Learn How to Develop Your Metacognition Skills and Join the Ranks of Elite Students

Previously, I have laid out the core components of using metacognition to learn as you consume educational content. That said, the process can be taxing, especially for newbies. To help you over the hump, I will walk you through my approach and give you insight into how I use metacognition in my learning endeavors.

Metacognition, a guided tour

Are you curious about what metacognition looks like in practice? Come along with me as I explain how I use it.

When I read, watch or listen to learning materials, I am focused on the content, but that isn’t all. I am also actively monitoring my level of attention and understanding of the content. I have an ongoing dialogue with my inner voice interrogating myself, asking whether I am genuinely grasping all of the information I’m reading. I go through recursive cycles of identifying: what are the vital pieces of information?; What are elements that are directly relevant to me?; What do I truly comprehend?; and What don’t I understand?.

After I’ve assessed my understanding of the material and the concepts therein, I shift my attention. I switch gears and perform a deeper dive. I note the essential ideas and where they fit in my preexisting understanding of the topic with which I am concerned. An efficient way to do this is to ask yourself a variety of questions. What follows are examples that I might ask myself as I read.

• What are the central-most core concepts in this material?  
• How can I briefly and succinctly summarize this?  If I can summarize it, that indicates I truly grasp the ideas. If I can’t, I will have a hard time moving forward and building on this information.
• Is this concept reminiscent of anything that I already know in this particular domain of knowledge? As we’ve discussed, connecting the information into your inner story is critical for ensuring it sticks. It doesn’t just have to be within the domain though. I will also ask myself if this reminds me of anything in another unrelated domain of knowledge. The more I can connect the new information, the better. 
• Do I know other facts that support the soundness of this concept? If you already have a good grasp of something similar, it’s easy to establish a parallel, thus cementing the new information.
• Is there anything else I know that disproves this concept? Even contradicting information can help with understanding. If I know something contradictory, it means I’m thinking critically about the data. A true scientist doesn’t concoct experiments to prove their hypothesis is correct. Instead, they design experiments that attempt to prove that their theory is wrong.
• Do any concrete examples come to mind that demonstrates this concept? These examples make it easier to develop a mental model of the idea, moving it out of the abstract realm.
• Am I struggling to comprehend this? Analyzing how I am interacting with the information ties it back to my narratives.
• Can I explain why this concept makes sense? I always aim to contextualize new information.
• Why is it so important to know this information? Is this truly important to commit to memory?
• Do I find this interesting or boring? Why is that so?
• Do I find this information surprising? How come?
• How can this and apply this in the real world? 

Again, moving from the abstract is usually beneficial to achieving understanding as it grounds the information in a suitable mental model.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the metacognition questions I use when reading. I have many similar questions to draw on that I’ve previously used to interrogate myself as I consume learning materials. Importantly, I develop many custom-tailored questions on the fly for each new piece of content that I engage.

When I apply metacognition while consuming my learning materials, I become highly engaged and interact with the content. Granted, my single-read approach is more time-consuming per read than passive reading, but I learn more deeply. Everything I learn gets contextualized and placed into my broader mental models. And, ultimately, I save tons of time by eliminating rereading.

iDoRecall, has built-in training wheels that will help you develop your metacognition skills. Wherever you see the brain icon in the UI, you have the opportunity to click and be challenged with a metacognitive question that will force you to think about your thinking and engage more deeply with the content.

You should realize that metacognition is more than simply thinking about your thinking and performing the quality assurance that I’ve described. A crucial aspect of metacognition is utilizing this higher-level thinking to regulate your learning. Once you identify that you don’t understand something or otherwise have a gap in your knowledge, what will you do to erase the deficit? The answer must be that once you identify the gap, you develop a plan to alleviate the situation. Next, you carry out the plan, and finally, you reassess if you have cured the gap.

As powerful as metacognition is, it isn’t potent enough to result in forever remembering what you’ve learned. For that, we need to practice retrieving our knowledge from memory.