Metacognition - Thinking about thinking

Simply speaking, metacognition is thinking about thinking. More specifically, Taylor defines metacognition as “an appreciation of what one already knows, together with a correct apprehension of the learning task and what knowledge and skills it requires, combined with the agility to make correct inferences about how to apply one’s strategic knowledge to a particular situation, and to do so efficiently and reliably.”

Metacognition and Three Types of Knowledge

To increase their metacognitive abilities, students need to possess and be aware of three kinds of content knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional. This notion of three kinds of knowledge applies to learning strategies as well as course content. When they study, students need the declarative knowledge that all reading assignments are not alike; for example, which a history textbook chapter with factual information differs from a primary historical document, which is different from an article interpreting or analyzing that document. They need to know that stories and novels differ from arguments. Furthermore they need to know that there are different kinds of note taking strategies useful for annotating these different types of texts. And students need to know how to actually write different kinds of notes (procedural knowledge), and they need to know when to apply these kinds of notes when they study (conditional knowledge). Knowledge of study strategies is among the kinds of metacognitive knowledge, and it too requires awareness of all three kinds of knowledge.

Metacognition and Study Strategies

On the class, Prof. Rosanna had given some examples of metacognition applied in our social life. However, there is still a question left to be discussed. What other features you add on to a social website to facilitate user experience at a metacognitive level? Absolutely, we could find many examples, such as the tribes in DouBan Community, labels of blogs, and the rank of restaurants in OpenRice. We cannot deny that it is pretty convenience for our search.

Metacognition and Motivation

Metacognition affects motivation because it affects attribution and self-efficacy. When students get results on tests and grades on assignments, they perform a mental causal search to explain to themselves why the results happened. When they achieve good results, students tend to attribute the result to two internal factors: their own ability and effort. When they fail, they might attribute the cause to these same internal factors, in a self-protective rationalization, distance themselves from a sense of personal failure by blaming external causes. This tendency to attribute success to ability and effort promotes future success because it develops confidence in one’s ability to solve future unfamiliar and challenging tasks. The converse is also true.

To sum up, metacognition is an indispensable part when we know about the world. Understanding and applying the purpose and condition of knowledge is a kind of self-efficacy. It is helpful to develop our study when strengthening the training like this. Now, let us think about thinking!