Teach-Primary-Issue-19.3

www.teachwire.net | 47 make a point of talking about why and how we made these choices; why one word requires far more focus than another, or why one piece of information better supports the argument we are making than others. Very quickly, our expert metacognition goes from being invisible to visible, showing not just the choices we make, but why. Master planning I also think it wise to consider how we can develop the planning skills of our students. Planning is one of those words that is bandied about a lot, but rarely defined. I actually think planning is quite simple, made up of an understanding of what we need to do, what information we need to include, and how we will go about doing it. Or, in metacognitive language, our knowledge of task, self and strategies. These thoughts led to the birth of my ‘Knowledge of’ planning grid (see Fig. 1 ), a clear template to support student planning, which directed them to consider these key elements. Next, how to develop pupils’ monitoring skills is a slightly more straightforward issue to solve. Using some form of checklist, we can ensure that students note down all the information that they need to include in the answer to their task, and then tick it off as they add it in. The advantages of this are huge, the greatest one being the freeing up of cognitive load. If children have already determined all the information that they need to include in a question, their brain is then freed up to consider the actual completion of the task. Those checklists can be varied, too. Some can include all pre- and post-question tasks, such as tidying up, others may just focus on the core content, whilst still others may actually break a larger question up into smaller sub-questions that can be answered one at a time. How we evaluate our work at the end can vary. There are so many different approaches, right? One of my favourites, although arguably one of the cruellest, is the strategy of ‘Do It Again’. What do pupils have to do? The same work, again. Why? Well, on the second attempt, the children need to complete the work using a different technique or approach, and not just rinse and repeat from the first attempt. This is a brilliant way to safely push pupils out of their comfort zone, getting them to explore different strategies, and becoming more flexible in their approaches to a range of tasks. The more flexibility our pupils have, the better they will then become at problem solving. TP “I usually define metacognition as the little voice inside your head that’s constantly evaluating your actions” Nathan Burns is a metacognitive trainer and researcher. He is also a former head of maths, and author of Inspiring Deep Learning with Metacognition and Teaching Hacks: Fixing Everyday Classroom Issues with Metacognition (both £20.99, SAGE). expectations. Our pupils, meanwhile, are not. And so the very first thing that we can do to support the children’s metacognitive development is to highlight our own metacognition, through what I like to call explicit justifications. Whenever we are modelling, and we make a choice – perhaps over the strategy that we use, the key word upon which we fixate, or the evidence source that we draw upon – we should @MrMetacognition mrmetacognition.com @mrmetacognition.bsky.social Knowledge of task Knowledge of self Knowledge of strategies What must I do? What information do I know, that I must include? What approach will allow me to successfully complete the given task? Fig 1. Further reading To learn more about metacognition and its impact on learning, check out these reports and articles: Metacognition and self-regulation, EEF: tinyurl.com/tp-EEFmeta What is metacognition? Chartered College of Teaching: tinyurl.com/ tp-CCTmeta Metacognition in progress, Geographical Association: tinyurl.com/ tp-GAmeta Explainer video, EEF (via YouTube): tinyurl.com/ tp-EEFmetaVid Strategies for maths (lesson plan), Teachwire: tinyurl.com/tp-MetaMaths