Key Concepts Of Metacognition

One of the most important concepts I would like to impart to you the student is metacognition. Metacognition is term that means awareness of your thoughts or thinking about how you think. It has been discussed that there are two categories a student can fall into when it comes to their approach to learning. The first approach to learning is based on achieving performance goals. It has been said that students who strive to achieve performance goals believe that knowledge is an inherent talent that is finite and unchangeable (Dweck, Mangels, & Good, 2004). This theory of intelligence is called entity theory and it can be a hindrance to learning by luring students into the trap of accepting poor performance and thinking that the results are a …show more content…
You need the proper tools in order to put yourself in a position to succeed. Always try to have a plan. We all are susceptible to panic and anxiety. No one does well under these conditions because it clouds your mind and distracts you from your task of studying and when it is time test taking. You can reduce a lot of panic and anxiety by preparing ahead of time. This is called reducing your cognitive load. Cognitive load has to do with about how much information you can process at a time before you reach the limit of what you can handle (Weinstein, 2015). If you can lay out a plan of attack for the material you are about to study you can spend less of your mind’s resources worrying or thinking about “how do I study or learn this information?” and more resources on reading and comprehending the subject you are studying. For the Cycle Method you will need the normal materials you would use for any class. Make sure to have a large enough notebook to jot down what you will be learning and most importantly what you have difficulty understanding as you read. Plenty of pens or pencils are good to keep close by. It won’t help your efficiency in learning by wasting time searching through your house for a pen that works. The last recommended material is familiar but not always used in studying, flash cards. Flash cards will be an important component of the Cycle Method. You will need this to practice retrieving from your memory what you’ve …show more content…
Now that you have a good base of knowledge of all the material you can make your flash cards using the key terms you took note of. One suggestion is to write the number of the week’s material at the top of the card so that later when you review all of your flash cards you know what week to go back to for review if you are having trouble with a flash card topic. When designing your flash cards make sure to keep in mind the concept of self-generation. Studies have shown that if you provide yourself a clue to a topic and then rely on your memory to generate the rest of the topic you will learn the material at a deeper level and that this will help you to retain what you have learned so that later when you need to go back and retrieve it you will be able to do so (Slamecka & Graf, 1978)). A simple example of using the self-generation technique would be writing the key term on the front of the flash card and the definition on the back. When looking at the term try to define it and then assess how you did by reviewing the answer on the back of the card. You can even do this in reverse and read the explanation and then try to self-generate the key topic by name. This seems a simple method but it will give you opportunity to practice testing yourself. For each card you get correct remove it from the stack of that week’s cards. When you miss a card move it to the back of the deck. Cycle through the deck until you have correctly answered every