Introduction to metacognitive theory and learning

From: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_50f98dfa0100a86r.html

 

Introduction to metacognitive theory and learning, edited by bloggers

The most important teaching is to teach students to learn, and the most important learning is to learn. In recent years, many large, medium, and primary schools in China have carried out teaching of learning methods, guided students in learning methods, and achieved some results. At the same time, there are also many problems: focus on students' learning from the perspective of teachers rather than from the perspective of students; in the teaching of learning methods, the variables that affect the selection of learning methods (the characteristics of the learners themselves, learning materials, and learning time) are neglected, so that students can master the learning skills, but it fails to achieve strategic learning. Learning is simple and equivalent to learning methods. The author believes that it is of practical significance to make the teaching of learning methods fruitful, pay attention to the research results of metacognitive theory, and raise the teaching and exploration of learning methods to a new level. This article describes the essence of Learning and Its Inspiration for teaching from the perspective of metacognitive theory.

I. essence of RMB Recognition

Meta-cognition is a new research area in cognitive psychology after cognitive activities such as pattern recognition, attention, memory, and thinking. There are a variety of expressions that define the meta-cognition slightly differently: (1) flavell, who first uses the term "meta-cognition", defines the cognition of the meta-cognition, that is, personal cognition of his own cognitive processes and results, as well as tasks related to it. Fraver distinguishes between two types of meta-cognition: meta-cognition knowledge and meta-cognitive experience. He believes that meta-cognitive knowledge is personal knowledge and information related to his own cognitive activities, processes, tasks, goals and strategies. For example, a student realizes that it is better to repeat a certain type of material in his own words than to repeat it word by word. He must be more advanced in mathematics than in composition. The original cognitive experience is accompanied by various intellectual activities. A conscious cognitive experience and emotional experience produced by an individual. If a student feels that this article is hard to understand, a certain type of knowledge is uncertain, and may fail in the next exam. (2) mcichcn Baum believes that Meta Cognition refers to the knowledge that an individual knows about his own cognition and the ability to control these cognition. For example, meta-memory is a personal knowledge about the memory process and his ability to control the memory process. (3) duell defines meta-cognition as: "the learner's knowledge about his or her learning systems, and his or her decisions on how to take actions based on the information in the input learning system." He divided meta-cognition into two categories: cognitive knowledge and cognitive adjustment. The former refers to the degree to which the requirements of personal cognitive resources and cognitive resources match the learning situation; the latter refers to a series of adjustment processes used by learners during a continuous problem-solving attempt, including planning and monitoring learning behavior and evaluating learning results, modify and evaluate learning methods. (4) Some scholars in China clearly believe that meta-cognition is the self-consciousness and self-experience of individuals in their cognitive activities. Although the above expressions on the definition of meta-cognition are slightly different, they all indicate the essential characteristics of meta-cognition: first, the object of meta-cognition is the human Information Processing System-cognitive activity system; second, meta-cognition is a form of knowledge. It is similar to other forms of knowledge that people possess. what is different is that it reflects their own cognitive activities and experiences. Third, meta-cognition is composed of cognitive cognition and cognitive experience. To sum up, we can conclude that "meta-cognition" refers to the accumulation and adjustment of the learner's psychological activities, that is, the self-intention and self-adjustment of people in learning, we all know that consciousness is a reflection of objective things. Marx once pointed out: "consciousness can only be realized at any time ." This "aware existence" includes its own existence, the existence of the objective world, and its complex relationships with the objective world. Your own existence is self-consciousness. For example, you can perceive, think, remember, and experience in your learning, and realize your purpose, plan, and behavior, and why, instead of doing so, what are the consequences of doing so, and how to adjust your own behavior. Self-consciousness is the highest form of human consciousness. It takes the subject and its activities as the objects of consciousness and monitors the activities of human cognition. through the monitoring of the self-consciousness system, it can control the input, processing, storage, and output of information by the human brain. In this way, people can adjust their thinking and behaviors by controlling their own consciousness.

