7 Metacognitive Steps to Be More (HPCSA Accredited!)

“Most of us are not what we could be. We are less.”

This powerful sentence in Critical Thinking: Tools to take charge of your Professional and Personal Life (Paul and Elder, 2014), really made me think many years ago. We all have great capacity but most of it is often dormant and undeveloped. No one really wants to be less than what they can be and we definitely should not be less than what God has planned for our lives.

What legacy do you want to leave behind? We build our legacy from or childhood days and as parents or adults we play a critical role to help our children to become the individuals that they can become and to create their legacy.

Think for a minute about your life. Where can you Be More? Can you be more growth-oriented, more organized, more focused or more effective with time management? Can you maybe even just be more patient or more loving or more supportive to your family? Do you want to be remembered as a disorganized person or an organized person? Do you want to be remembered as someone that was highly focused in life of someone without focus?

We can all become more in one or more areas of our lives, even if we are highly qualified. But, to become more and be more, we need to understand that our thinking can control us. We need to stop and think and become better thinkers so that we can learn how to manage (and control) our own thinking.

According to Paul and Elder (2014), there are 6 distinct stages we go through if we aspire to develop as thinkers. These stages include: Unreflective Thinker, Challenged Thinker, Beginning Thinker, Practicing Thinker, Advanced Thinker and Accomplished Thinker. It is shocking, but true, that there is no evidence to suggest that schooling correlates with human reflectiveness. There are unreflective people in the upper, middle and lower class and they include psychologists, doctors, lawyers, educators and people of all professions.

Over the past two or more decades I have became more knowledgeable and experienced in the field of critical thinking, cognitive education and metacognition. As I became a more effective thinker, I became even more aware of just how unaware people are of the role of thinking in their lives.

If the quality of your life is not what you wish it to be, there are likely problems in the way you think about your life. This is because we often routinely think at the unconscious level and then we do not always have control over our thinking. Many adults and most children do not realize the powerful role that thinking plays in their lives and do not think about their thinking and learning in an effective way. Even if individuals are aware of their thinking, they often do not have a systematic process for thinking, or thinking about their thinking, that they can verbalize explicitly.

I have more than 40 years of clinical experience as an occupational therapist and have worked for more than two decades with older primary school and high school learners as well as adult learners. I have experienced on a daily basis what kind of problems these learners have on an academic level. According to my extensive experience and training in the field of cognitive education, one of the main underlying problems is a lack of metacognitive skills and thinking skills and therefore I have always described my intervention as a metacognitive therapeutic intervention process.

This course is based on my clinical experience but it has a strong theoretical basis. It is a simple but powerful course that provides a basic blueprint to master 7 Metacognitive Steps that can be used by adults and children to become more reflective and to advance to higher levels of thinking. The 7 Metacognitive Steps are applied to realistic areas where individuals can become and Be More but the 7 steps can be applied to any problem area, challenging task or activity or even just to understand difficult concepts.

Meaningful features of the 7 Metacognitive Steps to Be More Course:

• Each section will include videos that will enable professionals, educators, parents or learners to optimally utilize the course and/or to learn from this course;

• Personal sharing and practical examples will help you to make connections of how the 7 Metacognitive Steps can be infused into daily tasks/activities or therapy/intervention sessions;

• A total of 6 e-books (of about 20 pages each) are included by the resources in each section and can be used online or printed in PDF format (the e-books have numerous links that will lead you to other valuable resources);

• The main visual in Sections 3 to 7 will be included under the resources (ready to print and use!);

• The main visual In Sections 3 to 7 can be used in various practical ways and this will be highlighted and demonstrated during the course.

The 7 Metacognitive Steps to Be More Course is suitable for:

• Older learners and adult learners that want to work through the course on their own to become and be more in some area of their life, e.g. to be more metacognitive, to be more growth-oriented, to be more organized, to be more focused, to be more effective with time management, etc.;

• Parents that want to use the course with their own children to help them to become more in some area of their lives and to equip their children with soft skills/essential life skills for the future (e.g. as mentioned in previous bullet);

• Professionals that work with children with academic or learning difficulties that want to use the course information and resources in/for therapy sessions to promote metacognition, a growth-oriented mindset, as well as executive function skills such as organization, being focused, time management, etc.;

• Educators or school counselors that want to use the course or the information to develop soft skills in children and to empower them with a growth-oriented mindset, metacognitive skills and life skills for the future.

• Staff development coordinators that are looking for online resources to use in staff development at schools.

• Employees that need to engage in skills development or in-service training and that lack certain critical life skills that are hampering their learning.

Course Goals:

At the end of this course, you will be able to...

• Identify at least one or two areas in your life where you need to or want to Be More (as these areas are causing you “pain” or leading to more problems in your life) or to help your own children or clients to identify one or two areas in their lives where they want to be more;

• Empowered with a simple blueprint to practice metacognitive self-talk and questioning in order to become more metacognitive, reflective and self-regulated or to empower and coach your own children or clients/students to become more metacognitive;

• Infuse the 7 Metacognitive Steps to Be More in at least one or two priority or critical areas in your life where you want to be more (with the help of the videos, practical activities, the e-books and deliberate reflection) or to support your own children or clients/students;

• Decide if you want to Be More, make better choices and develop better habits that will determine your future (or if you want to be less than what you could be) or help your own children or clients/students to make a decision to become more and be more in their lives

  
  

During the Covid-19 Stage 5 lockdown period in South Africa, I decided to develop the Be More e-books based on a project I launched earlier in 2020 and that could not continue due to the lockdown. I could also not work face-to-face but as I have an antifragile and growth-oriented mindset, I decided that it was time for me to Be More in an area of my life that I have not developed enough, e.g. writing. I created a Be More e-book bundle of 6 e-books.  I loved doing the e-books and then I was inspired to take the e-books to a higher level and to develop my skills to Be More and to produce an online course (something that I have never done!).

Due to the implications of the Coronavirus Pandemic on the global economy and the effect on individuals and households, I chose Udemy after investigating various options and platforms. Udemy offers excellent value for money when compared to the fees that professionals pay for training. I have invested in a few Udemy courses myself and have not been disappointed. I believe you will not be disappointed if you invest in the 7 Metacognitive Steps to Be More Course as I have dedicated a considerable amount of time and effort into this course and everything I share is based on what I really do and love.