Lecture 8 - Metacognition

Question 1

What is Metacognition?

Answer 1

• Cognition about cognition
• Meta = referring to itself
• Cognition = thinking, memory, knowledge

Question 2

What are the two dimensions of Metacognition?

Answer 2

1. Knowledge - understanding own abilities and how to select learning strategies
2. Regulation - actively monitoring progress and reworking strategies and content

Question 3

What is the Google Effect?

Answer 3

The theory that we tend to forget information that we know is readily available online. Our minds are adapting to focus more on storage pathways than facts.

Question 4

What is Strategy Instruction?

Answer 4

When a teacher provides clear cognitive strategies to help students process a problem and then create their own solution.

Question 5

What do expert strategy users do?

Answer 5

• Have many learning strategies to choose from
• Know what to use and when
• Ignore distractions

Question 6

What are some classroom implications around Metacognition?

Answer 6

• Encourage awareness of the mind and cognition
• Prioritise strategy instruction
• Build self-monitoring and evaluation into tasks
• Ask students to reflect on strategy effectiveness