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Metacognitive Knowledge

CPD: Metacognition for Teachers (by Jonathan Firth), topic 3.1.1

Metacognitive Knowledge

Metacognitive knowledge is what a person knows about cognition. It refers to their thoughts and beliefs about how thinking works.

Accurate knowledge of learning

Accurate knowledge of learning

  • Researcher Paul Pintrich (2002) argues that while metacognitive knowledge is important, the really crucial element is that what people believe is accurate.
  • Students often lack accurate knowledge of how learning works.
  • Although teaching your students about metacognition may sound complex, all it means it starting to talk to them about how learning and thinking work.
Younger learners

Younger learners

  • Even very young learners can be told about how rapidly forgetting progresses, or about the way that learning can be biased by our assumptions.
  • These conversations start to build metacognitive knowledge.
Older learners

Older learners

  • Older learners can develop a much more sophisticated level of metacognitive knowledge.
  • They may enjoy looking at some of the research evidence on the spacing effect in memory and can start to develop an awareness of good study habits.
Techniques

Techniques

  • Another area of metacognitive knowledge is a learner’s store of techniques that help to help scaffold the early stages of learning and overcome forgetting.
  • These include the use of mnemonics that will make new and difficult terms, formulae or character names easier to remember.

Test yourself on Metacognitive Knowledge

  • Which of these is NOT true about metacognitive knowledge?

Practise this topic for free