Planning & Learning Strategies
CPD: Metacognition for Teachers (by Jonathan Firth), topic 2.1.1
Planning and Strategy
Paying attention to or thinking about learning or problem solving involves metacognition. Planning one’s learning, therefore, depends on metacognition, too.
The ‘planning fallacy’
- Unfortunately, most learners are not good at planning at all. The ‘planning fallacy’ is the tendency to underestimate how long it takes to do a task.
- The planning fallacy occurs even if someone has done a similar task before. You may have noticed this with your own preparation and marking!
Research evidence
- A research study by Canadian psychologist Roger Buehler et al. (1994) asked 37 university students to make two predictions of when they would complete an academic project:
- One if things went well, and the other if things went as badly as possible.
- The actual time taken showed that fewer than half had completed even by their more pessimistic estimate.
What can teachers do?
- As well as encouraging learners to allow considerably more time than they would normally expect, it may help to get a neutral person such as a classmate to make planning time estimates, informed by past evidence.
- It’s also helpful to break tasks down and to ask students to make very specific plans.
- So rather than ‘revise topic A’, a student might plan to ‘create 20 flashcards on topic A’.
Test yourself on Planning & Learning Strategies
What can teachers do to help learners overcome the planning fallacy?