How Metacognition Can Help Kids Learn Better

The term metacognition is one of those words that sounds deeply philosophical and complex, but actually represents a relatively simple and powerful fundamental idea about how we think.

Let’s take a look at this concept, what it means, why it matters, and how we can use metacognition for children to support a child’s learning and development.

What is Metacognition?

Let’s start with a clear definition and an example that shows what metacognition is. First, you can break this term into 2 components: goal+cognition.

The first part, “purpose” refers to thinking about things, and “cognition” simply means thinking.

When we talk about the cognitive development of our children, we mean the development of their intelligence, their critical skills and their ability to think. Thus, metacognition means “thinking about thinking.”

Metacognition is a term first coined back in 1979 by John Flavell, a renowned psychologist who is now considered the “father” of this particular field of psychology.

Flavell cannot take all the credit, however, as the underlying idea can be traced back to ancient Greece and Plato, who was known for his emphasis on self-reflection and self-awareness, two of the main tenets of metacognitive thinking. Another way of saying this is “thinking about your own thinking”.

The definition of “thinking about thinking” doesn’t seem very useful or meaningful on the surface, but perhaps a simple example will help us with this:

Examples of metacognition:

Take a simple math problem like 3 x 5. You can look at it right away using your thinking skills and you’ll be fine. that 3 x 5 = 15, right?

Working it out in your head is common thinking. Metacognition—thinking about thinking—is where you think more deeply about what “3 x 5” actually means and use your cognitive strategies.

You look at the question and ask yourself: What am I being asked?

You start with the cognitive process and you see that this question presents you with 3 groups of numbers and each group has 5 things and the purpose of this question is to determine how many there are in total between the 3 groups.

This level of thinking is “thinking about thinking” or metacognition. This is a simple example, but it easily illustrates the concept of metacognitive skills.

Below is another common and everyday example that we’ve probably all come across without knowing it’s metacognition.

Whenever you read a book, you are likely engaging in metacognitive strategies, even if you don’t know it. You can think of reading a book as a one-way process, like a lecture.

Books push words into your eyes, which you take into your brain, realizing and understanding that together they make up a story.

But the reality is somewhat different. Yes, the book does these things, but you do something in return.

For example, if you read in a book that the main character, Billy, can’t stand eating any food that’s brown, then you’ll ask yourself, “Why can’t Billy eat any food that’s brown?”

Asking this question is a metacognitive awareness. The book first ‘talks’ to you by showing you its contents, but then you ‘respond’ to the book with your own questions and curiosity – this is metacognitive skills at work.

Why is metacognition important for children?

When we talk about learning and developing metacognition in children, we are not talking about teaching them terminology directly.

It’s more about creating activities. that help children develop their metacognitive skills without even realizing they are doing it.

But why? Why is metacognition so important to develop in children as a cognitive skill?

1. Solving problems

If metacognitive knowledge is learned and practiced from childhood, it can help children become more intellectually resilient, especially when they are faced with difficult problems to solve, academic or otherwise.

Let’s say a student is faced with an academic problem, such as a difficult essay, that he can’t figure out how to write using metacognitive strategies that he can move. from the mindset of “I can’t write that” to “How can I write that?”

The former is a passive, defeatist statement, while the latter is a proactive statement that demonstrates the ability to solve problems.

How can metacognitive strategies help?

First, the student asks themselves why they are stuck on this essay, what about the topic is frustrating them, and then what they can do to solve the problem.

Step by step, the student moves from the initial attitude of “I can’t and I don’t want to” to a new attitude of “I can and I’ll try.”

2. Helps children with learning difficulties

Children who have ADHD and similar learning disabilities often fall into a vicious cycle of learning, and this vicious cycle is more likely if the child’s metacognitive thinking has not been nurtured from childhood.

For example, when a child with ADHD or dyslexia is struggling with their own learning, metacognitive thinking can help them shift their thought processes from initial frustration to a more reflective state where they understand why it is difficult and focus on finding solutions.

Without metacognitive strategies, the same child moves from frustration to a sort of despair where they believe that the reason they cannot complete the task is that they are simply not good enough; they have fundamental flaws that will forever set them back.

This is a kind of “victim” mentality that puts children with learning disabilities on the back burner for the rest of their lives.

Related: Try these Memory Games for Kids to boost your child’s memory skills.

3. Self-regulation

The dream of almost every modern educator is not to try to make students memorize as many concrete facts as possible, but rather to turn children into great learners and sharpen their cognitive processes.

The best type of learner they can become is a “self-regulated” learner, and metacognition is a core skill of self-regulated learning. strategies.

Self-regulated learning is about following a cycle to achieve your own learning goals, starting with a plan in which you set goals and overall learning strategies.

