Reflective Essay: The Idea Of Metacognition

Metacognition is a big word that can be broken down into two simple pieces; meta, which means “to think about”, and cognition, which means “one’s own thinking”. This fact was explained to my class on the first day of T&L 301. However, before this was explained, we had begun our metacognitive journey. A week before we had started the class, we were asked to think about what we thought was development and bring in a picture that visualized our thought processes. After that first day, we then went on to create various mind maps. Mind maps forced us to visualize and condense their thinking into a simple to navigate and read image. Through discussions and class activities, our knowledge about development has grown, altered and adapted to match the new knowledge we’ve learned.
According to the National Research Council (2000), “…“metacognition” [is] the ability to monitor one’s current level of understanding and decide when it is not adequate” (p. 47). While Sprenger (2005) states, “knowing how and why we think the way we do is metacognition, which leads to applying thinking skills in new situations” (p. 58). You use metacognition when you have an awareness that you usually forget names, then with this awareness, you try to think of strategies you …show more content…
18). This means that every student will hold themselves more accountable for their studying and their grades. If they can critically look at their work and their progress they will be able to decide whether they need to speak to the teacher about getting more clarification before a disastrous report card goes home. Not only will it help them improve in the classroom, these skills can then be applied in future endeavors, creating successful adults with successful careers (National Research Council, 2000 p.