Teaching for Metacognition

Metacognitive-supportive teaching has the greatest effect on learning. Metacognition is about active learning. Metacognitive teaching strategies enable students to take a greater role in their learning, enhancing intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and ultimately, achievement. The best learners are metacognitive, and ALL students can improve their metacognitive approach to learning, but how do teachers foster this?

Effective teachers foster a metacognitive learning approach, to generate better quality thinking. They want students to feel in control of their learning, to develop the skills and abilities to direct and guide themselves. This is autonomy. Teachers nurture self-efficacy and learning confidence, the core motivator driving human action. The best learners are metacognitive in their approach to learning. This is the outstanding factor that differentiates learners. Teachers who encourage metacognition catalyse in their students intrinsic motivation, curiosity, independence of thought, and desire for challenge.

Mostly, the thinking process is concealed because people have little understanding of how they think. Thinking includes reflection and conscious awareness about what you know, what you do not know, what you should know, and what you want to know. Thinking is an internal conversation weighing up different viewpoints. Learning is a consequence of thinking and generates knowledge. What we do with that knowledge determines wisdom.