Research School Network: Metacognition Back in the classroom – reflections on our webinar

by Kate Mouncey, Research School Lead

The second of our free webinars on the theme of being ​‘Back in the Classroom’ focussed on Metacognition and self-regulation. This theme is a well known ​‘best bet’, featuring in the EEF Toolkit, with a possible addition of 7 months progress if used effectively. The full guidance report is found here, and is the basis of the content developed for the webinar: https://educationendowmentfoun…

The full webinar can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/468554263/84f8048514

This blog will hopefully provide a brief flavour of the themes and ideas discussed at the event. We were delighted to be joined by our new colleague, Claire Watson, who was able to bring ideas and perspective from primary education.

Metacognition is a huge area and so we focussed on three distinct areas in the webinar which are critical to learning, both in the classroom environment, and during remote learning. These were; Using the metacognition cycle, modelling and scaffolding and metacognitive talk.

Using the metacognition cycle

In an expert learner, thinking processes are unconscious and automatic. But our pupils are novice learners. They have to be led through the thinking process to complete any new task. The process needs to be made very explicit. It is about planning how to undertake a task, monitoring the strategy during the task and then evaluating the overall success. It is important that we model and highlight each of these stages throughout a particular task so that pupils can think through their own strategy for learning or completing a task. We demonstrated what this might look like in a couple of examples and highlighted the ​‘monitoring’ stage, as this is the step which is perhaps less obvious in making the process of learning very explicit to students. For example, a teacher could stop pupils at different intervals during a task to ask critical questions or refer to a checklist so that they can judge whether they are staying on track, or using the right sort of processes to successfully complete the task.

Modelling and scaffolding

Modelling and scaffolding is very much associated with the plan-monitor-evaluate cycle. As novice learners, pupils need to be able to see an example of what they are aiming for (ie a finished product). They also need to be led through the stages and key points in achieving the aim. Different types of modelling can be used. ​‘Think aloud’ is a strategy which involves the teacher saying out loud what they are thinking while they are carrying out a task. Thinking aloud can help learners to understand the detailed and explicit thinking steps as a task is undertaken. It is important that the process is ​‘real’, demonstrating the messy nature of thinking something through.

Other strategies for modelling include the use of more than one model for students to critique and for the teacher to guide through in terms of spotting key areas of focus. And teachers can ask questions of the class as they are modelling something, to help explain the process explicitly. Claire Watson demonstrated this through a video clip of her teaching key stage 2.

Scaffolding is very much associated with modelling, and is put in place to help to guide pupils through tasks and the thinking process, It might be a writing frame, a checklist or vocabulary support, offering them a framework to include the right level of detail and content. It is important to scaffold to enable access to a new task, but must then be taken away at the correct time to allow for independent practice.

Metacognitive talk

Classroom dialogue can be used very successfully to encourage metacognitive skills, this includes pupil-pupil talk and teacher-pupil talk.

Professor Robin Alexander has undertaken a lot of research in this area, with his account of ​‘dialogic teaching’ identifying six basic repertoires for effective teaching. The most relevant for developing metacognitive skills are learning talk and teaching talk, helping children to develop independence, provide feedback on learning and helps to probe and challenge pupils. We discussed the strategies of talk partners and debate as tools to foster this type of talk in the classroom, as well as the potential of structured debate to encourage high quality talk.

All of these areas seem to offer everyday strategies to bring metacognitive thinking into the classroom. There are other areas such setting appropriate challenge and explicitly teaching pupils how to organise and effectively manage their learning independently which can be viewed in the EEF Guidance Report. We encourage you to try some of them out, they really can make a difference!