Metacognition

Project Description
Assessment for Learning is perhaps one of the few things that all teachers agree upon both pedagogically and politically. Not all teachers can spell Dylan Wiliam’s name though, let alone actually read the original material. Actually understanding the conceptual framework of a subject is remarkably challenging: discerning ideas and connections can be impossibly ambitious. Asking someone to tick a rubric or rate their perception of their learning is much more doable.
Here you will see some of my MA reviews of metacognition, and my promotion of teaching students to gain the sense of the right time to use subject-specific strategies.

Essay Scenarios – Practice in Elite Sport Transferred to the English classroom
I think the thing with metacognition is for students to move beyond listing subject-specific strategies (which isn’t that tricky), and instead to actually conceptualise what they might mean. Writing is an idiosyncratic process so what works once may not work again (at least for a while…). It is also a fairly tacit process, so just articulating a strategy again is not necessarily helpful.

Metacognition – Guiding students to sense the right time to use strategies
My training for staff at the start of this year focuses on making screencasts. You can see a video summary of the training below. It aims to frame screencasting exemplars as a useful stimulus to stimulating metacognition practice. Following my study on metacognition,...

Whole-School Metacognition CPD: Evidence-Based Practice
My first module in my MA was on metacognition. As with many things I took it far too earnestly and read the field of metacognition. The result was a whole-school CPD on metacognition delivered as a carousel activity. Of course, by metacognition we mean assessment for...

Six Points about Developing Metacognition from Ofsted
Very interesting to see this summary of Ofsted's Research Team into metacogntion (thanks Kristian Still). Highlights are: Metacognition is not a generic skill so applying generic learning verbs across different disciplines cannot work Metacognition is now about...

Exemplar Unseen Poetry Response AQA: The Mother by Liz Lockhead
Again, all very quick but serves to demonstrate how to analyse an unseen poem.

Much Ado About Nothing: A screencast demonstrating the analysis of connotation and then stagecraft in real-time.
A screencast demonstrating the analysis of connotation and then stagecraft in real-time.

How does metacognition benefit learners and learning in English and what are the implications for learning in an international school?
How does metacognition benefit learners and learning in English and what are the implications for learning in an international school? Part 1: In what ways has metacognition been defined? “An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates, from Plato's...

Offering verbal feedback (via OneNote) makes students actually think
This term, using OneNote, I have responded to students' essays using both verbal and written feedback. It has worked well. The process is: 1) Students paste their essay on a OneNote page. 2) They then copy and paste on the right of that essay a repeat essay. 3)...

One day, will we look back at smartphones with the same horror as ubiquitous cigarettes?
I read a tremendous article today that questions the healthiness of our smartphone culture? Powered by the desire to track our habits and mind in order to create analytics to sell on to people that can money, smartphones change our brainstructures. And sometimes for...

Metacognition
Metacognition