Metacognitive Aspects
Metacognition is thinking about thinking, and metacognitive strategies are strategies that help learners think about how they think and learn so that they can come up with ways to improve their learning. Such strategies can be applied to the three metacognitive aspects of planning, monitoring, and evaluating, which learners can use to make their learning more effective.
Planning includes the setting of a learning goal, which the learner hopes to achieve, and how they plan to achieve it. Planning consists of defining the sub-tasks that need to be completed in order to complete the main task, as well as the timeframe for completing the said main task and subtasks. Moreover, planning includes the advanced selection of the learning styles and learning strategies that the learner foresees using in each of the defined subtasks. As such, planning ensures that the learner is able to achieve their goal within a given timeframe.
Monitoring, on the other hand, refers to the tracking of the learner’s progress as they try to complete their main task and the corresponding subtasks. This allows the learner to correct themselves as they perform their learning tasks in order to minimize the occurrence of mistakes, which can prevent them from achieving their goal in a timely manner. Monitoring also enables the learner to gauge whether they are on track towards the achievement of their goal, in turn allowing them to make changes and adjustments if needed.
Finally, evaluating refers to the learner’s assessment of their learning performance with regards to how well and effectively they accomplished their learning goal. This enables the learner to assess what they did right and what they could have done better, in turn enabling them to improve themselves or to know better what to do for their future learning initiatives.
In conclusion, the metacognitive aspects of planning, monitoring, and evaluating outlines or describes the metacognitive processes that learners should undergo in order to improve their learning. Planning allows for the setting of objectives, which provides the learner with a direction. Monitoring enables for self-correction during the learning process, and evaluating enables for improvement in future learning endeavors.
