Episode 234: What is Metacognition?

Ep.234.txt

Robin Potter

So welcome back to the School of School podcast. I'm here with, yes, look at the excitement. I'm here with Andy and Adam, and we've got so many exciting things to talk about. Actually, we just have one exciting thing to talk about because we've already been, this is part of our mini series. Can I call that a mini series? Woo. How are you two? How are things? Great, great. And I can tell, look, Andy, you're.

Adam Gifford

Really well.

Andy Psarianos

Fantastic.

Robin Potter

So keen to talk about, we've been talking about core competencies and which we can rehash a little bit here, but more importantly, today we're talking about metacognition. What it is, why it matters, and what do we do with it in practice. And so take it away, Andy.

Okay, take it away Adam.

Adam Gifford

You go.

Andy Psarianos

Okay, yeah, Adam, you start, you start, you start. I'm fixated on something right now. I'm fixated on this thing here. Has anybody ever seen one of these before? Yeah. We need...

Adam Gifford

I love those. Yeah.

Robin Potter

In case they can't see you, you need to explain that it's a ruler type object with... I remember that back in the day. I don't know what it was. Yeah.

Adam Gifford

Is there a rule with different scales on it? that what you call it?

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, yeah. yeah. That's right. Podcast. Anyway, fascinating. Anyway, go medic cognition.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, made for radio that ruler. So medical condition. So just to start, we've been touching on different competencies and it's probably pretty important that when we just drop them into conversation, we talk about five core competencies. And when we talk about those competencies, these are a key set of skills, a key set of learned, well, competencies that we want to empower in our learners so they're equipped, so they're ready to learn. And what we've discussed

Robin Potter

Made for radio.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, exactly.

Adam Gifford

us before is, one way of thinking about it is mathematics is the vehicle for the competencies, not sort of the other way around, is that, you know, it gives us a chance. These competencies are the key part. They're the most important part. The other sort of knowledge that we can apply within these competencies, but we're doing a really good job if we can develop these five core competencies well, and they cross boundaries. So it's not specific to maths.

these are competencies that you just take into your own subjects but into life in general so one of those and I find this one particularly fascinating is metacognition go for it

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, yeah, it is fascinating. Well, so look, you know, before we even get into that, like I just want to, I just want to talk a little bit more about a little bit more about this, this idea of competencies and why they're so important, right? Because you know, what's interesting and something that we often don't really think about too much when we're talking about competencies is that the reason they're so important is because if you're good at these things, you can figure out most other things.

Right? You can, you don't need to be explicitly taught every single little bit of you because you can't anyway. There's too much content. Right? So if, but if you can do these, these five competencies.

You can, you, you have a model, have a mental capacity to figure out the stuff you don't know or to make connections between things to solve things that are maybe a little bit complicated or multi-step or whatever. Right. And that's the whole idea because you know, the real world doesn't present itself as a bunch of really nicely written math problems. Right. It's just, can you apply the math to real world? That's really what we're trying to do. So metacognition is

really important one because metacognition metacognition is not just about none of these are just about math but but metacognition is really about regulating your own thinking right like being able to have that internal dialogue hmm am I sure how do I know is that really true right that's metacognition that's the ability to regulate whether or not your thinking is is good right

And that's a skill that not everybody... clearly some politicians have not developed all that well, right? We won't mention any names. We won't say who we're talking about. It's not a political show, but you can see it every day. You can see people is like, I think that's flawed thinking, right? And that's, you know, that's a lack of metacognition or just outright lying. One of the two, right?

Andy Psarianos

So, so there we go. So, you know, it matters. It matters. The ability to monitor, to reflect on, regulate your own thinking and learning process. That's super important, you know, and, and if you can't, if you don't have metacognition, then you can easily be led down into all kinds of misconceptions and

You know, not, you won't be able to do the other things like communicate and generalize ideas and visualize and all that kind of stuff.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting you say that because I'm just thinking as I listen to you speaking now Andy, think while the competencies.