Then you implement your metacognitive strategies, tracking your performance as you go, and then you reflect on it: What went well? What did not do? How can you improve next time? Using the results of this reflection, you return to step one. This is self-regulated learning.

The beauty of this idea is that it works at every level of education. It doesn’t have to be a PhD candidate looking for a breakthrough, it could be an inquisitive kindergartner trying to figure out the differences between different shapes, colors and textures.

The same metacognitive processes are at work in both of these extremely dissimilar situations.

4. Creates a positive “growth” mindset

The old world of education focused on a fixed mindset where people believed that there was only a certain amount of knowledge to be learned and that school was the place to learn it.

A newer way of thinking wants to make children think more positively and therefore be reflective about their learning.

Fixed mindsets constantly encounter obstacles where students are hindered from progressing. do not understand and do not feel that they have reached the limit.

A growth mindset teaches children that when they face problems, they should think about the causes of those problems and what solutions they can try to help them overcome their difficulties.

Related: Build your mental muscles with these effective exercises for kids. Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.

In her 2014 Tedx talk, Dweck talked about students at one school who, when they didn’t take all the required courses, were given a “Not Yet” grade.

She expressed her admiration for the school, which encourages the development of thinking, reminding students that you are not at the right level. “for now”—her speech was called “The Power of Yer”—but with a little thought and hard work, they’ll get there sooner or later. This is the mindset that children need.

Metacognitive strategies: development of this ability in children

What instructional strategies can we use to promote children’s metacognitive thinking? It is such an important part of a child’s development that we must have strategies to teach it from the youngest school years and continue through K-12 and even at the college level.

Strategy 1: Encourage reflection at all levels

Students of all ages can engage in self-reflection, which ultimately helps them ask the questions they need when using metacognitive processes to overcome academic challenges and solve life problems.

One very simple strategy to encourage reflection is the simple process of having students explain the answer “before…but now…”.

“I used to think the sand would feel smooth in my hands, but now I know the sand feels rough.” — a kindergarten or preschool student reflects on different textures during physical play

“I used to think that new water was constantly being formed on our planet, but now I know that the same water is recycled in nature over and over again.” — a primary school student reflects on studying the water cycle.

“I used to think that students would embrace this method of teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but now I find that it doesn’t help them understand the text.” — the teacher reflects on the literature lesson.

As you can see, thinking works on all levels. By reflecting on what we think and do, we constantly develop our metacognitive awareness and actively generate new thoughts about how to avoid similar situations in the future or how we can improve to the point where we no longer make certain mistakes.

Self-reflection is a key element of the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum at every stage, and IB proponents support it as a core principle that makes IB effective for students in the long term. IB students are recognized as creative problem solvers, developers and thinkers.

Strategy 2: Encourage journaling

A simple activity like journaling is an ideal way to encourage students to use their metacognitive practices, and there are many ways to approach this.

For younger students, a simpler structure of what they did, what they thought, and why is fine, but for older students, journaling can be an exercise in reflecting on deeper emotions.

Teachers can also help students create academic journals where they reflect on the week’s school work, asking key questions such as “what was the biggest challenge for me this week?” and “what can I do to improve next week?” and so on.

It is also not necessary to keep a diary with a notebook and a pen. Students can now use blogs, wikis, traditional journaling, or a less conventional approach such as mind mapping. This is the same principle at work, but expressed differently. After all, not everyone likes to write.

Strategy 3: Deliberate use of confusing material

It may seem counterintuitive to a good teacher to intentionally confuse students, but when our goal is to increase the metacognitive abilities of our students, confusion is a wonderful and powerful tool.

By starting with extreme complexity, teachers create a sense of struggle in students, and this is designed to promote metacognition and creative thinking to try to find ways to make sense of the complexity.

It’s actually an idea born out of neuroscience, specifically using Russell’s “primary effect.” In this framework, confusion is the element that leads to “flow” when given to students in the right proportion.

Too much difficulty and confusion turns into frustration, which then leads to boredom and lack of metacognition practice.

However, when it becomes a flow, we feel challenged and want to overcome it. So confusion can benefit learning when it leads to flow, but not frustration, so it’s a delicate balance.

Conclusion: reflection is in the heart

After all, self-reflection is at the heart of the matter when it comes to metacognitive skills.

No matter what strategies or actions a teacher uses to meet their needs in the classroom, as long as they promote self-reflection and the development of thinking in young learners, they are on the right track.

Parents should also learn to continue the process of reflection at home. Make children think about their own questions when they ask them; get them to ask why they don’t want to do something or why they’re afraid of things like going to the dentist.

It can become a reflective conversation, a way to build connections, and a way to develop the whole family. Metacognition is indeed the fuel for an intellectual revolution.

Source: How Metacognition Can Help Kids Learn Better