NSW Department of Education

Metacognition – a key to unlocking learning

Key insights and implications for teaching practice

This document aims to support the teaching of metacognition across all schooling
stages. It draws on a larger evidence guide available on the Department’s website.
This paper, and the detailed review, outline what metacognition is, teaching strategies
to support the development of metacognition in students, and the advantages this
can have for both teachers and students.
For the full report, visit: www.education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/
education-for-a-changing-world/thinking-skills/metacognition

Metacognition, commonly aware of and ultimately create learning

goals, plan ways to achieve those goals,
defined as ‘thinking about strategise how to deal with setbacks, and
thinking’, is important for monitor their learning progress.
learning Metacognition is important for all learners
Metacognition is the process of to develop at all levels of schooling. Skilful
monitoring, managing and evaluating metacognition allows a student to be
cognitive activities. Metacognitive ability constructively aware of their thought
is closely linked to motivational, social processes, and how this affects their
and behavioural factors, which are all ability to learn. Generally speaking, there
aspects that make for a self-regulated is evidence that the highest performing
learner. In effect, metacognition is students in a class are also the most
about being aware of different thinking adept metacognisers.
strategies that can be employed to By learning how to monitor their thinking,
support learning. Skilful metacognition students are able to identify strategies
involves knowing when, why and how that enable them to learn effectively and
to employ these different strategies. stop using strategies that are less effective.
Metacognitive skilfulness is developed In essence, metacognition enables
through personal experience and students to ‘learn how to learn’. Good
practice, and through explicit teacher metacognitive practice helps students
instruction, such as describing, identify which aspects of a learning task
scaffolding and modelling strategies. are causing them to get ‘stuck’. This allows
A metacognitive approach to instruction students to ask more specific questions,
is about embedding a self-reflective style and help teachers to provide support that
of thinking that enables students to be is tailored to individual student needs.

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| NSW Department of Education

What the research tells us Implications for teaching

about metacognition In the Australian Curriculum,
Metacognition can be developed during metacognition is a sub-element of the
all stages of learning. Metacognition is critical and creative thinking general
closely linked to a range of thinking skills, capability learning continuum. The
in particular critical thinking ability. There curriculum and the NSW syllabuses
is good evidence that metacognition is a provide ample opportunity to develop
predictor and facilitator of independent, students’ metacognitive skill in all
life-long learning. The evidence is subjects and levels of learning.
particularly strong when metacognition Metacognition is best developed through
is developed alongside the motivational, explicit teaching and structured practice
social and behavioural factors that of metacognitive strategies. For specific
support effective self-regulation. KLAs, effective application of some
Research points to generally positive metacognitive strategies requires students
effects on a range of learning outcomes, to have a reasonable level of content
and for different demographics of knowledge. However, many metacognitive
learners. Hattie (2018) measured the strategies can also be outlined in broad
effect size of metacognitive strategy terms. These classes of metacognitive
use as 0.6 (a moderate effect), though strategies can be applied, and potentially
specific metacognitive strategies such transferred, across different subjects.
as scaffolding (0.82) and planning (0.76) Generally, metacognitive strategies
have even stronger effects on student fall into three categories: planning,
achievement. monitoring, and evaluating thinking.
While the research base is more Planning strategies may include
developed for the teaching and learning checklists, diagrams, mnemonics, and
of literacy, science and mathematics, graphic organisers, and be aided through
there is evidence that metacognitive teacher-guided practice. Monitoring can
strategies may be useful over all key include reflecting on the progress of
learning areas (KLAs) in the curriculum. planning strategies, as well as answer-
checking. Evaluating strategies involve
The metacognitive knowledge and reflecting on the whole process, including
skill of teachers is very important for self-testing of understanding, eventually
supporting students’ metacognitive leading to independent practice.
development. Teachers who are aware
of their own metacognitive practices Embedding metacognition in the
are more successful at implementing classroom may change the way
metacognitive approaches in their teachers frame learning intentions and
classroom. success criteria, ask questions of their
students, and guide learning. Applying
a metacognitive approach to teaching
involves structuring content teaching
around metacognitive strategies that
help students monitor their learning. This
may include:

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| NSW Department of Education

Teaching
What, when, why
Habits
Ask • Asking open-ended questions to probe understanding and challenge
questions thinking. These could be directly from the teacher, or in the form of self-
questioning prompts.
• Open-ended questions could be used at any point in the lesson, be aimed
at groups or individuals, and cover a variety of themes. For instance, open-
ended questions might aim to drive student reflection, prediction or
imagination.
• Questions could be specifically about content, skills, collaboration or goals,
and aimed at surface, deep or transfer levels of understanding.
• Asking similar questions of yourself may also generate insights into your
teaching practice, for instance, “Did I encourage reflection? Have I modelled
skills through thinking aloud? Did the learning activities encourage explicit
thinking? What worked and how do I know?”

