it refers to what learners know about learning.

the learner’s knowledge of their own cognitive abilities

the learner’s knowledge of particular tasks.

the learner’s knowledge of different strategies that are available to them and when they are appropriate to the task.

it refers to what learners do about learning. It describes how learners monitor and control their cognitive processes.

A learner might realize that a particular strategy is not achieving the results they want, so they decide to try a different strategy.

During this phase, learners think about the learning goal the teacher has set and consider how they will approach the task and which strategies they will use.

During this phase, learners implement their plan and monitor the progress they are making towards their learning goal. Students might decide to make changes to the strategies they are using if these are not working.

During this phase, students determine how successful the strategy they used was in helping them to achieve their learning goal.

It is a fundamental part of the plan-monitor-evaluate process. Encouraging learners to self-question throughout the process.

Who is the American developmental psychologist most commonly recognized for introducing the term 'metacognition' as a result of his research in the 1970s which focused on children’s knowledge and control of their memory processes?

Who is the Soviet psychologist who theorized processes that would be regarded as metacognitive? He developed the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development.

This zone lies between what a learner can achieve alone and what a learner can achieve with expert guidance.

He defined four levels of metacognitive learners which provide a useful framework for teachers.

are unaware of their metacognitive knowledge. They do not think about any particular strategies for learning and merely accept if they know something or not.

know about some of the kinds of thinking that they do such as generating ideas, finding evidence etc. However, thinking is not necessarily deliberate or planned.

organize their thinking by using problem-solving, grouping and classifying, evidence-seeking and decision-making etc. They know and apply the strategies that help them learn.

are not only strategic about their thinking but they also reflect upon their learning while it is happening, considering the success or not of any strategies they are using and then revising them as appropriate. Once teachers have identified where their learners are on this continuum of ‘tacit’ to ‘reflective’ they can plan their support accordingly.

Metacognitive practices help learners to monitor their own progress and take control of their learning as they read, write and solve problems in the classroom.

Metacognition makes a unique contribution to learning over and above the influence of intellectual ability. Learners who use metacognitive strategies are likely to be able to achieve more. Research shows that improving a learner’s metacognitive practices may compensate for any cognitive limitations they have.

Metacognitive practices are useful for all learners from primary level upwards. Using metacognition improves students’ academic achievement across learning domains. Metacognitive skills help students to transfer what they have learnt from one context to another or from a previous task to a new task. This includes reading and text comprehension, writing, mathematics, reasoning and problem-solving, and memorizing.

Unlike many other educational interventions, implementing metacognition does not require expensive, specialist equipment or changes to school infrastructure. The only cost of implementing a metacognitive approach is the cost of professional development. Later we will look at practical ways you can introduce metacognition into your school.

It provides important information to both the learner and teacher at all stages of the learning process. Effective learning takes place when learners feel challenged to work towards appropriately high goals; therefore, appraisal of the learner's cognitive strengths and weaknesses, as well as current knowledge and skills, is important for the selection of instructional materials of an optimal degree of difficulty.

Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and assessing the learner as well as learning progress -- including diagnostic, process, and outcome assessment -- are integral parts of the learning process.

Learning is most effective when differences in learners' linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds are taken into account.

Learners have different strategies, approaches, and capabilities for learning that are a function of prior experience and heredity.

As individuals develop, there are different opportunities and constraints for learning. Learning is most effective when differential development within and across physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains is taken into account.

Learning is influenced by social interactions, interpersonal relations, and communication with others.

What and how much is learned is influenced by the motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn, is influenced by the individual's emotional states, beliefs, interests and goals, and habits of thinking



The learner's creativity, higher order thinking, and natural curiosity all contribute to motivation to learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by tasks of optimal novelty and difficulty, relevant to personal interests, and providing for personal choice and control.

Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills requires extended learner effort and guided practice. Without learners' motivation to learn, the willingness to exert this effort is unlikely without coercion.

pertain to the learner and the learning process. They focus on psychological factors that are primarily internal to and under the control of the learner rather than conditioned habits or physiological factors.

The learning of complex subject matter is most effective when it is an intentional process of constructing meaning from information and experience.

The successful learner, over time and with support and instructional guidance, can create meaningful, coherent representations of knowledge

The successful learner can link new information with existing knowledge in meaningful ways

The successful learner can create and use a repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to achieve complex learning goals.

Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring mental operations facilitate creative and critical thinking.

Learning is influenced by environmental factors, including culture, technology, and instructional practices.

Although metacognition does involve thinking about one’s thinking, it is more complex than that. A large part of metacognition is actively monitoring one’s own learning and making changes to one’s own learning behaviors and strategies based on this monitoring.

This is not always the case. For example, using phonics rules to decode an unknown word when reading is a cognitive strategy. Flavell (1981) identified a useful distinction between the two: strategies used to make cognitive progress are ‘cognitive strategies’; strategies used to monitor cognitive progress are ‘metacognitive strategies.’

Although a metacognitive approach typically focuses on allowing the learner to take control of their own learning, the teacher is still required to help in the development of their metacognitive skills.

The teacher needs to set clear learning objectives, demonstrate and monitor metacognitive strategies, and prompt and encourage their learners.

Some researchers (e.g. Veenman and Spaans 2005) believe that metacognitive skills do not emerge until a child is 8 to 10 years old. However, Whitebread and Pino Pasternak (2010) document a number of studies which indicate evidence of young children’s metacognitive abilities. Findings include children as young as 18 months demonstrating error-correction strategies, 5-year-old children showing an awareness of forgetting, and 3 to 5-year-olds exhibiting a wide range of verbal and non-verbal indicators of metacognitive processes in nursery and reception classrooms. These studies demonstrate that although young children may not be able to describe the metacognitive processes they are exhibiting, it does not mean that these processes are not occurring.