Designing Metacognitive Activities

Designing metacognitive activities that focus on both cognitive and social development is a theoretical and practical challenge. This balanced approach to metacognition concerns itself with many aspects of student development, ranging from academic competence to knowledge about the self-as-learner. In this article, I examine two basic approaches to supporting metacognition: (a) strategy training and (b) creation of a supportive social environment for metacognition. There are also two kinds of content that are taught using these two approaches: (a) knowledge about a specific domain and (b) knowledge about the self-as-learner. These approaches and contents have been used frequently in metacognitive interventions over the past two decades. Each offers unique contributions to metacognitive development. However, programs that address these approaches and contents simultaneously are rare. Maintaining the coordination, on one hand, between strategy training and creating social supports, and on the other hand, between knowledge about the subject domain and knowledge about the self-as-learner, is a challenge for most design efforts in metacognition. Future design issues include: (a) developing a system approach to promote coordination among these approaches and contents; and (b) finding ways to build knowledge about the self-as-learner. Some 20 years ago, Ann Brown and John Flavell introduced the concept of “metacognition” to the American research literature (Brown, 1975; 1978; 1987; Flavell, 1976; 1979; 1982). Their early studies involved controlled laboratory experiments that showed that young children could be helped to improve their own memory performances when researchers helped them think about the tasks they faced and possible strategies they might use (e.g., Brown, 1975; 1987; Flavell, 1976; 1987). Since that time the research literature on metacognition has flourished, and it has moved from a context that is primarily laboratory based to one that also involves the creation of social support in classroom environments that foster metacognitive reflection (e.g., Brown, 1997; Brown & Campione, 1996; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996; Vye, Schwartz, Bransford, Barron, & Zech 1998; White & Frederiksen, 1998).