Perspective Chapter: Metacognitive Strategies – Preparing Self-Regulated Learners in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, with the enormous increase in volume of information, students suffer from the cognitive overload that has been seen to be associated with incidence of depression/burnout amongst students at various levels of the training phase. This eventually leads to poor performance and lack of confidence in the younger generation. Effective strategies for efficient learning need to be informed to the learners to make them understand the importance of learning and retrieval at appropriate time. One such strategy is educating individuals metacognitively where the students will be able to build strong content knowledge by responding to varying demands of disciplines by critically synthesizing different resources and valuing sound evidence. Teaching students to be metacognitively aware through different strategies is also a challenge for teachers. Teaching students to ask themselves self-reflective questions and assess where they are right now (thinking about what they already know), how they learn (what is working and what is not), and where they want to be. With the aid of metacognition, students will be able to solve problems more effectively and take charge of their learning as self- regulated learners, which is essential in the current time.

1. Introduction

The ubiquitous presence of technology in the current century has led to the development of a society that is primarily an information or knowledge society. With an explosion of information and the development of economic systems where ideas or knowledge function as commodities [1], society has developed numerous expectations from the current generation of professionals.

The extensive cognitive overload creates suffering for students, which is actually associated with an incidence of depression/burnout amongst them at various levels of the training phase. This eventually leads to poor performance and a lack of confidence in the younger generation.

Twenty-first century skills that have been identified as essential for survival include critical thinking and communication skills. Creativity, problem solving, perseverance, collaboration, information literacy, and technology skills [2, 3].

Out of these, collaboration is described as a process rather than an outcome of a group of activities, as it was earlier understood. There has emerged a need to differentiate collaboration from related activities such as cooperation and coordination. Gulati et al. [4] defined coordination as “the deliberate and orderly alignment or adjustment of partners’ actions to achieve jointly determined goals,” while they defined cooperation as the “joint pursuit of agreed-on goal(s) in a manner corresponding to a shared understanding about contributions and payoffs.” Their definitions of coordination and cooperation seem closely related: both definitions refer to some action taken toward agreed-on, joint, or common goals.

Collaboration skills are both generic and content/context-specific in that the collaborative skills themselves do not typically vary across content areas.

Students can very well gather and transfer their skills, provided the content and context are relevant to the collaborative activity. When tasks involve offering resources, ideas, and efforts that are collaborative, students can contribute very effectively, considering that they have the relevant content knowledge. Collaboration is also intertwined with other cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal competencies: effective collaboration requires communication skills, metacognition, self-direction, and so on.

Many tasks now require a specific level of comprehension of information [5]. Because of this, new competencies—often referred to as twenty-first century skills—are required. Additionally, young people today need to be educated for jobs that do not yet exist but will come into existence soon with comparable primary tasks [6]. Anderson [1] cited the following as essential skills: Knowledge construction, followed by adaptability, information management, locating, organizing, and retrieving information, critical thinking, and teamwork. These competencies are also referred to as lifelong learning capacities [7].

The greatest problem a student faces when moving from high school to a professional college is the transition from the memorization of declarative knowledge emphasized in high schools to more advanced thinking skills required in colleges, such as critical thinking. To be successful, they need to demonstrate some personal characteristics, one of which is self-regulated learning habits, and the other is metacognitive awareness. Self-regulated learning (SRL) and metacognitive strategies are closely related concepts that involve learners taking an active role in their learning process. This chapter aims to understand the two processes and their relationships in developing the students of the twenty-first century for their survival.

2. What is self-regulated learning (SRL)

Learning that is self-regulated is defined as the capacity of an individual to comprehend and manage his learning environment. Setting goals, self-monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement are all aspects of self-regulation [8].

Self-regulated learning refers to the ability of learners to set goals, monitor their learning progress, and regulate their cognitive processes, motivation, and behavior to achieve those goals effectively. It involves being aware of oneself as a learner and employing various strategies to control and optimize the learning experience.

Self-Regulated learning refers to a process that can be described through a self-oriented feedback loop’.

Components of self-regulated learning typically include:

Planning: setting goals, creating a study schedule, organizing resources, and managing time effectively. Monitoring: evaluating one’s progress, noting strengths and faults, and determining which areas need more focus or improvement.

Control: managing distractions, controlling motivation, and applying focused effort to learning activities.

Reflection: engaging in self-reflection, performance evaluation, and the identification of successful or unsuccessful techniques.

These processes help the learners transform their mental abilities into skills [9] and habits through a developmental process, emerging from guided practice and feedback [10, 11].

This practice makes the learners proactive, seeking out opportunities to learn and adapting their strategies as needed. They take responsibility for their learning and are motivated to achieve their goals, thus developing into self-regulated lifelong learners (Figure 1) [12].

Figure 1.

Characteristics of self-regulated learners.

How to develop a classroom culture grounded in self-regulated learning - role of teachers

• Help students figure out where, in the SRL process, things are breaking down.

• Design instruction and assessment that will create opportunities for multiple cycles of regulation to unfold.

• Construct classroom tasks and make them contextual

• Create competency-based contextual assessment & feedback processes.

