How metacognition supports learning and transfer

In a webinar, Professor Melissa Barnes from La Trobe University explained what metacognition is, how it supports learning, and how teachers can support their students’ metacognition.

What is metacognition and why is it so important for learning?

Metacognition is often described as thinking about thinking, which is a simplified way to describe the involvement of two key processes: monitoring or being aware of our learning, and regulating and adjusting by deploying appropriate strategies to support understanding. It is a set of skills that is useful in all aspects of life, but it particularly pertinent in the classroom because it ensures that learning is deeply understood, connected, and meaningful.

In practice, it involves the ability to assess whether or not we understand what we have learned, and to draw on a bank of relevant strategies to adjust our approach where necessary. Metacognition can also be thought of as a form of self-assessment, or the capacity to measure performance and understanding against a goal. For example, it might look like the ability not just to complete a maths problem by following a set of steps but also to explain how you did it, or like the skill of recognising that you haven’t taken in what you just read, and using a different strategy for harnessing your attention and focusing.

Metacognition ultimately supports transfer, or the ability to apply what we have learned in new or different contexts, because knowledge has to be meaningful in order for us to be able to retrieve it at a later date and then use it. It also supports independent learning, as it equips students with a set of strategies to use to ensure they are monitoring their own understanding, and to choose from when they need to adjust their approach.

How can teachers support their students’ metacognition?

Being metacognitive is not an innate skill, and it is important to explicitly teach it. However, it is important to keep it simple and not overcomplicate the process: simply being systematic and deliberate about modelling metacognitive skills is highly effective, and most teachers are probably already using a number of metacognition-supportive approaches. Worked examples are a particularly effective tool, and thinking aloud to explicitly note decisions and errors supports students to do the same.

Another important way to support students’ metacognition is to have clear and explicit learning goals and standards against which students can measure their performance: students need to know what good looks like. Rubrics that students can use for evaluating their learning can be useful.

Providing a set of tools and scaffolds for assessing understanding can also help to reduce the cognitive load of reflecting on their own learning for students. This might look like a traffic light system for younger students, or a set of questions or sentence starters, such as:

• Do I understand this?
• Can I explain it to someone?
• What did I notice?
• What were some things I could improve?
• What strategy would I use in this situation?

As students get older, they might use a checklist to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning.

Further resources

Read Melissa Barnes alongside Kate Lafferty talking about metacognition in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/the-key-academic-skill-youve-probably-never-heard-of-and-4-ways-to-encourage-it-270151

Perry, J., Lundie, D., & Golder, G. (2019). Metacognition in schools: what does the literature suggest about the effectiveness of teaching metacognition in schools? Educational Review 71:4, 483-500. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2018.1441127