← Back to articles My teaching and metacognition Carolanne Tremblay , Wednesday, November 15 2017

In my class, I always opted for project-based instruction because it allowed my students to develop a variety of skills, abilities and learning processes while remaining active in the process. However, I always found it difficult to evaluate their learning using this type of approach. Metacognition enabled me to better evaluate my students and guide their understanding and personal development. It also allowed me to have a dialogue with students about thought processes.

What is metacognition?

Metacognition involves knowing your personal learning style and being capable of reflecting upon your mental processes as a learner. Specifically, it relates to the acquisition, maintenance and modification of knowledge. Metacognition helps students pay attention to their thought processes, target difficulties, identify the resources at their disposal and understand the questions they need to ask themselves in order to move forward.

Metacognition is ultimately about learning how to learn. That is the foundation of our jobs as educators. If students want to acquire knowledge and skills, they're going to have to understand how they learn. Metacognition is difficult to acquire on one's own. Young people need a significant adult presence to guide them toward a better understanding of how they learn; that is, how they retain, process, understand and use information. It also involves finding the methods that work for the student.

Metacognition in the classroom

In my classroom, I used metacognition every day by continually checking in with students about their mental processes. In addition, I got them to do regular self-assessments to help them learn to evaluate their own work. I also asked them to write compositions based on goals I set for them beforehand, in accordance with their personal strengths and challenges. When made presentations about more difficult topics, I made sure to “speak” my thoughts out loud so they could understand the questions I asked of myself throughout the presentation.

Caring technology for metacognitive feedback

However, this continuous questioning was a lot of work. As you know, I recently left teaching to join a team of former educational workers (teachers, remedial tutors, psychologists, psychoeducators, etc.) who are motivated to change the world of education. One of the tools we're working on is a metacognitive feedback system, offered continuously and in real time to students through our ISA_ artificial intelligence system.

This feedback allows students to reflect on their learning methods, the difficulties they encounter and the solutions at their disposal, similar to what I used to do on a daily basis with my own students. This solution eases the burden on educators. With anywhere between 25 and 150 students under their responsibility, they may find it difficult to have an effective metacognitive interaction with each individual student. The caring artificial intelligence solution we've developed enables every student to discover the best method for improving their metacognition, on a continuous basis and throughout their school career. In short, the solution supports educators and helps ease their cognitive overload. Metacognitive feedback becomes your personal teaching assistant, interacting with each student on a personal level with the aim of keeping kids in school.