Metacognition

Rebecca Heyes explains why metacognitive thinking can be a powerful tool for students with dyslexia.

Metacognition is the ability to understand our own cognitive processes. Simply put, it is an understanding of how we learn. Metacognitive thinking is the process of understanding our strengths and weaknesses, our behaviours and our thoughts and then using this knowledge to control our own thought processes. Metacognition and self-regulation approaches aim to help pupils think about their own learning, for example by providing them with specific strategies for planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning.

Metacognition can empower a student to approach new tasks with confidence, regardless of whether they are a novice or not. They begin by recognising similarities and differences between the current task and a task they have done before. Learners can identify the strategies they need to implement to succeed at the activity and understand how to adapt them. Learners can actively monitor, control, and reflect on their thinking and learning activities to identify what went well and what did not work so well for them. This reflection leaves them well equipped to approach future tasks in the same manner. Learners who have metacognitive skills are well equipped to deal with all the educational challenges which are thrown at them.

Through metacognition, learners can employ various strategies such as self-questioning, self-explanation, and reflective thinking to enhance their learning experience and achieve their learning goals. It is a dynamic, higher-order cognitive skill that enables people to become more effective learners and problem-solvers.

Metacognition: a case study
I place a large emphasis on helping my students to develop metacognitive thinking. A simpler version of the above metacognitive thinking cycle which includes the headings planning, monitoring and evaluation is displayed in each of the classrooms, and students are continually reminded of the process. The display includes the following questions:

Planning

• What is the task asking me to do?
• What is the end goal?
• What information and strategies do I need? How much time will I need?
• Are there any additional resources that I need?

Monitoring

• Do I understand what I am doing?
• Am I making steps towards the end goal?
• Do I need to change what I am doing to teach my goal?

Evaluation

• Have I achieved my goal?
• What strategies worked?
• What strategies didn’t work well?
• Would I do anything differently next time?

In preparation for writing this article I asked one of my students, Lucy, to talk me through the planning, monitoring and evaluation stages of her thinking when working through a GCSE English Literature question.

Question: How and why does Sheila Birling change in the J.B. Priestley play An Inspector Calls?

Planning:

• Lucy explained that the question is asking her to consider how an important character in the play has changed and therefore she needs to consider the character’s personality and traits at the start, middle and end of the play.
• She would need to refer to her character profile notes about Sheila and also will need to refer to a copy of the play so she can identify the key quotes needed.

Monitoring

• Part way through the task, Lucy stopped writing and took the time to read through her work so far. She spent time checking that her sentences made sense and as this is an area she struggles with she read her work aloud so she could use multiple senses to assist with this.
• Lucy also identified that she was missing relevant quotations to further explore the points made and went added these in.

Evaluation

• At the end of the task, Lucy again read through her work.
• Lucy then explained she had written too much about irrelevant details and therefore next time will need to spend some time preplanning the points that she wants to write about so she does not deviate too far away from the task.
• She agreed that having the character profile notes made it easier to explore the changes in the character’s profile.

This is what we want for our students. We want them to have this confidence and independence to deal with anything that is thrown their way.

Metacognition and dyslexia
It has been suggested that learners with dyslexia have weaker metacognitive awareness and are less well-equipped with skills for tackling complex problems that arise in their learning. Pupils with dyslexia may have fewer learning strategies, and they may be less flexible at applying any strategies they do know to their learning. This means that they may struggle to work independently in class as they may struggle to interpret what is being asked of them, work out what the most effective way to answer the question and evaluate whether they have been able to complete the work successfully. This can lead to learners becoming less motivated, distracted and subsequently losing their confidence.

However, metacognitive thinking is a powerful tool for students with dyslexia. Developing an understanding of how they learn can empower students to take control of their own learning and help promote self-belief and resilience in learning.

The metacognitive process is divided into three parts: knowledge, regulation, and motivation. Learners need to understand all three parts to use metacognitive strategies to support their learning. The first part, knowledge, involves understanding the task, thinking about what has been taught, and figuring out which parts are relevant. Learners should reflect on what worked and what did not to improve this skill. Regulation is about being aware of oneself during a task, noticing mistakes, and learning from them. Lastly, motivation involves being aware of one’s feelings before, during, and after a task and using self-talk to stay motivated. These strategies take time to develop and require guidance through teaching.

By encouraging the use of self-directed learning methods tailored to individual cognitive styles, students can become empowered to thrive in the mainstream educational system.

Metacognitive skills in practice
Learners with special educational needs need more support to reach metacognitive thinking than their non-SEN peers. They need specific metacognitive skills training that shows them how to monitor their own learning progress. If we refer to the cyclic model illustrated, we can see that there is a clear process for metacognitive thinking: goal setting, planning, monitoring, evaluating and reflecting. It is often thought that ‘thinking’ is a process that happens only naturally, but thinking is a skill that can be learned, practised, developed and improved.

The following strategies can be used to help develop students’ metacognitive thinking:

• Explain metacognition. Learners need to understand what metacognition and metacognitive thinking are, so that they can begin to understand the process of developing these skills
• Explicitly teach learners about different types of strategies they can use to solve problems. For example, think about using active reading strategies such as skimming or surveying techniques to search for headings, highlighted key words and summaries. Consider when these are useful: before you read a long piece of text. And why are they useful? Because they provide an overview of the key concepts, and help you to focus on the important points.
• Model your own thought processes for students. Get into the habit of thinking aloud to show the thought processes you would use the problem solve in academic situations
• Make reflections on learning part of the daily routine. Surveys of learning, thumbs up or thumbs down reflections, verbal check-ins.
• Pause and plan. Provide students with opportunities to pause and consider methods for solving the problem before starting the activity.

Further reading
Glazzard, J. and Stones, S. (2021) Evidence based primary teaching. Los Angeles: Learning Matters.