Research School Network: Metacognition: Meaning and Mobilisation

John Tomsett’s 2015 blog, outlining a teaching strategy he used with his AS Economics class in 2015, first introduced me to the idea of metacognition. From there, I went to the Education Endowment Foundation’s Evidence Summary on metacognition and self-regulation. This theme has, since then, proven to be really valuable when considering teaching & learning and, with the EEF’s metacognition and self-regulation Guidance Report due to be published in April 2018, it will yield more yet.

Metacognition is often described as ​‘thinking about thinking’, and can be divided into distinct strategic elements: planning how to approach a task; monitoring the effectiveness of that approach, consciously adapting the strategy if necessary; and evaluating the success of the process and outcome. It is not so much the ability to use learning strategies, but the ability to choose and adapt appropriate strategies for different tasks. Given the higher level thinking this involves, it is perhaps not surprising that the evidence tells us metacognition is strongly linked with successful learning (see EEF Evidence Summary for more).

It’s easy, sometimes, to dismissively accept ideas presented in educational research contexts as ​‘obvious’, or as something we ​‘already do’. But as Tomsett wrote in a follow-up blog, ​“Thing is, whilst it now seems obvious, it took me 26 years to discover.”

In some ways, metacognition is obvious, and in many cases it is something we already teach our students to do – whether deliberately or not. But if it were that obvious, and if we were all already doing it consistently and successfully, we wouldn’t see so many students who don’t [know how to] plan before they start a task; we wouldn’t universally recognise the student who gets stuck 20 seconds into the task and immediately asks for help; we wouldn’t find ourselves having to tell students to ANSWER. THE. QUESTION! repeatedly; and we wouldn’t read so many exam scripts in which students have mismanaged their time.

Perhaps, then, it’s not so obvious after all?

In recent metacognition-focused JPD workshops at our college, three broad themes have emerged, suggesting areas we need to consider carefully if we are to increase our understanding of this area and use it effectively in our teaching:

1. Building a shared professional understanding of what we mean by ​‘metacognition’. The terms metacognition and self-regulation are often used interchangeably in research. Similarly, self-regulation is sometimes conflated with motivation. They are, however, related but different; these concepts and skills are critically interlinked, but not the same, and we should be mindful of the distinctions as well as the relationships. (A brief summary of the confusion this causes can be found in Schunk, 2008).

2. Increasingly demanding curriculum and exam specifications create an urgency for teachers to get through large amounts of content quickly; the explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies, however, requires time, thinking space and repetition. These competing forces – one requiring pace, the other patience – are not easily compatible, and may require a shift in how we think about teaching and learning, and what our classrooms might feel like. We might need to slow down – which, when so much else in the educational world can spin so fast, is counter-intuitive.

3. The Sutton Trust Report, ​‘What makes great teaching?’ (2014) highlights the importance of subject knowledge and pedagogical subject knowledge. It may be useful to add another element to this: knowledge of subject-specific metacognitive strategies. Where pedagogical subject knowledge involves anticipating learners’ likely errors and misunderstandings, a teacher’s metacognitive knowledge involves being conscious of how subject specialists think when tackling different tasks, and being able to explicitly model and explain those strategies for learners. This is ​‘obvious’, but because the metacognitive processes of experts are often automatic and implicit, it is also perhaps…not so obvious!

With an increasing focus on evidence-based practice and research literacy within the profession, networks such as Research Schools and organisations like the EEF and Institute for Effective Education, this is an exciting time to be thinking about exactly how and why we do what we do in the classroom, especially that ​‘obvious’ stuff that maybe isn’t quite so simple after all.

Freya Morrissey teaches English and is Assistant Director of Sixth Form at Kingsbridge Community College. She delivers Metacognition workshops as part of the training programmes offered by Kingsbridge Research School.