To learn more about metacognition, watch this video!
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Here's more information about metacognition.
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Metacognition is a complex set of skills. If you think of executive function skills as blocks, developing metacognition is like building a wall of these blocks. By preschool, children are beginning to learn that other people experience things differently from them. They can identify emotions in others. Then, in first and second grade, children recognize that others think and feel differently about situations than they do and they begin to interpret intent (like, "he hit me by accident," instead of getting bumped accidentally in the hall and interpreting that as "hit on purpose"). By the age of 11 and 12, children not only have a deeper understanding of their own thoughts, feelings, and intentions, but they also understand that these thoughts, feelings and intentions that they have could be something that other people think about (for example, they may wonder what their teacher thinks of them if they make a bad grade). This is why students in middle school develop such self-consciousness about themselves and work on conforming to what others are doing. By high school, students can begin to step back a little and put things into perspective. The building blocks of metacognition have accumulated!
Metacognitive questions
To use metacognition successfully, students must do the following:
1. Develop a plan before approaching a learning task, such as reading for comprehension or solving a math problem.
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2. Monitor their understanding; use "fix-up" strategies when meaning breaks down.
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3. Evaluate their learning after completing the task.
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When metacognition is working, a young child can change behavior in response to feedback from an adult. A teenager can monitor and critique her performance and improve it by observing others who are more skilled. When it isn't working, the child continues to behave poorly despite adult guidance. The teenager continues to repeat patterns of behavior that don't lead to the goals she desires. |
To see some strategies that might be useful in addressing metacognition, click the document below.