Metacognition & Self-regulated learning*

Self-regulated learning is the conscious planning, monitoring, evaluation, and ultimately control of one’s learning in order to maximize it. It’s an ordered process that experts and seasoned learners like us practice automatically. It means being mindful, intentional, reflective, introspective, self-aware, self-controlled, and self-disciplined about learning, and it leads to becoming self-directed.

Self-regulated learning has a strong positive impact on student achievement. Just the cognitive facet of it, metacognition, has an effect that’s almost as large as teacher clarity, getting feedback, and spaced practice and even larger than mastery learning, cooperative learning, time on task, and computer-assisted instruction.

Self-regulated learning also has meta-emotional and environmental dimensions, which involve asking oneself questions like these:

• How motivated am I to do the learning task, and how can I increase my motivation if I need to?

• If my confidence in my ability to learn this material sags, how can I increase it without becoming overconfident?

• Am I resisting material that is challenging my preconceptions?

• How am I reacting to my evaluation of my learning?

• How can I create the best, most distraction-free physical environment for the task?

Metacognitive questions include these:

• What is the best way to go about this task?

• How well are my learning strategies working? What changes should I make, if any?

• What am I still having trouble understanding?

• What can I recall and what should I review?

• How does this material relate to other things I’ve learned or experienced?

Asking oneself these questions also constitutes elaborative rehearsal, which is the thinking process that moves new knowledge into long-term memory.

Let’s consider a few proven self-regulated learning activities and assignments:

• Answer two or three reflective questions on the reading or podcast.

• Write about what you learned by doing an assignment.

• Re-do the same or similar problems to the ones you miss on your homework and exams and explain the proper procedure.

• Describe your reasoning process in solving a “fuzzy” problem – how you defined the problem, decided which principles and concepts to apply, developed alternative approaches and solutions, and assessed their feasibility, trade-offs, and relative worth.

• Reflect on a graded exam by answering questions like these:

  • How to you feel about your grade? Were you surprised?

  • How did you study for the exam? Did you study enough?

  • Why did you lose points? Any patterns?

  • What will you do differently to prepare for the next exam?

Source: Nilson, Linda B., PhD. The Secret of Self-Regulated Learning. Faculty Focus. June 16, 2014