Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities Unit 6 Metacognition

Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities Unit 6 Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking and Learning © PMB 2007

Learning Intentions You will: • know what is meant by ‘metacognition’; • be aware of a range of strategies for promoting metacognition in the classroom; and • know how to plan and run an effective plenary session. © PMB 2007

What Is Metacognition? • ‘thinking about thinking’ • ‘awareness of the process of learning’ • ‘knowing what we know and what we don’t know’ • ‘overseeing learning’ © PMB 2007

Knowledge and Control How am I going to do it? Is it similar to anything I’ve done before? Is it one of those? … of Thinking • Knowledge about - thinking in general - own thinking (awareness) Do I understand it so far? Do I need to ask a question? Am I on the right track? Am I still on task? Is there a better way? How did I do it? What method/strategy worked? What did I learn? Did my plan work out? Can I learn from my mistakes? Can I do better next time? • Control of thinking - planning - adapting - evaluating © PMB 2007

Knowledge and Control … of Thinking … of Self • Knowledge about - thinking in general - own thinking (awareness) • Commitment • Control of thinking - planning - adapting - evaluating • Attention - turning on and tuning in - skill with will • Attitude - positive © PMB 2007

What is Metacognition? ‘It is the ability of the learner to plan, monitor, redirect and evaluate how they think and learn. ’ © PMB 2007

Activity 1 Metacognition in Your Classroom If metacognition was being prompted and supported in your classroom: • What would you be doing? • What would your pupils be doing? © PMB 2007

Characteristics of the Metacognitive Classroom • • • Challenging tasks Modelling thinking Thinking diagrams Language for thinking Time to think • Thinking aloud • Sustained dialogue about thinking • Joint thinking • Making connections © PMB 2007

Strategies for Developing Metacognition Talking About Thinking • Have pupils describe what they are thinking. • Model processes by thinking aloud. • Share a common language. • Label thinking processes. • Have pairs solve problems. • Use reciprocal teaching. • Use plenaries to debrief thinking processes. © PMB 2007

Strategies for Developing Metacognition Pupil Planning and Self. Regulation • Use open-ended tasks • Involve pupils in monitoring and self-assessment. Keep a Learning Log • Use logs to reflect and record strategies, successes and difficulties. © PMB 2007

Strategies in Practice We are learning to: work together to solve problems Remember to: • explain the problem to a partner; • try to think of lots of ways to solve the problem; and • talk with others about how to record the answers. © PMB 2007

Activity 2 Using Plenaries • What do you consider to be the main purpose of a plenary? • What are the characteristics of an effective plenary? • What are the main challenges/threats to an effective plenary? • What are some solutions to these challenges/threats? © PMB 2007

Key Points • Promoting metacognition helps pupils take more control of their learning. • There a range of strategies that promote metacognition. • Planning plenary sessions is a good starting point for developing metacognition. • Plenaries are a part of the learning process: – They occur at strategic moments in the teaching sequence and not just the end. – They help make the TS&PC explicit. – They introduce and develop a common language to talk about thinking and learning. – They need to be planned and focused. © PMB 2007