Metacognition: plan, check and adjust your learning

Metacognition involves thinking about your own learning and using that information to decide what to do next. For a course, certification or work skill, start with a concrete goal: explain a concept, solve a problem or carry out a procedure.

Feeling confident is useful information, but it does not establish that you can complete the task. Compare your expectations with an attempt and a reliable answer or marking guide.

Monitoring and control

Nelson and Narens's 1990 framework distinguishes monitoring your learning from controlling what you do next.

For example, you might expect to explain a process without notes, then discover that you can name its stages but cannot explain why one follows another. That observation can inform a decision to revisit a worked example or ask for clarification. It is more specific than deciding that the entire topic is beyond you.

A short check samples part of your knowledge. Its usefulness depends on the question, timing, allowed references and how you mark the answer. One result does not measure everything you know.

A practical learning loop

1. Choose a task that resembles what you need to do in an exam or at work.
2. State what would count as a complete answer and predict what you can do.
3. Attempt it under clear conditions, with or without references as the task requires.
4. Compare your work with a reliable source. Record the missing fact, reasoning step or procedure.
5. Choose your next action: reread the relevant explanation, study an example, get feedback or practise again later.

Dunlosky and colleagues' 2013 review rated practice testing and distributed practice highly, and rereading lower in general usefulness.

Reading can still help you understand an unfamiliar idea or correct an error. Choose practice to suit the task rather than assuming that harder always means better. Keep enough detail about your checks to compare similar attempts over time.

Use the result to make a decision

If you remember a definition but cannot apply it, try an application problem. If a procedure fails at one step, review that step and attempt the procedure again. For tasks that permit documentation, practise finding and using the right reference.

You can use Piply to draft practice questions from your material. Check generated questions and answers against the source before using them to judge your understanding. Your next practice task should follow from what the check revealed.