What is Metacognition?

Metacognition is the ability to think about your thoughts with the aim of improving learning. 

You may hear the phrase Metacognitive Self-regulation. This is the same idea. This means that you are practicing the ability to think about your thoughts with the aim of improving learning and making adjustments to regulate yourself and create different outcomes after learning experiences. 

For example, let's say that you have an English test tomorrow. You have been busy. You have felt distracted, or perhaps, you just haven't felt like looking over the novel, literature notes, and resources to study for the test. You look at your phone and realize that its 10:00pm. You have a couple of hours to look everything over once or twice and then go to bed.

You take the test. You don't feel great about it. When the grade is posted, it is just what you thought, not a great score. You think about your thinking leading up to the test. You realize that you didn't really put a lot of thought into preparing for the test. You think about how reading over the material helped you learn. You realize that you didn't really remember much from reading the material through a couple of times. You decide to make some changes; changes that will help your thinking and learning for the next test. You...

• create graphic organizers to study from, separating the information into visual categories that help you to capture meaning and understanding

• create quizzes to review terms

• begin review your study aides about a week or two ahead of time, spending a little time every day.

After the next test, you reflect on how you felt afterward and realize that you felt pretty confident. Your test grade also shows that you improved significantly. The graphic organizers were helpful. You decide that these strategies worked well and you didn't feel anxious because you gave preparation more time.