Metacognition: The Process Of Thinking About One's Thinking

Name: Institution Affiliation: Instructor: Course: Date: Metacognition Introduction Metacognition refers to the process of thinking about one’s thinking. It deals with the ability to examines and understand how one’s thoughts and feelings are processed. It is important to note that metacognition focuses on one’s ability to control his or her thinking process through used of different strategies such as monitoring, adapting and organizing. It involves the ability to examine the processes and tasks to be undertaken and selecting and implementing the most appropriate strategies which are critical in executing these tasks. This paper aims at explaining the importance of metacognition in both aspects of school and life. It is important to note that metacognition is an essential component which is critical to the success of learning. This concept involves self-regulation and self-reflection of one's strengths, weaknesses and the strategies which are developed to overcome a given problem. For example, teachers who apply metacognitive strategies may significantly help students who have learning disabilities by enabling them to establish an appropriate plan for learning which may be based on memorizing. As students understand how they how they learn, they will apply these processes to gain new information, and with time they develop skills for an independent thinker. Additionally, metacognition is an essential skill which facilitates effective learning. It may help a student to realize when he or she have understood something and may also enable a student to recognize when a solution to a problem is correct or wrong. For example, metacognition enables good readers to evaluate their understanding as they read while poor readers may not. Also, good readers are also likely to notice when they don’t comprehend something and choose the best action such as re-reading or as a question regarding the matter. Readers with metacognitive skills are strategic while weak readers who have no metacognitive are likely not able monitor their understanding as they read a text. The goal of metacognition is to provide the students with the required tools which are necessary for monitoring and evaluating their learning process. It is therefore important for the learners to have the required metacognitive skills to help them develop their own goals, strive to attain these goals and revise their plan of action when the goals are not accomplished. Metacognition is essential to the learners bec...