Metacognition at school

Metacognition (thinking about thinking) is an important skill that can also help us become more successful in the classroom. Through the use of metacognitive strategies, we are able to gain insight into the different cognitive processes and develop better strategies for tackling difficult tasks or assignments.

By monitoring and assessing performance while engaged in a task, you can become more aware of the strategies you are using and how they can be improved upon. Additionally, regulating and controlling cognitive strategies when faced with new information, or challenging tasks, helps you to stay focused on the task at hand and adjust your approach for future success.

Furthermore, setting goals for and breaking down tasks into smaller manageable components, like chunks, helps to manage valuable time and resources more effectively. Self-evaluating our performance after completing a task or assignment, helps to identify areas of improvement that could be made in the future. All these skills can help improve academic performance and overall success in the classroom.

From a biological perspective, metacognition can be understood as a higher-order cognitive process that involves the monitoring and regulation of one’s own thinking activities. Neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin also play a role in metacognition. Dopamine, known for its role in reward and motivation, has been linked to metacognitive awareness and self-evaluation. Serotonin influences information processing and cognitive flexibility, which are important for metacognitive regulation.

The brain plays a central role in thinking and metacognition, as it organises various cognitive processes and functions that contribute to self-awareness and self-reflection. The roles of such neurotransmitters are important in the feeling of flow we get when things are going well. Further, the more we build the pathways in our brains with repetitive thought processes, the stronger they become, just in the same way we build our muscles. This can work in positive and negative ways of course, which is why it is important that the more awareness of how we create thought patterns, the more we can build better thinking.

^{Build better thinking …}