss how metacognition can help teachers and educators further
support the ideas of student-centered teaching and learning.
2. Explain what metacognition is and its elements.
3. Analyze the different categories of metacognitive knowledge.
Boosting Student Learning and Achievement through Metacognition
In supporting the ideas of learner-centered teaching and learning, it becomes a significant act for
teachers and educators to help students realize their own strengths and weaknesses in relation to
learning and achievement.
One important element is helping the students realize not only their knowledge and abilities but
also the limit of those skills and capacities and then facilitating strategies to assist these students
in discovering how to broaden their knowledge and improve their abilities. According to
Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000), those learners who know their strengths and weaknesses
in these areas would be able to “actively monitor their learning strategies and resources and
assess their readiness for particular tasks and performances.”
Course Module
These, therefore can be achieved by teachers and educators through the help of the ideas of
metacognition.
Metacognition
The term “metacognition” was first used by Flavel (1976) who initially studied its
development in young children. Metacognition refers to the awareness of one’s own
knowledge. It is one’s ability to think about his or her own thoughts – “thinking about
thinking”.
With the aim of improving learning, metacognition is simply one of the most powerful
thinking tools. It is one’s ability to know what he or she does and doesn’t know – a skill in
understanding, controlling, and manipulating one’s cognitive processes (Meichenbaum,
1985). It is one’s ability to understand how he or she learns by evaluating his or her own
strategies and successes. In other words, it is one’s ability to not only use and apply
particular learning strategies but also know when and where to use them and how and
why.
Elements of Metacognition
Flavell (1979, 1987) and Schraw and Dennison (1994) distinguished two elements of
metacognition as metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation.
Metacognitive knowledge refers to what learners know about learning. It is what

individuals know about themselves as cognitive processors – about various strategies that
can be used for learning and for solving problems. On the other hand, metacognitive
regulation refers to the regulation of cognition and learning experiences. It deals with the
adjustments individuals make to their cognitive processes in order to control their
learning.
Metacognitive knowledge is divided into three categories (Flavell, 1979):

 Person variables/ Knowledge of Person Variables
What one recognizes about his or her strengths and weaknesses in learning
and processing information
 Task variables/ Knowledge of Task Variables

What one knows about the nature of a task and the requirements to complete
the task
Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching
3
Metacognition (Part 1)
 Strategy variables/ Knowledge of Strategy Variables

The awareness about the strategies a person has prepared to apply to
successfully learn a topic or accomplish a task
Furthermore, below is an example by Livingston (1997) for a further explanation of the

three variables:
“I know that I (person variable) have difficulty with word problems (task variable),
so I will answer the computational problems first and save the word problems for
last (strategy variable).”
Course Module
References and Supplementary Materials
Books and Journals
Bransford, John D., Brown Ann L., and Cocking Rodney R. (2000). How people learn: Brain,
mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Flavell, J. H. (1987). Speculations about the nature and development of metacognition. In
F. E. Weinert & R. H. Kluwe (Eds.), Metacognition, motivation, and
understanding (pp. 21–29). Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-
developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34, 906–911.
Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), The
nature of intelligence (pp. 231–236). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Livingston, J. A. (1997). Metacognition: An overview. Retrieved
from http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/CEP564/Metacog.htm
Meichenbaum, D. (1985). Teaching thinking: A cognitive-behavioral perspective. In S. F.,
Chipman, J. W. Segal, & R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and learning skills, Vol.
2: Research and open questions. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary
Educational Psychology, 19, 460–475.
Online Supplementary Reading Material

1. Metacognition and Why it Matters in Education;
https://www.gettingsmart.com/2019/10/metacognition-and-why-it-matters-in-
education/; accessed: October 25, 2020.
Photo Credits
1. The focus by Diego PH is licensed under Creative Commons License via Unsplash.com.

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Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching

Module 05: Metacognition (Part 1)

Course Learning Outcomes:

Boosting Student Learning and Achievement through Metacognition

Metacognitive knowledge refers to what learners know about learning. It is what

Metacognitive knowledge is divided into three categories (Flavell, 1979):

 Task variables/ Knowledge of Task Variables

 Strategy variables/ Knowledge of Strategy Variables

Furthermore, below is an example by Livingston (1997) for a further explanation of the

Online Supplementary Reading Material

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