What is metacognition teaching method?

Question

what is it instructional method all about? can you give an example of this method that im going to apply for my demo teaching? can metacognition be taught? is cognitive strategy instruction the same as metacognition teaching method? can you give me an example topic to demonstrate to the class this kind of teaching method? thanks for answering guys!

Answer 1

I have never heard metacognition referred to as a teaching method, but the term means "thinking about one's thinking."  We do want children to become metacognative.  How I have done this is to demonstrate think-alouds and ask the students to do the same.  We want them to be able to explain their thinking and how they came upon an answer or idea.  We ask students to be metacognitive often in Math these days, especially when we ask them to explain how they got their answer.  Metacognition is also important in reading.  This is how teachers model think-alouds most often.  While reading aloud, they pause at a difficult word and talk about the strategies they use to figure out that difficult word or understand the meaning of the passage.  It might sound something like this....

"Hmmmm....I don't know the word herbivores, I wonder what it means?  Let me go back and read the sentence again.  Black bears are herbivores.  Well...that didn't help me very much.  Maybe I'll go on to the next sentence and look for clues.  They love to eat honey and wild berries.  Hmmmm, I bet herbivore has something to do with eating.  I wonder if herbivores like to eat sweet foods because berries and honey are sweet.  I'm going to keep reading and see if I can find more clues.  Black bears will bite an animal or human if they feel threatened, but they do not eat meat.  Ohhhhh, this sentence is a good clue.  It talks about how they might bite animals or people if they're scared but they won't eat them.  So the sentencee before talked about what they like to eat, this one talks about what they don't eat, and I think herbivore has to do with eating.  I bet it means that they don't eat meat!

(ok...it's not a perfect example, because black bears do eat fish and some small mammals, but you get the idea).  I don't know what cognitive strategy instruction is, nor do I know about metacognition as a teaching method, but I hope this helps.