Metacognition

METACOGNITION consists of three basic elements:

• Developing a plan of action
• Maintaining/monitoring the plan
• Evaluating the plan

Before - When you are developing the plan of action, ask yourself:

• What in my prior knowledge will help me with this particular task?
• In what direction do I want my thinking to take me?
• What should I do first?
• Why am I reading this selection?
• How much time do I have to complete the task?

During - When you are maintaining/monitoring the plan of action, ask yourself:

• How am I doing?
• Am I on the right track?
• How should I proceed?
• What information is important to remember?
• Should I move in a different direction?
• Should I adjust the pace depending on the difficulty?
• What do I need to do if I do not understand?

After - When you are evaluating the plan of action ask yourself:

• How well did I do?
• Did my particular course of thinking produce more or less than I had expected?
• What could I have done differently?
• How might I apply this line of thinking to other problems?
• Do I need to go back through the task to fill in any "blanks" in my understanding?

Excerpted from Strategic Teaching and Reading Project Guidebook. (1995, NCREL, rev. ed.).