The Role of Metacognition: Teaching Students to Think About Their Thinking
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Metacognition is thrown around as a buzzword in education but is seldom explained well. Essentially, it's the practice of students recognising how they learn, as opposed to what they’re learning. When students develop this skill, they become much more self-aware as learners, which is especially important when it comes to managing revision during GCSEs and A-levels and performing under pressure.
Here are a few practical tips to help students use metacognition to improve their learning and exam outcomes:
1. Recognising the difference between familiarity and understanding
Many students assume that the mere recognition of material is enough, especially when trudging through long syllabi. However, this can lull them into a false sense of security. Raising the question “Can I explain this without my notes?” or moving straight into an exam-style question is an effective way of revealing where information has been processed superficially.
If students have spotted a gap in their knowledge, they can look for an alternative source to better explain the material or go through the process of attempting an exam question and then marking it to fully understand how to apply the underlying material.
2. Isolating weaknesses and taking the time to plan strategies on how to tackle them
Before diving into a task, students should spend a few minutes devising a revision strategy based on their strengths and weaknesses. A good precursor to this step would be to print out a copy of a relevant syllabus and highlight all weak areas. Then, students can devise a strategy to deal with the topics they feel the least confident in.
For instance, if the phrasing within a textbook is incomprehensible, it’s worth looking at an internet resource or a revision guide that uses clearer language or asking a peer, teacher, or tutor to explain it to you. Then, students can turn to exam-style questions to apply what they’ve learned and build confidence through successful attempts at questions. This method prevents students from expending time and energy on what they already feel comfortable with and helps them gain confidence in the subject.
3. Accurately diagnosing mistakes to better shape future strategies
Sometimes, students make mistakes because they don’t fully understand the content, or because of fatigue, boredom, or time pressure. Other times, they make mistakes because they understand the content, but struggle to extrapolate it to exam-style questions.
Memorising and understanding all of the content in a history textbook, for instance, wouldn’t necessarily translate into a student crafting a compelling essay. Strong essay writing in this subject area stems from taking a particular stance, defending it well, refuting counter-arguments where necessary and embedding the most important factual details – not regurgitating a hundred facts onto four sides of A4.
When students recognise what their weaknesses are, they can then tailor their strategies according to their needs (for example, by getting their hands on model answers or seeking feedback from a teacher or tutor on their essays). This saves valuable time and energy that would otherwise be expended on a repeat of the same strategy. Running with the example above, it would be a waste of time for a student to keep memorising more historical facts when their area of weakness pertains to essay writing itself or isolating the most relevant factual material from their notes.
4. Encouraging students to monitor their progress
Students should be encouraged to track their progress to see if they need to make adjustments to their revision methods. An effective way to do this is to tick off aspects of the syllabus that they’re already comfortable with, having memorised the content and attempted a batch of exam-style questions on the topic.
Where certain issues remain unresolved due to a lack of understanding or difficulty with exam-style questions, students can focus on tackling those specific issues until they feel confident enough to tick them off. Over time, this builds confidence, as students enter a feedback loop of recognising a weakness → devising a strategy to combat it → attempting questions until successful → feeling confident on that particular topic for the exam.
Mastering metacognition
Teaching students how to think about their thinking is critical to them becoming independent, resilient, and reflective learners. It’s one of the most powerful tools students have at their disposal to help them succeed, not just in their exams, but throughout life. Metacognition is about making learning more intentional. When students become more self-aware and begin to understand themselves as learners, they take more ownership of their progress, and this improves their outcomes.
