Elementary Metacognition

I love the idea of teaching metacognition in the classroom. I feel that this learning concept was seriously lacking in my academic upbringing. I have learned that it is essential to understand personal learning processes and that it enables you to improve comprehension, articulation and acceptance, which potentially could all lead to building more confidence in the classroom. I teach 2nd grade and I find that I have to model the art of metacognition daily. Really slowing your "everyday moments" down and explaining them out loud helps students to understand the art of self-evaluation. Even if they aren't able to do it yet themselves, they get that it's possible and somehow (subconsciously) they begin to grasp it on a deeper level. Seeing that I love bullet points, I've decided to list a few ways that you can incorporate metacognition into your own classroom!

• Model the act of self-talking and thinking aloud
  
• Activate prior knowledge
• Use KWL models
• Journal
• Verbally reflect/share and debrief
  
• Ask HOW not what, why, where, or who
• Process as a group
• Talk about thinking
• Plan, plan, plan
• Cultivate constructive criticism
• Evaluate your actions, thoughts, ideas
• Don't take yourself too seriously