You know, they're not necessarily hierarchical, learn them in this order, those sorts of things. I just think that the idea around metacognition and being able to, I don't know, developing that sense of this is how I learn, this is how I go about my business, those sorts of things. The people that I see that least developed in and I worry the most is the children who struggle with their maths. And we sort of kill them with kindness by, I'll do that for you, I'll do this for you, I'll do the thinking for you, in fact, I'll do the learning for you.

Andy Psarianos

No, no, no.

Andy Psarianos

Mm.

Adam Gifford

Without that being developed, you're then passive. And where do you get a chance to develop any of the other competencies that we've talked about? Because if my starting place is, I don't need to do the learning because someone else is going to do it for me.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

then without that, the others are almost impossible. As far as I'm concerned, and that's where I've seen that, you know, having the most profound effect. And one thing that we don't see is we don't see the lifelong profound effect that this can have. If you don't get a chance to think for yourself and develop this, this is what I need to do to learn. You know, and that's not, that's not all. But like I said, often it's under the guise of, but I'm just helping, I'm just being supportive. But if we don't get a chance,

Andy Psarianos

Mm-hmm.

Adam Gifford

to develop that identity as a learner. Man, we are stuck. We are in deep, deep trouble.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. Yeah.

Robin Potter

And Adam, think you've said it perfectly because struggling learners too are also, I think, afraid to speak up and ask, you know, well, why is that?

Why did you do that? they're afraid to say anything because they don't want to look like they don't know what's happening. And I think part of metacognition is being able to think, especially out loud, like, I don't understand that. I'm not sure why that's happening. And that's where struggling learners are kind of left behind because they're not actually asking the questions they need to be asking or feeling confident enough.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Robin Potter

to say it out loud, you know, thinking in their heads, but.

Andy Psarianos

That's so important, Robin. It's so important. And that's, you know, and then you get to the thing. Okay, well, how does a teacher deal with this in a classroom? And the answer is actually a lot simpler than a lot of people have had. Metacognition is, it's that, you know, modeling metacognition in the classroom is super important, right? So it's like teacher, as they're doing whatever it is they're doing in a classroom, they're saying things out loud, like, hmm, I wonder.

You know, am I, is this the best, is this the only way to solve this problem? Is there a more efficient way to solve this problem? Or I'm not sure what I should do here. That's okay. Like a teacher should say that, right? And they should say it all the time. And even if they do know how to do it, right? Because what they're doing is they're modeling.

what some of the children are thinking, right? Or more importantly, what you hope they're thinking or what they should be thinking. And by modeling that you're going, you know, you're going to, to, to, to, because children mimic.

You know, it's social learning, right? They're looking you as the more knowledgeable others, Vygotsky again, and they're going to say, well, this is how this person is dealing with this. And I, maybe I should take that same kind of strategy. I should ask or just explicate in my mind, I'm not sure. And then of course we build and we work together and we recognize what to do in those situations. But the teacher modeling, I'm not sure.

Robin Potter

Mm-hmm.

Andy Psarianos

What did you try first? Why did you go that down that road? Do you agree with my friend? Are you sure? How do you know? How do I know? I'm not sure I know. All these things. If the teacher's got to do that, they got to do it regularly and that builds by modeling that metacognitive behavior. They're building the

If the teacher says I don't know, then it must be okay for a student to say I don't know. Or if a teacher says I don't understand, yeah.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, I'm going to jump on that point. You said regularly Andy and that so like that consistency and approach because it gives license, it feeds into what Robin said that.

Like you're saying children, they want to impress us in a classroom and we set the environment. This is not like, my children don't think for themselves. And then you watch your practice and you're saying, yeah, because you're effectively saying to them, don't think for yourselves. I'm going to tell you this and I don't want you to think for yourself. And so it's no surprise. That's the outcome. And I think all of those things that you just talked about, if you do that consistently, here's today's problem over to you. I don't know how we're going to approach it over to you. And they really believe that you mean go for it. We don't know. Just go. You do what you

