Metacognitive Awareness: The Keystone to Success

As part of Ontario's desire to implement research-based best practices, recent in-servicing has begun to focus on the role of metacognition in successful learning.

The following research paper explains the concept.  http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/metacog.htm  Essentially students with strong metacognitive skills are aware of how they learn and can plan for learning.  These tend to be the most successful students.  The puzzle for me has been, how do I teach someone this skill?

I decided to distribute Learning Logs.  I gave each of my students a new notebook (sigh - the 3-ringed lined paper kind) and asked them to select a subject - either science or math.  They had to explain what they were currently learning in that subject, what they found easy and what they were finding difficult.  Once they had identified an area of difficulty, they had to develop a strategy to overcome the challenge. Students wrote avidly.
 They had no problem explaining what they were struggling with.  What surprised me was how clever they were in devising  plans to address their problems.  Some of this involved me meeting with the subject teachers and modifying instructional practice.

My students were then expected to use their strategy over the course of the week.  At the end of the week students wrote in their learning logs about how the use of the strategy had affected their learning.  Once again, a simple idea led to astonishing results.  I have learned more about my students and how they approach learning from this simple act than I have from anything else I have done with a class.

I could give profound examples from each child in my class, but one student stands out in particular.  As he sat thinking on the first day of this activity, he suddenly asked, "Can I write about something that's happening in all my classes?"
"Sure,"  I replied.
He described how he spends his time drawing while teachers are teaching, how he has difficulty listening.  So I asked him, "What are you listening to while you're drawing?"
He replied, "The story in my head about my pictures."
That stopped me cold.
 His plan to resolve this problem was to actively attempt to listen while drawing.

I met with a colleague, the amazing Ms Swartz, our science teacher, to discuss this student.  She suggested, we give him a drawing book and ask him to draw what the teacher is talking about instead of his own pictures.  The student was thrilled with this idea. All week long he carried his notebook and drew his lessons.

At the end of the week, he reflected in his Learning Log on how his listening and focus had improved.  He could explain the full concept taught in science because he had drawn the entire lesson.  It was his recognition of his own Next Learning Step that made me gasp.  He wrote, "I think I need to start adding important words into my pictures to help me remember better."  Rather than the teacher telling him what he should do next, this student had figured it out on his own. He had developed his own strategy to advance his learning.  This student had moved towards independence as a learner.

In fact, all my students, even the strong ones who instinctively use metacognitive skills, have a dawning awareness that learning is something they can strategically plan for.  That is quite an insight for 11 and 12 year olds.