Be explicit • Explicitly planning and clearly outlining key learning intentions for lessons,
and why they are important, so that students can evaluate their current
knowledge or ability to achieve those learning intentions. This can also be
used as a time for reflection on learning intentions from previous lessons,
in order to show the broader development of knowledge and skills, and
the links between content and ideas, as well as returning to content that
may need to be revisited or reinforced.
• Describing different metacognitive strategies to students that could support
the achievement of learning intentions.
▪ For instance, describing and modelling the use of concept maps or
graphic organisers to help students map their thinking.
Plan • Emphasise the importance of planning how to approach a problem, and
ahead monitoring the progress of the plan over time.
▪ This may take the form of graphic organisers or questions that probe
initial understanding and background knowledge at the start of a task,
insights that have been gained during task performance, and reflections
at the completion of the task.
Model • Teacher modelling is ideal, but providing opportunities for students to
your witness others modelling their metacognitive practice, such as their peers,
thinking can also provide opportunities for learning.
• An example of metacognitive modelling is the think aloud approach,
where a teacher or student describes, for instance, their thoughts during
the process of changing their mind, or identifying a point in their thinking
when they got “stuck” and how they planned an approach to overcome this
challenge.

Challenge • Once students feel confident in their subject knowledge, providing

students material that challenges their ability to use that knowledge and creates
opportunities for them to self-test their metacognitive approaches to
learning and solving problems, particularly in approaching novel tasks.
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| NSW Department of Education

Teaching
What, when, why
Habits
Evaluate • Connected to planning and monitoring, evaluation may take the form of
progress summative assessment, or it may be used as a tool for reflecting on learning
progress.
• Ask students to individually and collectively reflect on learning intentions,
as well as the learning process, from previous and current lessons.
▪ This may take the form of a thinking process log-book, where students
may set goals in previous lessons and revisit them to evaluate success.
▪ It may also take the form of open-ended questions such as “What do I
think I have learned today? What are some skills I would like to learn in
the future?
• Take the opportunity to be self-reflective of your teaching practice, asking
questions that prompt your own metacognition, such as those suggested in
the ‘Ask questions’ teaching habit above.

Promote • During group work, providing opportunities for students to reflect on the
collabor- effect of collaboration on the way they think and solve problems.
ation
▪ For instance, using an ‘origami’ graphic organiser to support
collaborative discussion, and open-ended questions to allow for
reflection, such as “Are there common thoughts or themes that your
group members share? Why do you think this is so or is not so? Why is it
important to value the opinion of others?”
Keep • Providing opportunities for students to practice using different strategies, as
practicing well as providing feedback along the way.
▪ For instance, by outlining a learning intention and a range of strategies
that could be used to plan, monitor and evaluate progress.
▪ These may include creating lists or concept maps, making predictions,
or using self-questioning techniques.
Regularly • There are different approaches to assessing metacognitive knowledge and
check in metacognitive skills.
• Metacognitive knowledge is often assessed through self-report or teacher-
reported inventories.
• There is growing consensus that the most accurate way to measure
metacognitive skills is during task performance in natural environments.
▪ There are a wide range of metacognitive skills assessments available
to suit different purposes, including observational approaches and the
think aloud protocol, where students verbalise their thoughts as they
complete the task.
▪ As with all assessments, selecting the right type will depend on the
student, subject and purpose.

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| NSW Department of Education

Conclusion Education for a Changing World

Creating metacognitive learning The NSW Department of Education is
committed to preparing young people
environments is as important for
for rewarding lives as engaged citizens in
teachers as it is for students. Through
a complex and dynamic society. Key to
developing awareness and skill as this purpose is creating opportunities for
reflective thinkers, teaching and learning students to develop a strong foundation
practices can improve. Metacognition in literacy and numeracy, deep content
is an inherently social practice; we can knowledge, and to be engaged and
learn and understand a lot about our challenged in their learning.
own thinking by engaging with the
This practical guide to metacognition and
thought process of others, on a journey its related evidence review are part of the
to improving our metacognition and Department’s Education for a Changing
becoming life-long learners. World project. For more information and
resources please visit our website: https://
education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-
learning/education-for-a-changing-world

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