Metacognition – A Cognitive Apprenticeship

 Metacognition

 – A Cognitive Apprenticeship      

     

I loved how the ‘What is Metacognition’ article by Michael E. Martinez started off. He did not give away the definition at one go but scaffolded the introduction into parts that we could easily connect to our daily learnings. “Metacognition is the monitoring and control of thought…” - O yes! This makes sense. The paper talks about the concepts of Metamemory, Metacomprehension, Problem solving and critical thinking which have to be incorporated in a lesson together. 

After teaching for over two years in an elementary school, I have learnt that our students need guidance and support to cultivate thinking skills. Here is a small story I’d like to share with you;

I had a student named Harsh in my class while I was teaching the second grade. He would sit in the first bench, stare at the board, try writing what I have put on the board and stay quiet. During the first week I failed to realize that this child was not following anything of what I had said, written or taught. In the beginning of the second week, I made sure I spoke to Harsh everyday about his family, his favorite games, and the cartoons he watched and so on. He started opening up sooner than I thought. We started learning A to Z and numbers together. Some of the strategies I used while teaching him were – thinking aloud – saying the letter, the number aloud, providing visuals for retention and making him say aloud. It was definitely a challenge to support him when the whole class (of 40) was doing another task. But, we did succeed.. Harsh reads small sentences/beginner level books and does multiplication now.

Knowingly or unknowingly, we teachers use some of these strategies to teach our children. We learn them out of our own experiences or support from other teachers or by reading up on strategies that have worked in classrooms.

This article really stuck me since, I could reflect on my experience. I plan to refine my strategies and incorporate differentiated lessons for children with different cognitive abilities.

The science inside me wanted to share this image in the blog which focusses on metacognition research. J

 Some of the links you can access for a better understanding are -
Brief introduction on Metacognition
TED video