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

need to do to find out and you do that day in, day out, day in, day out. That role is established, right? This learning is on you. I've been to primary school. You know, I've had my go. It's your turn now. So you go for it, you know? And we have to be consistent with it because if they've had experience with a lot of us have had in primary school, which is kind of like, you don't really want to know because you're going to tell me anyway and you're going to show me and then I'm just going to have to sit back and listen and try to repeat the bait and what you said. And if I get it wrong, I'm going

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

trouble. You know, it's got to be genuine. I am handing this over to you. But, but very structured and that you know, just the last thing I'll say is sometimes that feels like I've heard teachers say, but it feels like I'm relinquishing control, it's out of control. But you've just you've just modeled seven or eight questions. But you've also modeled seven or eight questions that can that can direct traffic into I want you to think like this. I want you to do this. What did you notice that all of those questions that you just asked?

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

But it's supposed to be out of control

Adam Gifford

ensures that that as a competency has room to grow and which is you know like I said I just think it's well they're all really important I can't stress the importance of all but they're all really really important

Andy Psarianos

Right. Well, so the skill as a teacher is not, it's not like, doesn't even matter if you know the answer. And I often don't know that. Like, so when I do teacher training, I'll present a problem and I don't even know the answer. And when I make a mistake, I'll make a genuine mistake, you know, and I'm not ashamed about it. Right. And I'm not pretending to make a mistake. I'll, I'll deliberately be sloppy. And then if somebody asks me a question like, is this the best way to do it? I'll go, I don't know. What do you think? You know, like,

Adam Gifford

Hmm.

Andy Psarianos

That's the point, right? That's kind of the point. You gotta level the classroom, right? And that's really, really hard for a lot of teachers to do. But it's kind like, have no idea. I haven't even tried working out this problem yet. You've been working on it for 10 minutes, what do you think? Right? And that's how you build metacognition. But also you're creating the safety environment because it's like, well, no, no, I gave it to you. I'm expecting you to tell me what that, I don't know.

Like I legitimately don't know. and maybe I, okay, it's unlikely. I don't know what the answer is, but sometimes I don't. Some word problems can be tricky or whatever. I, I, can't be bothered. I can't be bothered to work it out. why did you do it that way? you're struggling. Okay. So now how do you scaffold? Right. Okay. Well, what can we do when we're struggling? Hmm. Can we build a model? Can we simplify the problem? Like we're going back now we're going down into George Polio stuff, right? Like, you know, how to solve it, his book, but it's kind of like that's, that's

the idea right it's like it's not for me to tell you what to do it's for me to equip you with different heuristics different ideas the the core competencies and some content knowledge now you guys because at the heart I'm a constructivist I believe you've got to construct the solution in your mind there's no point in me telling you how to do it there's no point because you won't remember anyway

and I might get it wrong. It's probably more likely I'll get it wrong than you'll get it wrong. Let's put it that way. And that's, I think that's the best way to teach. I really do. I think the teacher needs to be a bit of a buffoon.

Adam Gifford

And I think just one last thing on this that I'll say is that with all of these competencies, and I'm going to state the obvious here, but they all get better with practice. And if you don't allow time to practice and all of these things, like everything in life, you get better with more and more practice, the more time you allow to practice, the better you become.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah.

Adam Gifford

And so if we don't allow that time to practice these skills, to understand the competencies and build in that time to genuinely practice them, know, well, flip side, do build these in and they'll get better at them. And that's gonna be better for everyone across the board.

Andy Psarianos

Mm.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And don't forget how important it is to get children to regulate their own thinking and build those good habits in the classroom. You know, and like no point going to the teacher. He's not going to help us. Let's figure this out.

And that's kind of a good premise, think, in a lot of cases. Obviously, you're not gonna let anybody fall off the cliff. Everybody needs to be in that zone of proximal development. They need to be, you're not giving them stuff that they're gonna miserably fail with and get disheartened and feel hopeless, right? That would be a bad idea, yeah? You gotta have the right task. then, develop their metacognition, their ability to self-regulate, and know that they don't know.

And that they, best thing is maybe to ask somebody who does know, who sit next to them to explain it to them. That's maybe sometimes that's the best strategy, right? Often that's the best strategy.

That's when you learn. Metacognition. Can you regulate your thinking?