TEACHER ROOOM: Metacognition: the importance of teaching to think.
Specifically, metacognition refers to the knowledge that people have about their own cognitive processes, for example: their memory capacity, situations in which they optimize this capacity, etc., and the activities necessary to control cognitive processes. , for example, the strategies necessary to improve the understanding of a text.
In summary, metacognition is a higher order macroprocess characterized by its high level of consciousness and voluntary control, which points to other simpler cognitive processes. That is, it means knowing when to use a strategy, selecting more quickly and verifying its effectiveness in the learning process.
It is not, therefore, an innate characteristic of people, but it must be taught explicitly, so that it allows the regulation and optimization of the cognitive processes of the student and, with this, achieve a significant learning.
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Two basic functions have been identified in relation to metacognition: metacognitive knowledge, that is, what one knows about cognition itself or about cognition in general. and cognitive control processes, that is, the way a person uses that knowledge to regulate their cognition.
Metacognitive knowledge
This function extends to four large groups of variables: the variables related to the person, the task, the strategy and the environment.
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Variable of the person
Some of the discoveries reached in studies on metacognition, and that show the characteristic of being acquired through learning, are:
-Young children can not predict their behavior in certain cognitive tasks, which shows that this ability is acquired in an evolutionary way; in the same direction.
-Adults have more knowledge than young people in the cognitive processes associated with memory.
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Task variable
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Strategy variable
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Environmental variable
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Metacognitive knowledge is given by these four sources and their interrelations, because before a task all the knowledge that the student possesses offers useful and necessary information. This function of metacognition differentiates between difficulties with success and those that have difficulties because the former collects the situation, has been favorable or unfavorable, knowledge about their own person, the difficulty of the task, the strategies used and the disposition of the environment, while the latter only value success or failure according to their affective consequences.This function that metacognitive strategies have is clearly seen in a typical school situation, as a test of Contemporary History. Those students who have adequate metacognitive knowledge of their four variables, that is, know how to react to a History test, have a Knowledge that provides them with new resources to face the task:
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Variable of the person
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Task variable
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Strategy variable
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Environmental variable
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Metacognitive control
The second function is the control that the subject exercises over his cognitive system. The control refers to the regulation that the person makes of their behavior and highlights three main activities: planning, regulation and evaluation.
This does not mean that they are executed sequentially and independently, but at certain moments they overlap, as it can be the case of evaluating the planning developed to study an exam, and if defects are observed, make decisions to solve them.
These three activities provide information about such behavior before, during and after the task.
Students must take into account the environment variable when performing a task: what workplace is the most appropriate, what conditions must be met.
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Planning
Before the task, the student who plans establishes the objectives and goals that he wants to achieve and prepares the strategic plan that he will develop to achieve it, valuing the difficulties or inconveniences that he knows or presumes that may arise.
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Regulation
Through this process, the student can make an evaluation about their learning, confirm if it is happening in a predicted way, follow the established plan, the margins of time marked, if an adequate understanding of the task is being achieved, and if there is It is a correct relationship between effort and result.
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Evaluation
The evaluation activities need to verify the process reviewing the steps, configuring that the established times have been met and evaluating the way to resolve the difficulties that have arisen.
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These processes in many learning situations can be non-conscious, a phenomenon quite common in adults, which executes them automatically. This is because most people have learned this reflection conscious of its use, so it is difficult to teach it to other people.However, it is necessary to teach in an explanatory way in the everyday situations of the classroom, that the student reflects on its usefulness and on the benefits for their learning, in such a way that their employment has a high degree of awareness.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://deisip67.vornix.blog/2018/07/08/teacher-rooom-metacognition-the-importance-of-teaching-to-think/