Prof Ed 6

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PROF ED 6

Metacognition and Metacognitive Knowledge

OBJECTIVES
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
 explain the meaning of metacognition and metacognitive knowledge;
 determine metacognitive knowledge required in a specific competency; and
 apply concepts learned in assessing your work and other's output.

THINK

Definition of Metacognition
The term metacognition is attributed to Flavell. He described it as "knowledge
concerning one's cognitive processes and products or anything related to them, e.g., the
learning-relevant properties of information and data." Furthermore, he referred to it as "the
active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes concerning
the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, us in the service of some concrete goal or
objective" (Flavell, 1976). Simply stated, metacognition "knowledge and cognition about
cognitive phenomena" (Flavell, 1979). The meaning metamorphosed into "thinking about
thinking." "knowing about knowing." and "cognition about cognition."

Components of Metacognition
The elements of metacognition are metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive
regulation (Flavel 2004). These two elements are interrelated; the presence of the first one
enhances the second element.
Metacognitive knowledge (also called knowledge of cognition) refers to "what
individuals knows about their cognition or cognition in general" (Schraw, 2002). It involves
three kinds of metacognitive awareness, namely: declarative knowledge, procedural
knowledge, and conditional knowledge. See Figure 1).

Declarative knowledge or personal knowledge is the learner's knowledge about


things. It also refers to the learner's understanding of own abilities, and the knowledge about
oneself as a learner and of the factors that moderate one's performance. This type of
knowledge is not always accurate as the learner's evaluation of his or her capabilities may be
unreliable. For instance, that Manila is the capital of the Philippines and that oases is the
plural form of oasis are examples of declarative knowledge. That a learner has limited
information as to the semantic rules is also a declarative knowledge.
Procedural knowledge or task knowledge involves the knowledge of how to do
things and how skills or competencies are executed. The assessment on the learner's task
knowledge includes what knowledge is needed (content) and the space available to
communicate what is known (length). A learner given a problem-solving task, for instance,
knows that prerequisite information and prior skills are necessary to be recalled and readily
executed at the given time to solve the problem. Such knowledge gives confidence in working
with the problem.

Conditional knowledge or strategy knowledge refers to the ability to know when


and why various cognitive acts should be applied. It involves using strategies to learn
information (knowing how to know) as well as adapting them to novel contexts (knowing
when a strategy is appropriate). This knowledge is evident in a learner who seeks the help of a
school nurse to make a report on the communicable diseases prevalent in the community as
well as this learner's knowledge that the best way to gather the information is to interview a
nurse and to go over the health records of the Municipal Health Office of the town.

Metacognitive knowledge is the result of an individual's metacognitive experiences.


Flavell (1979) explained them as experiences that "an individual has through which
knowledge is attained, or through regulation occurs." A learner who obtained low scores in
knowledge and skills test becomes aware that he or she has low declarative and procedural
knowledge. In contrast, a learner who has always scored highest in both the content and skills
tests has strong confidence in his adequacy of knowledge in the subject.

Similarly, metacognitive knowledge depends so much on the learner's metamemory, the


knowledge of what memory is, how it works, and how to remember things. Through
instruction and individual effort, metamemory develops over time, For instance, learners who
have been taught how to organize information and use rehearsal strategies have richer
metamemory. They can retrieve declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge when
required by the task.

EXPERIENCE
Metacognitive thinking among learners provides avenues for them to learn more. Two
aspects of metacognitive instruction is content knowledge (concepts, facts, procedures) and
strategic knowledge (heuristic, metacognitive, learning). It is essential that to think through a
process, learners must have the content knowledge to think about something. One also needs
to have a heuristic (shortcut) or algorithm (formula) to follow in developing the skill (Medina
et al., 2017). Instruction should have a content component and direct instruction on how to
work through a process.

Another consideration is the potential of cooperative learning in teaching


metacognition. Engaging learners in collaborative discussion of the learning task enables
them to enhance their learning. During the discussion, learners think about their way of
thinking and their reflection after the lesson demonstrates a metacognitive way of thinking.
The learners identify the main components of the learning strategy and realize how the
strategy helps them to learn (Eldar et al., 2012). Collaborative teaching strategies are,
therefore, useful tools to enhance learners' reflective thinking.

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