Student's Question of the Week
Q:
How might I be more aware of new ways I could try that might improve my schoolwork?
A: Just like a horse is guided by the rider, so too do we direct ourselves in daily life. We are both the thinker and the actor.
Being aware of ourselves is like taking the point of view of the spectator, which is difficult in a culture known for its fast pace and its value on action. This process, though, of becoming more aware of how we do things, is really a key to improving and moving ahead in new ways in any area.
Metacognition is a word that means "beyond" and "knowing", and implies a kind of knowing beyond the normal way of knowing that we use when we enact familiar activities. It is an awareness of how we are doing the activity, and can include an inner awareness of feelings as well as a sense of conscience, i.e., having an intuition about what is right and wrong. Often metacognition is defined as "self-monitoring". The following explanation of metacognition comes from the Reading Section of Learning Skills in Gyrus.
What
is Metacognition?
Metacognition
means being conscious of one's own thought processes, as a spectator watches
a spectacle, combined with the ability to monitor one's flow of thought consciously.
Cognition means knowing, while metacognition implies a self-conscious awareness
about how one learns.
Metacognition
involves knowledge of three things: the person, the task, and the strategy
to use to accomplish the task. A student needs to be able to analyze the demands
of a task. Next, he or she needs to compare those demands to his or her abilities
and skills, and decide on a way to go about performing the task. Thus, to
be successful, the student needs not only to understand the task and his or
her own learning abilities, but also to have a set of strategies from which
to choose when approaching a task.
Another
aspect of metacognition involves knowing how one is doing in making progress
toward goals. After identifying or generating an effective strategy to use
to tackle a task, one also monitors the problem-solving to see if the strategy
chosen is effective. Self-monitoring includes being able to follow through
and make changes when needed.
"Metacognition
involves students actively assembling, coordinating, integrating, monitoring,
and evaluating knowledge as they learn it." (Fountain and Fusco, in Costa).
"Questions can make students aware of their own thought processes. Examples:
What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Why is it important? How or where does
this fit in with what I already know? What questions do I have? Do I need
a specific plan to understand or learn about this? How can I use this information
in other areas of my life? How effective have I been in this process? Do I
need to do more?" (Art Costa)
Metacognition involves paying very effective attention and organizing in one's own mind those things being understood as one pays attention.
Works Cited
Arthur L. Costa. Developing Minds: Programs for Teaching Thinking. Alexandria: ASCD, 1991.
Ferrer, Mark, Doug Hector, Lee Anne Kryder, Gerry Lewin, George Michaels, Stan Nicholson, Jerry Pike, and Shirley Ronkowski. Gyrus: Rapid Online Course Development System. Angular Gyrus, Inc.: 1999-2001.