Mastering Metacognition: The What, Why, and How
activelylearn.com
activelylearn.com
I work in the field of second-language education. While the motivation provided by teachers and schools is useful, most adults need to dedicate years of study outside the classroom to become really proficient in a second language—especially if it is a foreign language that they do not use in daily life. Probably the biggest reason most people do not become as proficient as they would like in foreign languages is that they are unable to keep themselves motivated enough to continue studying. Better awareness of own’s own motivations can help.
Fun Fact! Metacognition is how my brain works!
This post might sound a bit mean, but it's not deliberate!
> add one more item to the list of important elements of metacognition: awareness of one’s own motivation to study and learn.
All of the items on the list are about awareness.
> Understanding what one already knows about a topic
Awareness of ones knowledge
> Figuring out what one wants to know about a topic
Awareness of the holes in ones knowledge
> Realizing what one has learned in the course of a lesson
Awareness of the new input
> Monitoring one’s understanding during the course of an activity
Awareness of the knowledge itself.
> Choosing which learning strategies to employ and when Evaluating whether a particular learning strategy was successful in a given circumstance
Awareness of your improvements.
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It's all about awareness. Awareness (as a function of the brain enabling its user to encompass everything of the currently given context, all at once) is the fundamental requirement, because otherwise the "metacognition" isn't actually "meta". At all.
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Anyhow, that last one should actually be mentioned with a footnote in the article. Ironically it would be a usefull motivator.
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At some point one does not require evaluation anymore. At some point it all becomes so ingrained that everything happens automatically, because you've gained so much experience in learning and self-improvement, that there is no need for active evaluation of best ways.
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At some point it just works. Just like everything else one learns. Learning is super simple once you "get it".
This whole article is how my brain works. lol
Anyhow! I digress! I haven't slept much! :D
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You're not wrong stating that one needs to be aware of his motivation. An ever improving degree of self awareness is, in general, beneficial. I write "in general", because specifically it can be a giant pain in the ass, especially when it gets excessive, but I digress yet again!
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Because you mention motivation, I want to point out something important:
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People are too dependent on motivation. It is actually a problem. Motivation is not a requirement, at all. Motivation is a dependence on an external factor. Unbeknownst to the vast majority of people, one should not rely on motivation! At all!
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Yet, of course, when peoples whole existence is centered around external factors driving their behaviour (ads, clickbait, fearmongering news, reward-addiction-based games, etcetc), that's pretty much all they ever get to know, with actually serious consequences for their individual personal development and society as a whole.
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I mean ... understand this: People's behaviour depends on something triggering an emotional cascade, motivation, driving people forward. It's like running on instincts:
The feeling of sexual desire increases to a point at which one "decides" to dress up, go out and get laid.
I don't need to explain that.
The "decision", of course, never was one. The "decision" is an illusion based on a lack of self awareness. Simply "feeling the desire" is not "self awareness".
The only possible, potentially involved decision, would be the one disagreeing with the motivation, meaning not dressing up, not going out and not getting laid.
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The process of getting laid, when one desires to do so is very sophisticated Automaticity, where the lack of self awareness makes people believe that they want to get laid, therefore also want to dress up and go out.
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Remember how, above, I wrote "specifically"? The above happens once you grow awareness to a point where you have to learn to accept that resisting your genetic programming (your natural behaviour) is actually a really bad idea.
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Being dependent on external factors is a really bad idea. We all know what happens when we're either oversaturated, or lacking such factors.
So what should it be, then?
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Willpower and Discipline.
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No dependence on external factors. At all. It all comes from within, driven by your own will. The only actual problem with this, is that the whole system we live in nowadays is actively preventing people from having any willpower at all. At all.
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And now someone is going to mention that "discipline" is a product of "willpower" and that mentioning it is kind of redundant, yet ...
... you can't have discipline without willpower, but you can have willpower without the discipline required to not fuck up your life.
To add to the article from my personal research, one of the most powerful activities I've implemented thus far in my intellectual and work life are reflection journals. This basically entails taking a moment after producing a piece of work to analyze its quality and extract lessons from it. I honestly think it is a super power.
I discovered the process through learning about effective study. Medical education is a treasure trove of this type of research, for example, the use of mnemonic images a la Sketchy.com. There's also a large body of work on reflection, specifically in nursing. I've found a lot of those lessons to be generalizable and immediately applicable to my work as a programmer and in my art, learning and music.
For more info, the wiki page is great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_practice
More in line with the article in question, here's MIT's Teaching + Learning Labs articles on metacognition and self-regulation, which I was coincidentally studying two days ago: https://tll.mit.edu/teaching-resources/how-people-learn/
Finally, I'll share an Observable notebook with the simple template I use for my reflective practice: https://observablehq.com/@iz/reflection
I gave a talk a few years ago on how people learn: https://ted.dev/learntalks
This is such a fundamental point. School should be teaching you processes of learning as well as knowledge. The problem is that the poor treatment of educators results in a reversion to the minimum. If you were taught 'acquiring as many facts/much knowledge as possible is learning' then you aren't going to see/understand this as you teach.
