The role of metacognitive knowledge in learning, teaching, and assessing

Theory Into Practice, Autumn, 2002 by Paul R. Pintrich

Having said this, it is not our expectation that teachers would teach for metacognitive knowledge in separate courses or separate units, although this can certainly be done (see Hofer et al., 1998; Pintrich et al., 1987). It is more important that metacognitive knowledge is embedded within the usual content-driven lessons in different subject areas. General strategies for thinking and problem solving can be taught in the context of English, mathematics, science, social studies, art, music, and physical education courses. Science teachers, for example, can teach general scientific methods and procedures, but learning will likely be more effective when it is tied to specific science content, not taught in the abstract. Of course, in some skill areas, such as reading or writing, the teaching of metacognitive knowledge about different general strategies for reading comprehension or writing is both acceptable and desirable.

The key is that teachers plan to include some goals for teaching metacognitive knowledge in their regular unit planning, and then actually try to teach and assess for the use of this type of knowledge as they teach other content knowledge. One of the most important aspects of teaching for metacognitive knowledge is the explicit labeling of it for students. For example, during a lesson, the teacher can note occasions when metacognitive knowledge comes up, such as in a reading group discussion of the different strategies students use to read a section of a story. This explicit labeling and discussion helps students connect the strategies (and their names/labels) to other knowledge they may already have about strategies and reading. In addition, making the discussion of metacognitive knowledge part of the everyday discourse of the classroom helps foster a language for students to talk about their own cognition and learning. The shared language and discourse about cognition and learning among peers and between students and teacher helps students become more aware of their own metacognitive knowledge as well as their own strategies for learning and thinking. As they hear and see how their classmates approach a task, they can compare their own strategies with their classmates' and make judgments about the relative utility of different strategies. This type of discourse and discussion helps makes cognition and learning more explicit and less opaque to students, rather than being something that happens mysteriously or that some students "get" and learn and others struggle and don't learn.

In addition to the development of a classroom discourse around metacognitive knowledge, another important instructional strategy is the modeling of strategies, accompanied by an explanation of them. For example, as the teacher is solving a problem for the class, he might talk aloud about his own cognitive processes as he works through the problem. This provides a model for students, showing them how they use strategies in solving real problems. In addition, the teacher also might discuss why he is using this particular strategy for this specific problem, thereby also engaging students in issues concerning the conditional knowledge that governs when and why to use different strategies. As experts in their field, teachers have all kinds of implicit knowledge about strategies and when and why they are appropriate to use; however, students often lack the means to gain access to this knowledge. If the knowledge is never shared through discussion, modeling, or explicit instruction, it is difficult for students to learn.