by Kristy Forrest, M.Ed., Academic Advisor and Success Coach,
Office of Academic Support & Advising, Merrimack College

(Post #5 Integrating Metacognition into Practice Across Campus, Guest Editor Series Edited by Dr. Sarah Benes)

Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of thought itself. In practice, it involves student planning, monitoring, evaluating and regulating thoughts in relation to learning and problem-solving. More broadly, metacognition in college refers to higher-order thinking, “thinking about thinking,” and impacts student reflection and educational motivation.

My team and I, representing the Office of Academic Support & Advising at Merrimack College, serve traditional college-aged students at a private four-year catholic institution. As Advisors and Success Coaches, part of our role is to provide developmental skill building workshops, programming, and courses. Together, we strive to support all student development including metacognitive growth. We teach our students the concept of metacognition, how to apply it, and its value in achieving academic success.

Metacognition in Teaching

Our approach is interdisciplinary. Combining concepts from advising theory, pedagogy, and developmental and learning psychology, we designed a one-credit academic development course for our students on academic probation. The idea is to learn new academic skills that are transferable in all coursework. As instructors, we help students understand metacognition as an intervention to trigger deeper understanding, comprehension, and most importantly, how applying metacognitive practices can eliminate prior gaps in their learning.

Students learn that applying metacognitive study practices not only develops deeper curiosity as learners but also how the cycle of previewing, attending, and reviewing increases the quality of their work. Additionally, they see that reflective thinking, self-regulation and self-discipline results in higher quality academic performance. Once they begin to achieve success they are more empowered and motivated to engage in work that is difficult. Moving beyond study skills to enhanced scholarly work has become our hook. We gain student buy-in much faster than when we focused only on study skills.

Nuts & Bolts of Our Course

For students who take our 1 credit course, over 90% enrolled increase their GPA an average of 1 to 1.7 points, and ultimately get and stay off academic probation. As mentioned above, we do teach the basic mechanics, habits and skills needed to be effective college students but buy-in can be tough with getting college students to see value in foundational study skills. Although we know how critical these skills are, they say that workshops about these topics often make them feel belittled. Until struggling students experience the benefits of these practices, there is quite a bit of resistance. They are, however, intrigued when we use terminology like, “applying metacognitive practices for academic success and development of higher order thinking”, and “increased competencies”.

In our one-credit course my team and I combine philosophical and practical theoretical concepts such as Chickering’s “Seven Vectors of Student Identity”; Bandura’s Self-Efficacy: Rotter’s Locus of Control: Dweck’s Growth Mindset; Duckworth’s Grit Model; and, of course, Flavell and McGuire’s Models on Metacognition. Students are required to engage in this scholarship and reflect on how each applies to them.      

We begin with the concept of student identity and ask them what this means for them. We learned that so many of our students do not identify as scholarly students and so their self-concept needs reframing. This is where we initiate reflective thinking. When we ask students to take the time to define and explore what it means to be a student, and compare it with newly learned metacognitive strategies, we begin to see transformation in their approach to their learning. With greater awareness of how knowledge is acquired, that the expectation in college is to move beyond memorization to instead analyzing and evaluating, and that learning how to think about thinking, our students better understand where the goal post is. They now value becoming self-disciplined, self-regulated learners.

With this messaging, we also help them to connect how their thoughts and emotions impact their behaviors and how they are in control of their academic consequences. After establishing this new insight we discuss locus of control, growth mindset, grit, and metacognitive study practices. Through these frameworks we also work to dispel their imposter syndrome and slowly we see them disarm.

Metacognition in Advising & Coaching

Beyond our course, through general advising and coaching, we typically find academic struggles are not a reflection of student capacity, but rather a problem in habits and skills, or, lack of metacognition in their practice. In one-to-one student coaching meetings we provide individualized attention using metacognitive strategies in supporting our students to connect the dots in their coursework. Ideally, professors are doing this already. However, there are times when we see the assignments go unquestioned by students simply trying to check the done box and not understanding the why and how in the work. Basically, students sometimes fail to integrate incremental assignments with the larger concepts.

We work to develop academic skills including metacognitive strategies, so that students better comprehend their material and build competencies in their discipline. As college educators serving adolescents, we need to consider that developmentally, without a fully developed prefrontal cortex, adolescents may not have the full capacity or neuro-connectivity to put these pieces together on their own. Metacognition supports the development of this exact connectivity. 

The Missing Meta Link in Student Learning

Students frequently report after learning about metacognition they now have an explanation to why they were struggling. They share that they never knew how impactful the little things like organizing, planning, scheduling, previewing, attending, and reviewing are. After recognizing that they previously did not exercise metacognitive skills, and they begin using them, students are able to recognize enhancement in their academic performance. A bonus is when their defenses come down and they open up.

Metacognition is one way that allows students to connect their choices and actions to their academic results. Referring back to developmental psychology, connecting thoughts, feelings and behavior is still really hard for a person with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. As advisors, coaches, and instructors, shedding light on this for students is where we can make a difference. Additionally, we plant seeds for further integrated learning as our adolescents develop into emerging adulthood.

Big Returns of Metacognition

The returns of learning this concept are bountiful. My favorite thing about teaching students the concept of metacognition is how it can open the floodgates to their development because it applies to every area of learning across all academic programs, disciplines, professions, or careers in every industry. Knowing about metacognition is not just a college tool. It’s a life tool.