Ii. Role of meta-Cognition

Research shows that many students know that a learning method is effective, but they cannot choose it at any time. Some students just habitually follow several learning methods, that is, they do not know why to use these methods and lack high-speed skills. When they encounter new learning situations, they are often at a loss, the root cause is the lack of meta-cognition. What are the effects of meta-cognition?
Fraville divided the meta-cognition into Meta-cognition knowledge and meta-cognition experience. The role of metacognitive knowledge is to enable learners to perceive and experience the variables of learning situations, such as task variables and policy variables. The so-called personal variables are about personal characteristics, such as personal interests, hobbies, abilities, especially cognitive abilities. Task variables are about the nature, task, and purpose of learning materials. For example, the task that a learner faces is to remember the nature, capacity, and structure characteristics of certain materials, contact and familiarity with the materials. The so-called policy variables refer to the usage and adjustment of the learner's learning methods. For example, the conditions under which the learner should use the method, and a method is particularly effective for the completion of certain learning tasks. A large number of studies have shown that as children grow older, the metacognitive level of learning methods has also improved and matured. Laweom points out that for normal children, as they grow older, they will increasingly accurately predict and more effectively evaluate their cognitive abilities. The meta-cognitive experience can be used to supplement, delete, or modify the meta-cognitive knowledge, and assimilation the relationships between the learning purpose, means, and operation results into the meta-cognitive knowledge. For example, if a student chooses a certain cognitive method (such as retelling) to achieve a certain learning purpose (such as remembering a foreign language word), this will lead to a metacognitive experience ("I have not learned well "), this experience, in turn, precisely learns the existing metacognitive knowledge (for example, "It is better to repeat this type of learning task with keywords ".) The role of metacognitive experience is also manifested in its active monitoring, adjustment, and integration of cognitive strategies. If the students doubt whether they have understood the text well, they do not know whether they can pass tomorrow's test. So he used (for example, to ask questions about the text, and try to answer these questions, pay attention to the correct answers, etc.) to estimate his mastery of the text. In learning activities, it is an important condition for students to fully think about and experience their cognitive activities and have a high degree of emotional activity. :

(Meta-cognition)
Zookeeper
(Study adjustment and control)
Zookeeper
(Learning method)
Bytes
(Recognition process)
Bytes
(Information)

In the learning mechanism, meta-cognition is at the highest level. through the mediation of Learning Control, meta-cognition can coordinate and reflect the use of the entire learning situation, learning methods or skills. Fraver believes that through meta-cognition, an individual will know whether a certain amount of information can be easily and smoothly remembered depends on his own memory of information (personal + task ); he will know the importance of choosing appropriate policies to meet task requirements (Strategy + task). Finally, due to being aware of all of his strengths and weaknesses, he chooses a suitable learning style strategy (personal + strategy ). All of these are meta-cognitive functions.

Iii. Learning and Teaching

Learning refers to the ability of a learner to consciously organize his/her learning activities based on the learning rules and specific learning conditions. From another perspective, learning is an important aspect of the individual development of learners. It uses the right to learn from an individual who can only rely on the genetic instinct and the help of others, turn into an individual social member who can consciously, actively, and independently engage in learning. Specifically, learning mainly involves the following relevant factors and the characteristics and relationships of these factors to arrange, organize, and adjust your learning activities. (2) "Learn" students are self-aware of their psychological activities, that is, they have "meta-cognition". (3) "Learn" students have certain learning methods or skills; (4) students who "learn to learn" know how to use their brains properly, pay attention to hygiene, and how to use less energy and effort to achieve better learning results. (5) students who "Learn" can migrate their knowledge, methods, and attitudes to learning in new learning situations to solve new learning problems. Generally speaking, learning is an independent learning ability. It can consciously and effectively select existing knowledge and methods based on the characteristics and changes of factors that affect the learning situation, arrange adjustment of learning activities to migrate the learned unemployed to solve new problems.

In today's rapid development of science and technology in the Information Age, solving the problem of "Learning to Learn" for students is increasingly becoming a topic of the world's education and scientific research attention. "Learning" is an effective way to teach students to learn and develop their independent learning abilities. So what do you teach? How to teach? In recent years, our educators have made some beneficial explorations and practices on this issue and have also achieved some results. Such as opening a thinking training course, opening a learning method course, changing the instructor's lecture, and the student's listening status, replacing it with the instructor's method of guiding the student's self-study, etc. From the perspective of metacognitive theory, it is important to teach students the learning methods. However, it is not enough to grasp the specific learning methods. It is also necessary to cultivate students' ability to regulate and control learning. Studies show that the difference between the winners and losers lies not only in the level of IQ, but also in how many learning skills or "correct methods" are obtained ", the most important thing is that the former has "learned how to learn", that is, it has "Monitoring the learning task requirements, and make appropriate responses-understanding and controlling the learning situation." It is the most important thing to teach students how to monitor and control the learning process.

Meta-cognition is a kind of knowledge, that is, cognitive knowledge, which is closely related to the ability and complements each other. A large number of experiments and Studies on metacognitive theory show that metacognitive plays a significant role in the process of learning control and can be obtained through direct training, thus, the control of learning becomes possible under the meta-cognition. Therefore, it is necessary to truly teach students to learn, pay attention to the role of meta-cognition, the relationship between meta-cognition, learning methods, and learning control skills, and organically unify the three, as an Interactive Whole, teaching can promote students to "Learn" and enable students to learn as an effective way and means to improve students' learning ability.