Metacognition

The ability to stand back and take a bird's-eye view of oneself in a situation.  It's the ability to observe how you problem solve. 


Metacognition includes self-monitoring and self-evaluating.  
It's the last EF skill to mature.  

To learn more about metacognition, watch this video!

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!  

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Metacognitive questions

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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.

• What am I supposed to learn?

• What prior knowledge will help me with this task?

• What should I do first?

• What should I look for in this reading?
• How much time do I have to complete this?

• In what direction do I want my thinking to take me?
  
  
  

2. Monitor their understanding; use "fix-up" strategies when meaning breaks down.

• Am I on the right track?

• How am I doing? 

• How should I proceed?

• Should I adjust the pace because of the difficulty?

• How am I doing?
• Am I on the right track?Should I move in a different direction?

• What can I do if I do not understand?

3.  Evaluate their learning after completing the task. 

• How well did I do?

• What did I learn?

• Did I get the results I expected?

• What could I have done differently?

• Can I apply this way of thinking to other problems or situations?

• Is there anything I don’t understand—any gaps in my knowledge?

• Do I need to go back through the task to fill in any gaps in understanding?

• How might I apply this line of thinking to other problems?

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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.

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