Instructional strategies and questions to foster meta-thinking

Fogarty (1994) suggests that Metacognition is a process that spans three distinct phases, and that, to be successful thinkers, students must do the following:

Before: Develop a plan before approaching a learning task, such as reading for comprehension or solving a math problem.

During: Monitor their understanding; use “fix-up” strategies when meaning breaks down.

After: Evaluate their thinking after completing the task.

Instructors can model the application of questions, and they can prompt learners to ask themselves questions during each phase. They can incorporate into lesson plans opportunities for learners to practice using these questions during learning tasks, as illustrated in the following examples:

1. During the planning phase (before), learners can ask, What am I supposed to learn? What prior knowledge will help me with this task? What should I do first? What should I look for in this reading? How much time do I have to complete this? In what direction do I want my thinking to take me?
2. During the monitoring phase (during), learners can ask, How am I doing? Am I on the right track? How should I proceed? What information is important to remember? Should I move in a different direction? Should I adjust the pace because of the difficulty? What can I do if I do not understand?
3. During the evaluation phase (after), learners can ask, How well did I do? What did I learn? Did I get the results I expected? What could I have done differently? Can I apply this way of thinking to other problems or situations? Is there anything I don’t understand—any gaps in my knowledge? Do I need to go back through the task to fill in any gaps in understanding? How might I apply this line of thinking to other problems?

Rather than viewing reading, writing, science, social studies, and math only as subjects or content to be taught, instructors can see them as opportunities for learners to reflect on their learning processes. Examples follow for each content area:

• Reading: Teach learners how to ask questions during reading and model “think-alouds.” Ask learners questions during read-alouds and teach them to monitor their reading by constantly asking themselves if they understand what the text is about. Teach them to take notes or highlight important details, asking themselves, “Why is this a key phrase to highlight?” and “Why am I not highlighting this?”

• Writing: Model prewriting strategies for organizing thoughts, such as brainstorming ideas using a word web, or using a graphic organizer to put ideas into paragraphs, with the main idea at the top and the supporting details below it.

• Social Studies and Science: Teach learners the importance of using organizers such as KWL charts, Venn diagrams, concept maps , and anticipation/reaction charts to sort information and help them learn and understand content. Learners can use organizers prior to a task to focus their attention on what they already know and identify what they want to learn. They can use a Venn diagram to identify similarities and differences between two related concepts.

• Math: Teach learners to use mnemonics to recall steps in a process, such as the order of mathematical operations. Model your thought processes in solving problems—for example, “This is a lot of information; where should I start? Now that I know____, is there something else I know?”

The goal of teaching metacognitive strategies is to help learners become comfortable with these strategies so that they employ them automatically to learning tasks, focusing their attention, deriving meaning, and making adjustments if something goes wrong. They do not think about these skills while performing them but, if asked what they are doing, they can usually accurately describe their metacognitive processes.

The above post information was obtained from from a LINCS post on metacognition.