Metacognition: Teaching Strategy

When you are learning how to do something as an adult, you have a basic understanding of how much you know about the process. Whenever I learn something new, I know during each step of the process how well I understand what I am doing. This is a valuable aid in the learning process because it helps us address misconceptions and gaps in our understanding. A person's awareness of what they know is metacognition which is an excellent teaching strategy. 

Educators should be teaching students to monitor their own comprehension levels by asking themselves what they understand as they read. Students can practice writing questions for themselves to answer as they work through the text. This goes hand-in-hand with metacognition which teaches students to think about what they are thinking about. This challenges students to think about what they do not understand and what information they need to fully understand the text. 

There is a sample video on metacognition from Kansas State University that is linked below (2014). In the video, a professor explains what metacognition is, why it is important, and a great strategy that she uses in her courses that can be applied to elementary classrooms.

Kansas State University. (2014, September 9). A focus of teaching: Metacognition [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxpDk9H-IV4