Definition: Metacognitive learning is the reflective process of thinking about one's own thinking, understanding, and learning strategies. Learners who have mastered the skills of self-questioning and self-thinking actively engage in assessing their own learning processes to enhance understanding and improve overall cognitive abilities.

While googling the topic, I came across a podcast, The Metacognition Channel, hosted by Greg Thomas (Thomas, 2021). Greg used the work of Anna Sfard to elucidate the idea of metacognition: “Thinking is an individualized version of communication (p. 81); the type of human doing that emerges when individuals become capable of communicating with themselves the way they communicate with others” (p. 91); “this self-communication does not have to be in any way audible or visible and does not have to be in words” (p. 82). (Sfard, 2008) The way she explains the notion is incredibly concise and readily comprehensible.

Greg explains the concept of Metacognition on the podcast, “Most of our thinking is automatic and we are not aware of our thinking we are engaging in. That makes it hard, for people to become metacognitive, they need to make their thinking an object of their own reflection.” “Metacognition is one’s knowledge, control, and awareness of how one intra-personally communicates. And, if we consider that one often needs to think when one learns, and that there are thinking strategies that individuals can be explicitly taught and learn to help them learn and understand subject material and topics within and across subject areas, then developing and enhancing students’ learning processes becomes about, among other things of course, explicitly teaching them about how they can communicate with themselves about how to engage and interact with the material in its various forms they are being asked to learn and understand.” (Thomas, 2021)

Example in practice: The skill to efficiently locate trustworthy information will empower students to discern and distinguish the essential from the irrelevant, thereby gaining awareness about the unfolding events in their surroundings. Those who consume knowledge need to transition from passively accepting inadequately researched, inaccurately verified, or confusingly presented content churned out by mainstream media sources, and instead evolve into proactive, discerning evaluators of information.

This transformation is facilitated by metacognitive learning, which encompasses multifaceted approaches including contemplating concepts, evaluating applications, goals alignment, reflecting on the learning process, and engaging in peer reviews and feedback.

The significance of metacognition lies in its role in cultivating deeper understanding, enhancing cognitive abilities, and fostering effective learning strategies. The impact of technology, and rapid spread of access to the internet has had a vast and irrefutable effect on learners. The future increasingly depends on students' ability to interface with new literacies such as multimedia and new types of thinking (Trimbur, Cope, and Kalantzis 2000, 3). Access to information, and more interestingly the amount of media encountered in our daily lives, has turned a steady stream of information into a thrashing torrent of data, facts, and figures that surrounds and subsumes society. Hence, it is more important than ever to develop the skills that will allow our students, our future, to be critical consumers of data (Paul and Elder 2007, 36). Being a critical consumer means being able to sift what is valuable, from what is supposition and bias.(Soleas, 2015)

References and Suggestions for Further Reading:

Thomas, Gregory P (2021). A perspective on ‘thinking’ (and why it is important for metacognition) https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-5caw-bb65 podcast: https://metacognition.podbean.com

Sfard, A, (2008). Thinking as communicating: Human development, the growth of discourses, and mathematizing. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Eleftherios Kyprianos Soleas (2015). Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal Volume 8, Issue 4, 2015, www.techandsoc.com, ISSN 1835-9795

Williamson, R. A. (1996). Self-Questioning — An Aid to Metacognition. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 37 (1). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol37/iss1/3/