Metacognitive Strategies

     Metacognition is basically thinking about your thinking process. It is planning how to learn, monitoring how well the strategy is working for you, and modifying it or using another strategy if necessary. All cognitive learning strategies can be used in a metacognitive fashion. In fact, they almost always are used that way. You read in different manners depending on the type of reading that you are doing.

     When reading a novel, you probably read quickly. When reading a textbook rich in factual information, you will read more carefully and slowly. You might decide to take notes, underline, highlight, summarize what you've read, read a short passage then see if you remember what was in the passage before moving on in the chapter, or you might use another cognitive strategy to help you learn the material.

     Metacognition is simply the process of determining what you will do to learn the material, then doing it while monitoring your progress.

     For those of use who remember the seventies, the concept of biorhythms is familiar. At certain times of the day, you will be better able to concentrate and remember what you study. Some of you are morning people and some of us are afternoon or late night people. Choosing to study at the most useful time of day is a metacognitive strategy. It depends on your knowledge of your study skills and your attention span at different times of the day.

Objective:

• Define metacognition
  
• Discuss the major components of metacognition are knowledge and regulation
  
• Explore the different kinds of knowledge structure
  
• Apply different metacognitive strategies to instructional design