HIGH IMPACT TEACHING STRATEGIES
Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Overview
Metacognitive strategies teach students to think about their own thinking. When students become aware of the learning process, they gain control over their learning.
Metacognition extends to self-regulation, or managing one’s own motivation toward learning.
Metacognitive activities can include planning how to approach learning tasks, evaluating progress, and monitoring comprehension.
Key Elements
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Teaching problem solving
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Teaching study skills
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Promotes self-questioning
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Classroom discussion is an essential feature
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Uses concept mapping
Related Effect Sizes
• Teaching problem solving – 0.63
• Study skills – 0.60
• Self-questioning – 0.64
• Classroom discussion –0.82
• Concept mapping – 0.64
This strategy is demonstrated when the teacher:
Provides students with specific strategies to set goals, and monitor and evaluate their learning progress
Assists students to identify and use strategies that support them to achieve learning goals
Demonstrates how to use a particular metacognitive strategy in ways that make content knowledge more accessible, malleable and intriguing
Uses a variety of learning and assessment strategies to scaffold and personalise the learning process
Provides support and scaffolding for tasks through checklists, self-questioning, student-teacher conferences and self-assessment
Uses ICT to increase student choice and flexible learning.
This strategy is NOT demonstrated when the teacher:
Gives students a choice of activities but does not explain how they can use specific strategies to achieve particular learning goals
Does not encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning, or for applying metacognitive strategies.
This strategy is demonstrated when students:
Have a repertoire of learning strategies and can select strategies appropriate for the learning goals
Reflect on their learning processes, self-assess and acknowledge the impact of effort on achievement
Actively seek out feedback because they value it as a way to improve understanding of how they learn
Are capable of self-regulation and proactively take control of, and responsibility for, their own learning.
Typical problems of practice in this area:
1. Metacognition is simply ‘thinking about thinking’. A large part of metacognition is actively monitoring one’s own learning and making changes to one’s own learning behaviours and strategies based on this monitoring.
2. Any strategy used while performing a cognitive task is metacognitive. Strategies used to make cognitive progress are ‘cognitive strategies’; strategies used to monitor cognitive progress are ‘metacognitive strategies’.
3. A teacher plays no role in their learners’ metacognitive practice. 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. For example, the teacher needs to set clear learning objectives, demonstrate and monitor metacognitive strategies, and prompt and encourage their learners.
4. Metacognition is only applicable to older learners 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.
Possible LfL questions to ask students
JS: What are the different ways that you get a chance to reflect on your learning so you know what you what you now know and what you still need to grow in?
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Learners experience supportive, respectful, and authentic relationships
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Learners thrive in an environment that is both safe and challenging
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Learners understand the purpose of their learning
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Learners readily connect new learning with previous knowledge, concepts and skills
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Learners feel individually challenged at an appropriate level
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Learners have increasing agency in their learning
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Learners receive ongoing feedback
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Learners experience a range of learning and teaching methodologies
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Learners have ample opportunities to practise
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Learners have regular opportunities to collaborate with and learn from others
Reminder of the TLPP
Training Materials from GTT (Great Teaching Toolkit)
How the Great Teaching Toolkit supports this HIT
Element 1.4 Strategies and misconceptions
Element 2.3 Learner motivation (See article “How much thought is happening in the classroom?”)
Element 2.4 Climate of high expectations (See article “Top 20 principles from psychology for PreK-12 teaching and learning”)
Element 3.1 Managing time and resources (See article “Ratio: how much thought is happening in the classroom?”)
Element 4.1 Structuring (See article “Unlocking the science of how kids think”)
Element 4.1 Structuring (See article “Useful learning”)
Element 4.1 Structuring (See article “The Benefits of Interleaving Practice”)
Element 4.2 Explaining (See article “Cognitive load theory: segmenting principle”)
Element 4.3 Questioning (See article “Surprise and destabilize: Prediction error influences episodic memory reconsolidation”)
Element 4.4 Interacting (See article “Desirable difficulties”)
Element 4.5 Embedding (See article “Learning in the brain”)
Element 4.5 Embedding (See article “Spacing improves long-term retention”)
Element 4.6 Activating (See article “Does developing a growth mindset help students learn?)
