Aaron S. Richmond, Ph.D.
Metropolitan State University of Denver

In past blogs, I’ve written about topics that focus on the relationship between academic procrastination and metacognition (Richmond, 2016), or different instructional methods to increase your student’s metacognition (Richmond 2015a, 2015b), or even how to use metacognitive theory to improve teaching practices (Richmond, 2014). However, during my morning coffee the other day I was reading a 2016 article in Metacognition in Learning by Foster, Was, Dunlosky, and Isaacson (yes, I am a geek like that). Studying the importance of repeated assessment and feedback, Foster and colleagues found that over the course of a semester sophomore and junior level education psychology students who were tested 13 separate times and provided feedback remained highly overconfident in their knowledge of the material. As many other researchers have concluded, severe overconfidence erodes accurate self-regulation and self-monitoring which can have a severe detrimental effect on student learning. After finishing my coffee, I thought about the potential long-term and pervasive impacts the lack of metacognition these students had and it dawned on me that in IwM we have not discussed when and where metacognitive skills should be taught in the college curriculum. Thus, I choose to focus this blog on potential suggestions/strategies on when and where to introduce teaching metacognitive skills in the college classroom.

When Should We Teach Metacognitive Skills?
First and foremost, as college and university teachers, we need to acknowledge that our students do not come to us from a vacuum and that they already have many developed, albeit sometimes erroneous and ineffective, metacognitive skills. Considering this fact, we need to adapt our metacognitive instruction on an individual student level to best teach our students. Now, to the question: When should we teach metacognitive skills? The answer is—of course ASAP! As one of the goals to metacognitive skills is to transfer across academic domains, introducing it during the first semester of college is imperative.

One of the most notable early interventions for metacognitive skills was done by Ken Kiewra at the University of Nebraska. Kiewra created a class “Academic Success” taught at the sophomore level using his Selection, Organization, Association, and Regulation (SOAR) model (Jairam & Kiewra, 2009). Jairam and Kiewra had modest effects of increasing student learning (e.g., recalling facts and associating relevant information among zoology terms) via these metacognitive skills. However, there are a few areas in which this approach to teaching metacognitive skills can be improved. First, this is not a class that all students were required to take (only education students). Thus, all other academic disciplines could benefit from this class (see more on this below). Second, most of the students who took this course were at the sophomore and junior college level. This course should be a first semester course for all students, rather than midway through the college career.

The final note regarding when we should teach metacognitive skills almost negates or precludes the initial question. That is, the ‘when’ is immediately, but immediately doesn’t mean or suggest once. Rather, metacognitive skills should be taught continuously throughout the college career with increasingly more advanced and effective memory and learning strategies. Just as a student would take an introductory course to a major, why not have a beginner, intermediate, and advanced metacognitive skills course?

Where Should Metacognitive Skills Be Taught?
Obviously, those at IwM, and presumably our readers, would quickly answer this question: EVERYWHERE! That is, metacognitive skills should be taught across the college curriculum. However, there are some academics who believe (a) our students have already learned effective learning strategies (Jairam & Kiewra, 2009), and (b) that metacognitive skills are not part of their curriculum. In response to the first belief, many of our incoming college and university students do not have effective metacognitive skills so it is important that we teach these skills in all different types of academic domains (Jairam & Kiewra, 2009). In response to the second belief, metacognition should be taught across all academic domains. This includes mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, nursing, psychology, anthropology. I will go so far as to suggest that metacognitive skills are tantamount to reading skills as it pertains to the learning process and should be incorporated throughout the curriculum. But herein lies the rub. I have yet to find a current model or research example of infusing metacognitive skill training across the curriculum. For example, in general studies education, why not have a metacognitive student learning objective that cuts across all academic domains. Or in a first-year-success program that is often taught in teams, why not incorporate metacognitive skill training via thematic instruction (e.g., various academic disciplines are asked to center their instruction around a similar topic) among several introductory level classes. That is, teach metacognition in General Psychology, Speech 101, Biology 101, etc. by using a threaded theme (e.g., racism) that requires teachers to teach metacognitive skills to help learn a particular topic. In the end, it is clear that all students in all disciplines could benefit from metacognitive skill training, yet researchers nor teachers have tackled these specific issues.

There Are Always More Questions Than Answers.
I’ve done it again, I’ve written a blog that touches on what I believe to be an important issue in metacognition and higher education that needs far more research. As such, I must wrap up this blog (as I always do) with a few questions/challenges/inspirational ideas.

1. Should metacognition, learning strategies, etc. be taught throughout the curriculum?
   1. If so, how?
2. If not, should they be taught in a self-contained introduction to college course?
   1. Should all college students to be required to take this course?
3. What other models of introducing and teaching metacognitive skills are there that may be more effective than a self-contained course vs. a thematic curriculum approach?
4. Once students have been introduced to metacognitive skills, what is the best method for continuing education of metacognitive skills?

References
Foster, N. L., Was, C. A., Dunlosky, J., & Isaacson, R. M. (2016). Even after thirteen class exams, students are still overconfident: The role of memory for past exam performance in student predictions. Metacognition and Learning, 1-19. doi:10.1007/s11409-016-9158-6

Jairam, D., & Kiewra, K. A. (2009). An investigation of the SOAR study method. Journal of Advanced Academics, 20(4), 602-629.

Richmond, A. S. (2016, February 16th). Are academic procrastinators metacognitively deprived?. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/are-academic-procrastinators-metacognitively-deprived/

Richmond, A. S. (2015a, November 5th). A minute a day keeps the metacognitive doctor away. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/a-minute-a-day-keeps-the-metacognitive-doctor-away/

Richmond, A. S. (2015b, July 20th). How do you increase your students metacognition?. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/how-do-you-increase-your-students-metacognition/

Richmond, S. (2014, August 28th). Meta-teaching: Improve your teaching while improving your student’s metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/meta-teaching-improve-your-teaching-while-improving-students-metacognition/