Module 11: Metacognition

Metacognition:
- Definition: Thinking about your own thinking processes, including study skills, memory capabilities, and self-monitoring.

Key Elements:
- Metacognitive Knowledge (Structure)
- Components:
  - Person Knowledge: Understanding one’s own cognitive capabilities.
  - Task Knowledge: Awareness of task difficulty based on:
  - Content: Understanding what the task is about.
  - Length: Estimating the duration required for the assignment/exam.
  - Type of Assignment: Differentiating formats (e.g., essay vs. multiple choice).
  - Strategy Knowledge: Assessment of possible strategies for problem-solving, e.g., determining which learning strategy to use.
- Metacognitive Regulation (Process)
- Components:
  - Planning Strategies: Scheduling learning strategies and selecting appropriate strategies for different contexts.
  - Monitoring Strategies: Periodically checking comprehension and effectiveness of the chosen strategy.
  - Evaluating Strategies: Assessing the success of the cognitive strategies in mastering content.

Vital to teaching and learning; it increases achievement by helping individuals know what strategies to use, when, and where.
Should be actively coached and encouraged to develop self-regulation skills.

Two Main Components:
- Metacognitive Knowledge:
- Knowledge about one’s cognitive processes and how to regulate those processes for enhanced learning.
- Metacognitive Regulation:
- The purposeful act of controlling cognitions, beliefs, emotions, and values utilizing executive control functions.

Three Types of Regulation:
- Planning/Control Strategies:
- Involves scheduling and selecting strategies: e.g., “I am going to do this now, and that then.”
- Monitoring Strategies:
- Regularly checking the effectiveness of the selected strategy, e.g., “Did I actually comprehend that, or am I skimming?”
- Evaluating Strategies:
- Assessing whether a strategy contributed to mastery of the content, e.g., “Did that strategy help me learn?”

Neurological Impairments: Can impede the development of metacognition; includes issues related to planning and understanding thoughts of others (neurodivergence).
Language: Language skills predict preschoolers’ grasp of false beliefs.

Family Influence:
- Conversations with parents and siblings about beliefs, knowledge, and mental states enhance metacognitive awareness.
- Exposure to sibling dynamics aids in understanding false beliefs.
Parental Support for Metacognitive Regulation:
- Parents can help by:
- Pointing out important task features.
- Suggesting strategies.
- Explaining the effectiveness of strategies.

Beliefs about tasks:
- If a task is perceived as easy, advanced strategies may not be employed.
Motivation:
- Highly motivated students are more likely to utilize metacognitive strategies.
Prior knowledge:
- More familiarity with a topic leads to better understanding, organization, and retention of new information.
Prior success:
- Successful utilization of metacognitive strategies fosters continued use of those skills.

Definition: The early understanding that individuals have their own minds, thoughts, and perceptions.
Four Characteristics/Milestones of Theory of Mind:
- False Beliefs: Recognizing that beliefs may not necessarily be true.
- Appearance-Reality Distinctions: Understanding that an object may appear one way but be another.
- Visual Perspective-Taking: Recognizing that perspectives differ based on viewpoint.
- Introspection: Awareness and understanding of one's thoughts.

Practical Example:
- If asked about what others would expect to find inside a Starburst candy box, younger children (3 years) may state “pennies” while older children will state “candy.”

Example:
- Initial impression: an object may look like an apple. Closer inspection reveals it is a candle; our thoughts about it change without altering its actual nature.

Ability to understand how objects can appear differently from various viewpoints, clarifying the interplay of perception and understanding.

Questions:
- “What were you just thinking about?”
- “What room do you keep your toothbrush in?”

Critical for perspective-taking and understanding that people have their own distinct minds, thoughts, perceptions, and feelings.

Understanding becomes more sophisticated through preschool and school years.
- Age 5: Children generally struggle with understanding false beliefs and appearance-reality distortions.
- Age 8: Children are better poised to describe their own thoughts (introspection) and acknowledge the challenge of halting thoughts.
- Early adolescents experience heightened self-consciousness as their awareness of thoughts within their own and others’ minds develops.

Definition: The tendency to focus on oneself and the belief that the thoughts and feelings experienced are unique.
Imaginary Audience:
- Adolescents believe others are constantly scrutinizing them, leading to increased self-awareness.
Personal Fable:
- The conviction of uniqueness leads to difficulty in appreciating others' perspectives.

Realization that:
- Thinking occurs inside their minds.
- Others possess their own minds.
- However, they do not comprehend that someone can hold a false belief.
Can learn a strategy but are unlikely to use it spontaneously.

By age 8, children start employing strategies independently without additional prompting.
They also begin to understand that it is impossible to stop thinking.

Students refine their understanding of effective cognitive strategies for various situations.
Improved consistency in applying strategies, particularly noted in ages 11-12.

Types of Strategies:
- Memorization strategies:
- Use of repetition, chunking, elaborative rehearsal, and mnemonic devices including acronyms (e.g., PEMDAS), keywords, and method of loci.
- Reading Comprehension:
- Reciprocal teaching methods including summarizing, questioning, clarifying, predicting (PQ4R technique for older students).
- Writing Skills:
- Metacognitive practices in planning, monitoring writing, evaluating changes, and revision.
- Note Taking Strategies:
- Methods to assist encoding, reviewing, and external storing of information, including outlines and the Cornell method.
- Study Strategies:
- Time allocation based on proximal learning challenges. SOAR technique (Selection, Organization, Association, Regulation).
- General Guidelines for Teaching Strategies:
- Explain the value of strategies, teach a few at a time, model strategies explicitly, provide practice and feedback, encourage self-reflection, and identify opportunities for transfer of learning strategies across different contexts.