Conclusion - A Model for Successful Metacognitive Teaching
The following model is based on aspects of learning previously discussed, personal experience, and ideas generated by Brown and Palincsar, Palincsar and Brown, and Seifert (1995). It is an effort to summarize and compile aspects of metacognition into a temporal
sequence model for instruction of a learning strategy. The sequencing should not be considered as either rigid or linear as metacognitive techniques are believed to be philosophically applicable at all stages of learning. From personal experience, it is common to re-teach, re-view, re-read and repeat aspects of a strategy many times. Guidance, feedback, evaluation, etc. should not be seen as restricted in sequence. The division of the table into teacher and student roles in th
e classroom seemed appropriate given the common dualistic nature of most classrooms. The role
distinction may not be as clear in situations where students are encouraged to teach themselves or teachers consider themselves as merely "experienced learners."
Although it was considered significant, an example of how to use this model in the classroom environment was not detailed because of the significant amount of work which would be involved. The stages presented here are those a teacher might encounter over the course of a week or month as a new strategy is introduced, acquired and accepted by the students. In effect, an example would be similar to preparing a curriculum unit with maps of internal relationships between major concepts, relationships to
previous course work; individual lesson plans in which one day may be spent relating the significance of the strategy, two days in explaining the steps involved, a week allocated for student practice, etc.
However, the model clearly suggests that the teaching-learning process begins with teacher preparation of learning objectives, chosen strategies and tasks. However, "teacher preparedness" must include more than just the first two stages. It must also include familiarity with teaching strategies required for the remaining stages, a personal metacognitive evaluation of believed teaching effectiveness, and an understanding of different student perspectives with respect to prior knowledge, motivation a
nd emotion, etc. As the process of monitoring student learning is one of the primary roles of a teacher, he / she should already have experience in all of the metacognitive regulatory processes. In addition, if the integration of such self-monitoring or
regulation into student thinking is to be part of a new definition of learning, then the line between teaching and learning may be erased, and learning equated with self-instruction.