Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour. Roll up - and that's an invitation (The Beatles)

Photo by Redd on Unsplash

Over the years, I've heard quite a lot of rhetoric around metacognition and the 'Learning To Learn' phrase.

Sometimes the detail is missing from that rhetoric. And sometimes metacognition is made to sound more complicated than it really is.

Basically, we are talking about a skill that considers how you know what you know.

There are some simple questions you can ask yourself:

• Do I really get this idea? 
• Could I explain it to a friend? 
• What are my goals? 
• Do I need more background knowledge? 
• Do I need more practice?

Students come unstuck when they don’t stop to ask themselves if they really get a skill or concept. 

I know I was particularly bereft of this skill as a student - particularly in mathematics and chemistry - subjects I definitely did not 'get'. Instead of asking those questions and slowing down my processes I moved on quickly to the next thing I didn't get. Teachers need to shoulder some blame here as well - rather than assist in the process, they are often keen to move on to the next piece of content, leaving some behind to flounder.

The good news? Everyone can ask those questions and change their thinking. As teachers, thinking about thinking is something we can model and teach. And move away from a content driven approach.