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

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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.

Did this meeting of our minds together, ooh, happen just today, some way? (Chicago)

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A phrase that has long been adopted by OneSchool Global, is 'Learning To Learn'.

It's a key attribute to have for life. In a way it symbolises all of those soft skills that are so important post compulsory schooling. 

Employers are not necessarily interested in what you did in a Year 11 mathematics assessment, but they do want you to be adaptable, use your initiative, have integrity, problem solve and ask questions.

Neil Postman says this in his seminal work, Teaching As A Subversive Activity, on the value of questions: 

"Once you have learned to ask questions – relevant and appropriate and substantial questions – you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know." 

Learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think

 

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Writer David Foster Wallace on the importance of controlling your attention:

"Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about "teaching you how to think" is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."

Source: This is Water (courtesy of James Clear)

Baby, you've been on my mind (Linda Ronstadt)

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Meta cognition, a.k.a. learning to learn, has been on my mind this week. 

Incidentally, it's our school motto and features on our gate. So I see it every morning as I arrive at school. That constant reinforcement is pretty cool.

Why is it our motto? Well, because when students are aware of their thoughts and actions it makes them move in a positive and focused direction.

My students have set their own learning goals which they own. I check their commitment to them and they ditch them if they are not totally committed.

From then on it's a pathway to success through hard work and persistent effort coupled with thinking about what they are doing. That in turn feeds the belief that they can succeed.

The real trick I am keen to see develop more is students maintaining their focus in the learning centre when other students go off task. Because of the learning centre lay out with its variety of study locations, it does happen more and more that meta cognitive students realise they have no control of that other student but they can maintain their own focus.

I had an interesting conversation with a student yesterday who was wanting to know how he could gain enrichment (a great scheme by which self-directed learners can work from home one day a week). I explained that he needed to do just as I've outlined above - divorce himself from a tight group of other boys who distract him and focus on his own learning.

He listened carefully and nodded his understanding. Now I need to see him do it. If he does, and I think he will, he will have grown as a self-directed learner and be able to pursue a more positive path.