Teaching Metacognitive Thinking Skills

Lesson One: Introduction to Metacognition
This introductory lesson provides a broad overview of metacognition and the six sub-components of metacognitive thinking skills.

Lesson Two: Assessing Students’ Metacognitive Skills
This lesson provides a synopsis of why and how we assess students’ metacognitive thinking skills. Examples of both formal and informal methods of data collection and assessment are discussed, along with the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Lesson Three: Teaching Metacognitive Skills – What, How, and When
In exploring ‘What’ we teach, the importance of teaching all six sub-components of metacognition is emphasised. The ‘How’ of metacognitive skills instruction is a detailed explanation of evidence-based approaches to instruction, focusing on the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model. Finally, the ‘When’ of teaching metacognitive skills discusses the advantages of starting thinking skills instruction early (i.e. from the first year of school) while highlighting some potential problems teachers should be aware of with young children or inexperienced learners.

Lesson Four: Strategies and Skills
The focus of Lesson 4 is assisting teachers to develop their own approach and repertoire of strategies to suit their own teaching context.

Lesson Five: Tools for Teaching and Assessment
Two enormously helpful tools in metacognitive skills instruction are Strategy Evaluation Matrices and Rubrics. This Lesson explores how to create your own Strategy Evaluation Matrices (SEM) and rubrics for classroom use.

Lesson Six: Resources
The resources page has links to a variety of resources to assist in ongoing professional learning related to this topic. This is to allow individual teachers to select areas of personal interest for further investigation.