Thinking about Thinking: A Brief Intro to Metacognition

Perhaps you’ve been handed a page filled with multiple-choice questions. Perhaps you’re trying to read a book written in a foreign language you half-remember from school. Perhaps you’re trying to learn a new song on the piano, and now you’re staring at dots and lines on a page of sheet music.

Regardless of the task, the end result is that you’re trying to tackle some sort of problem.

At first glance, a thought crosses your mind: “That part looks easy.” You’re pretty confident there. A little further down, a second thought appears: “Oh, no.” And a third: “OH, NO.”

You start piecing things together. As you work your way through the problem, you assess how things are going. You’re feeling pretty good. From a holistic standpoint, you understand what you’re doing. Things are clicking.

You continue your work. Toward the bottom, in the dreaded “OH, NO” section, you realize that you know more than you thought you did. You give yourself a pat on the back.

After you finish, you find yourself thinking about how you did and what threw you for a loop. You think of places where you could improve. What didn’t you know how to do? Maybe you should look it up later…

These thought processes — assessing a problem against your personal strengths and weaknesses, monitoring your thoughts while working and evaluating how well you understood the issues at hand — are all a part of metacognition.

What Is Metacognition?

Metacognition is thinking about thinking. As one of computational thinking’s many components, metacognition is the process by which thoughts are assessed and categorized. It’s been recognized as a useful psychological tool by self-help writers, educators and brain scientists alike.

Rather than being a static, one-time event, metacognition is ongoing. It is also fuzzily defined. Researchers break down metacognition using similar but varying frameworks. Most all agree, however, that metacognition is involved in the problem-solving process on multiple levels: through beginning-stage preassessments, through a “monitoring” process of check-ins and feedback loops and through final evaluations.

Put more simply, it’s thinking about how you might do, thinking about how you’re doing and thinking about how you did.

Metacognition, Everyone’s Superpower

Metacognition is useful for everyone, not just students. By carefully considering decisions and tackling problems in idiosyncratic ways, you can better learn new skills. If productive failure is a means of growth, then honestly assessing how you did while performing a task — acknowledging your personal weak spots as well as celebrating and bolstering your strengths — is the ticket to failing forward.

Metacognition serves as a useful component of computational thinking due to its systematic approach to problem solving. By mindfully approaching tasks, you can map out your thoughts in ways that allow you to apply other computational thinking processes later on.

For example, if you’re studying German and can’t tell your ders from your dies, then the understanding of your own metacognition allows you to engage in pattern recognition (such as noticing typical word formations with each article), algorithmic thinking (as you try to piece together a mnemonic checklist to apply to new words), experimentation (wordplay) and more.

Metacognition in the Classroom

Metacognition can be integrated into all classrooms. A number of people have written books about ways to apply metacognition to specific disciplines, from math to physical education. In general, adding metacognition to a classroom involves asking students to reflect on how they’re approaching a problem or task before, during and after they begin their work.

For example, in a math class, you might first have students look at a worksheet filled with problems. From the onset, they can write a short answer about what problems look trickiest for them. (Since answering honestly is important, some students may find it difficult to respond if they know the teacher will look at their replies.)

As they’re solving problems, they can monitor their thoughts: what’s difficult? What’s easier than expected? Then, when the worksheet is finished, they can reflect on their overall work.

In a way, metacognitive classroom activities have a lot in common with deliberate note-taking. For both, a text is assessed on a deeper level, but self-reflection directs those thoughts inward. The note-taker is viewing the text from the lens of their thoughts, not the author’s.

There are a wide variety of tools that can help with facilitating reflection, or with adding a metacognitive element to classroom activities. Going back to math class, one tool that can help is Mathematica, which displays formulas, text and media through “notebook” files. Mathematica uses a programming language called the Wolfram Language to run calculations, generate graphics and more.

Not only can students use the Wolfram Language to solve problems through code, they can annotate their notebooks as they’re doing so. Prompts can even be embedded throughout the digital “worksheets,” and the notebook files can be saved and shared. Students can learn through doing, all while thinking about thinking.

With writing being lauded more and more in STEM classes, using a tool that allows students to compute and write is handy. In less quantitative spaces, however, metacognitive assessments could look like almost anything: self-reflective videos created using video editors such as WeVideo; weekly blog entries to monitor a student’s understanding of a topic; or even sketchnote activities where students “draw their thoughts” before, during and after a lesson.

The Meta of the Meta

Metacognition has been a favorite topic of educational researchers for a while, so there are plenty of resources to check out if you’re interested in exploring things further, particularly if you have access to scholarly databases. If you search around, you can dive deeper into the various frameworks and apply them to your assessments.

As a part of computational lesson planning, activities featuring metacognition are fairly simple to add to a preexisting curriculum. If you look for resources using terms like “reflection” or “preassessment,” you can find lesson plans with activities that encourage thinking about thinking. You can also explore the #metacognition tag on Twitter, which will show examples of metacognitive thought in and out of the classroom.

Even if you don’t add a metacognitive element to assignments directly, consider using metacognition in your teaching and while you’re aiming for your own professional goals. Like computational thinking, it’s a skill that extends far beyond the walls of the classroom.

Metacognition has been a favorite topic of educational researchers for a while, so there are plenty of resources to check out if you’re interested in exploring things further, particularly if you have access to scholarly databases. If you search around, you can dive deeper into the various frameworks and apply them to your assessments.

As a part of computational lesson planning, activities featuring metacognition are fairly simple to add to a preexisting curriculum. If you look for resources using terms like “reflection” or “preassessment,” you can find lesson plans with activities that encourage thinking about thinking. You can also explore the #metacognition tag on Twitter, which will show examples of metacognitive thought in and out of the classroom.

Even if you don’t add a metacognitive element to assignments directly, consider using metacognition in your teaching and while you’re aiming for your own professional goals. Like computational thinking, it’s a skill that extends far beyond the walls of the classroom.

About the blogger:

Jesika Brooks

Jesika Brooks is an editor and bookworm with a Master of Library and Information Science degree. She works in the field of higher education as an educational technology librarian, assisting with everything from setting up Learning Management Systems to teaching students how to use edtech tools. A lifelong learner herself, she has always been fascinated by the intersection of education and technology. She edits the Tech-Based Teaching blog (and always wants to hear from new voices!).