Metacognition/Critical Thinking Blog Post 1

Metacognition contains two main components, which include metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation. Metacognitive knowledge refers to knowledge about our own cognitive processes. It is spit up into person, task, and strategy knowledge. On the other hand, metacognitive regulation is the act of controlling our own thinking, emotions, and values, which includes planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Both components develop over time and are related to higher thinking and achievement. Children contain a theory of mind, which describes their early understanding of the mental world. There are four characteristics of the theory of mind, which include false-beliefs (understanding that beliefs can be right or wrong), appearance-reality distinction (understanding objects may look one way but be something different), visual perspective taking (ability to understand that a person may visually see something different than you do), and introspection (awareness of thoughts within one's own and other's minds). Metacognition refers to "thinking about your own thinking" or being aware of your own thoughts. Metacognitive skills are influenced by biological factors like brain damage and familial factors like conversations amongst a family about thinking, learning, and knowledge. Teachers can assist students with reading comprehension and writing skills by using reciprocal teaching or the PQ4R strategy because these methods require the use of metacognitive skills like planning, monitoring, and evaluation to improve student's understanding of ideas. Also, another important aspect in the classroom that needs to be encouraged is critical thinking, which is the process of evaluating the accuracy and worth of information and lines of reasoning. During this process, students deconstruct a problem or an issue to identify and consider characteristics like the frames of reference or points of view involved, assumptions, evidence, validity, and implications or consequences that follow a decision. Through critical thinking, students are able to become more skilled in problem solving inside and outside of the classroom.

I can see how Piaget relates to metacognition when discussing egocentrism in younger and older students. Students have false-beliefs that make them think that someone thinks the same things that they think. How can we teach children to not have false-beliefs when thinking about other's thinking or do children developmentally stop having false-beliefs?

The distinction between lower order and higher order types of thinking is that higher order thinking skills reflect an individual's ability to manipulate and change information to solve problems and make decisions. Lower order thinking involves repeating past experiences rather than integrating past experiences and routine application of previously acquired information. Students with lower order of thinking tend to recall information rather than students with higher order of thinking that manipulate information. Students with higher order of thinking analyze and evaluate, while students with lower order of thinking comprehend knowledge.

The information in the reading connects with my knowledge about development because metacognitive skills develop over time just like children develop through the four stages in Piaget's theory and the learning occurs within the stages, which causes them to develop and move on to the next stage. Metacognitive skills and theory of mind that children have that helps them understand the mental world becomes more sophisticated throughout the school-age years, which is a demonstration of development occurs over time with the help of learning through this time.

In my classroom, I see myself as a teacher to provide study time for students to be able to think on their own without outside influences and think about their thinking. I also would provide guided notes so that children can think on their own with the help of the teacher. Students need to have knowledge about the material being learned in class, while taking notes and filling in the answers so they can think about why the answers are what they are and how it connects to the curriculum. The students can use these notes for study time in the future to help them recall information and continue to learn it in an effective way.