Teachers cannot really teach something they don't understand (general statement but...largely true). The reality is that most of what you think about learning and knowledge is embedded very very early. It is also, sadly, largely driven by social class in the US. The broad term is 'hidden curriculum' and much of the work started with Jean Anyon[0]. Much of the teacher workforce comes from working class and middle class schools. Below that, you don't go to college. Above that, you have economically more successful opportunities. Those are not schools that teach a fundamental approach to learning where the process or metacognition is part of the mindset imputed as part of basic learning.
[0] https://www1.udel.edu/educ/whitson/897s05/files/hiddencurric...
In my life, I have been lucky to have a sticky brain, which has gotten me through for a long time. The problem is that I cannot pinpoint any significant moment in my education where some tactic or teaching influenced the way I study. I remember lectures about Cornell notes and other strategies, but I never needed them, and then once educational challenges became too great for me to handle with my habits, that's when I REALLY needed them. I've taken the project to heart and prioritize my exploration and implementation of better learning strategies. It took me years.
It's like, the world of knowledge is a huge cavern, and I adjusted and mastered navigating by touch. Once I reached a larger opening, the cave was much too large to navigate in the same way, and I found myself stuck many times. If only I had realized that by opening my eyes I would have noticed the torches lining the walls above my head. I think I would have been able to contribute much more in the time I've been around so far.
I don't feel sorry for myself. I live a good life. I have taken responsibility for my own advancement and learning. I empathize with others who struggle with what I've struggled (and continue to contend with) in terms of learning methodology. I hope that throwing my little anecdote into the mix counts as a drop in the bucket.
The problem, and the reason for the focus, is that the sociological and the philosophical are highly correlated in education. The philosophical questions - and bringing them through from concept to practice to evaluating are hard.
You got to the edge of the cave and wanted to look around...it took you a while to notice the torches but you navigated by touch. Most people don't. They are trained out of it.
It is especially hard on the 'smart' kids (I deal with them...they are a mess). So often they are asking questions beyond what their teachers in K-12 know and can answer and it creates a void. Depending on how its handled by everyone in their adult community it can either be 'stop asking questions just get the answers right [the answers I got from the teachers texbook]' which just amplifies extrinsic motivation as the dominant mode of action and validation or it can be 'I don't know and thats amazing lets find out'.
When my partner and I started planning for kids, we talked about schools. She was surprised that I was at all pro private school, and even more surprised that I placed greater value on private school earlier rather than later in K-12. The fundamental thing is that the minds, thoughts, and ideas of those with socioeconomic privilege in this country are treated with far more respect. The educational environs that give that respect happen to be the ones that are more likely to promote deep learning, metacognition, argumentation, etc.
What we need is more open-ended teaching styles. Teaching that touches on the edges of the unknown in science/mathematics and reality. A lot of these scarily can easily be explained to an interested (not captive) 8yo.
From my experience you don't "teach" in the 'blackboard sense' how to answer questions. You only get that when a teacher is able to spend a little bit of time working with a student. This allows them to uncover what they in some cases have missed from the start due to a slightly tangental assumption which is unfortunately wrong. (Again there should be no judgement about being wrong. Why there's this "dumb-ass" approach from society to correct wrong approaches is beyond me as it's what turns people off self-education 99/100.)
Proper teaching unfortunately is very counter to the "get home at 5pm" mentality I've known some of my peers in teaching to have (not all, but enough, very vocal teachers, who frankly should return the UG degree certificates and stop damaging the youth of tomorrow).
What makes teaching so rewarding to those who spend the time to see that "click" when something lights that spark of new thinking for someone. And that moment when someone is helped to view a new problem from a new angle happens for everyone at some point, but not for all when reading all topics of education.
I've seen someone bored about QM and "just get it" but finally get interested when asked "why does this goo change when you hit it"? I've seen someone get giddly excited about simple vector mathematics once they realised the consequences of digging into what they "sort-of know", even though they're a professional programmer.
There shouldn't be a need for any of this "meta-cognition", or "better-teaching", there should simply be, "teaching" and education focussed around how to learn for oneself. Where we lost this for overly-formal "recite after me" training is lost on me, but I think society is all the poorer for it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalization [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dpj2
i.e. hypothetical beings that are physically identical to and indistinguishable from normal people but do not have conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.
A p-zombie might change their behavior under any given therapy, but it may be more due to behavioral feedback, the degree of change may be lesser, without thoughts acting to multiply the change.
So therapies that focus more on just behavioral feedback might be overall more effective for people that don't have much thought in their head. Such as p-zombie challenged folks.
Why wouldn't a p-zombie exhibit behavior consistent with having a theory of mind?
It has become a focus because teach to the test has done a damn good job of stripping it away from K-12 classroom learning in the US. Now that we realize whats missing ed researchers talk about it more and how to add it back.