Teaching Students How to Think About Their Learning
We often tell students to “think carefully,” “check your work,” or “try another strategy.” But have we actually taught them how to do those things?
This is where metacognition comes in. Put simply, metacognition means helping students become more aware of how they learn: how they plan, monitor their understanding and decide what to do when they get stuck.
Why does it matter?
The research is compelling. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) reviewed evidence from 355 studies and found that metacognitive and self-regulation strategies were associated with an average of eight additional months of learning progress. The approach is also considered relatively low-cost and has shown benefits across subjects and age groups.
But there is an important distinction: metacognition is not simply asking students to reflect at the end of a lesson. The strongest approaches explicitly teach students strategies for planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning—and embed these strategies within normal subject teaching rather than separate “thinking skills” lessons.
What can this look like in the classroom?
It can be surprisingly simple.
Before a task, ask: “What do you already know that could help you here?”
During the task: “Is your strategy working? How do you know?”
Afterwards: “What worked? What would you change next time?”
Teachers can also think aloud while modelling a task. An English teacher might explain why they are choosing a particular quotation. A mathematics teacher might verbalise how they decide which operation to use. A science teacher might model what they notice when interpreting an unfamiliar graph.
Instead of students only seeing the finished answer, they get to hear the thinking that produced it.
Over time, the aim is to gradually remove that support so students begin asking themselves those same questions independently.
Start small
Metacognition does not require a new programme, expensive resources or another initiative for teachers to manage.
Choose one task you already teach and make the thinking behind it more visible.
Model your thought process. Give students two or three questions that help them monitor their progress. Then give them time to reflect on which strategy helped and why.
At The Teaching Practice, this is exactly the kind of shift we believe professional learning should support: small, evidence-informed changes that teachers can actually use in their classrooms.
Professional development should not simply introduce another educational idea. Teachers need opportunities to see what it looks like, practise it, adapt it to their students and reflect on whether it worked.
Because developing better learners is not only about teaching students what to think.
Sometimes, we also need to teach them how to think about their thinking.
The Teaching Practice — From Practice to Progress in Every Classroom.
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