• Have regular interactions & develop safe and cordial relationships

• Specify what should be the focus in a particular session- allow students to say, “My focus will be.”

• Create safe spaces to make mistakes

• Create opportunities for students to learn from mistakes and be rewarded for that.

3. Metacognition and self-regulated learning

Metacognition is defined as “thinking about thinking” or “awareness and management of one’s own thoughts.” This encompasses two main components: knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition [13]. This involves an understanding of one’s cognitive processes and the ability to control and manage these processes effectively (Figure 2). Empirical studies suggest a strong correlation between metacognition and self-regulated learning [14]. Self-regulated learners employ metacognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning. They are aware of their cognitive strengths and weaknesses, set realistic goals, select appropriate learning strategies, and reflect on their learning outcomes [9].

Figure 2.

Different types of metacognition.

Recent developments in cognitive neuroscience have provided further insights into the neural basis of metacognition. Studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) have revealed that metacognitive tasks activate the prefrontal cortex, a region associated with higher-order cognitive functions such as planning and decision-making [15]. This underscores the critical role of metacognition in self-regulated learning and decision-making processes.

Metacognitive abilities include things like thinking and studying techniques [16]. The capacity to apply such information to control one’s learning is known as metacognition [17]. It involves three different types of knowledge:

• declarative knowledge that affects learning and memory,

• procedural knowledge or knowing how to use strategies, and

• self-regulatory knowledge that ensures task completion [18, 19, 20].

4. Metacognitive strategies

Metacognition refers to the ability to think about and have awareness of one’s cognitive processes. Metacognitive strategies are techniques or approaches that learners use to plan, monitor, and evaluate their thinking and learning [21]. So, the common metacognitive strategies include:

Planning: This consists of setting clear goals, identifying appropriate learning strategies, and organizing information. This is the selection of appropriate strategies and the allocation of cognitive resources before the task. It includes asking questions like.

“How much time should I give to this particular task?”,

“What are the strategies that I need to use”?

How should I start, and what resources should I gather?”

“What order should I follow while considering the task?”

“What should be skimmed, and what should be paid maximum attention to?

B. Monitoring: This comprises checking understanding during learning activities, identifying areas of confusion, and seeking clarification. Monitoring is the real-time awareness of how a person is doing in the relevant tasks by asking the following questions himself.

“how I am doing?”

“is this making sense”?

“Am I trying to go too fast?”

“Have I studied enough?”

“Do I need to study more and in a different manner?”

Evaluation: This involves making judgments about the processes and outcomes of thinking and learning by assessing performance after completing the task. This includes reflecting on the effectiveness of the strategies employed, checking the progress, and making appropriate adjustments. The questions normally asked are.

“Should I change strategies?

Should I get help?

Should I give up for now or should I continue?” [20].

These strategies make the learners more aware of their thinking processes, enabling them to effectively regulate their learning. By monitoring their understanding and evaluating their learning strategies, they can identify areas of weakness and eventually take steps to improve their learning outcomes.

5. How to teach students metacognitive skills to promote their learning abilities?

The twenty-first century offers learners an ever-changing learning landscape that appears to be rapidly evolving, which demands that students be able to regulate their learning processes. In the context of twenty-first century skills, metacognition plays a pivotal role in critical thinking and problem-solving. By understanding and regulating their cognitive processes, learners can approach problems more effectively and make informed decisions. Furthermore, metacognition is integral to lifelong learning, a key twenty-first century skill [22, 23, 24].

Another crucial area where metacognition plays a significant role is creativity. Successful creativity involves metacognitive skills such as recognizing the novelty and value of one’s ideas and being able to persuade others of their worth. Metacognitive strategies can help learners refine their creative process by encouraging them to reflect on their ideas, evaluate their originality and effectiveness, and make necessary adjustments. In a study by Veenman et al. [25], a strong correlation was found between metacognitive skills and creativity amongst students. This finding further underscores the importance of metacognitive strategies in fostering not only self-regulated learning but also creative thinking, a key competency in the twenty-first century learning paradigm.

Metacognitive strategies help learners optimize their learning experiences. By employing techniques such as self-explanation, elaboration, and metacognitive questioning, learners actively engage with the material, improve comprehension, and consolidate knowledge. These strategies also aid in memory, consolidation, and long-term retention of information (Table 1).

Number	Strategy	Description
1.	Goal Setting	Encourage learners to set clear and achievable learning goals, both short-term and long-term. These goals provide direction, motivation, and a sense of purpose for their learning journey.
2.	Planning Organization:	Teach learners to create study plans and break down tasks into and manageable chunks, and effectively manage their time and This helps them stay organized, meet deadlines, and avoid procrastination.
3.	Monitoring Reflection:	Guide learners to regularly reflect on their learning progress, assess and their understanding, and identify areas of improvement. This reflective practice encourages self-awareness and enables learners to adjust their strategies for better results
4	Metacognitive Questioning:	Encourage learners to ask themselves questions that stimulate metacognition. Questions like “What do I already know?” and “How does this relate to what I’ve learned before?”, and “What strategies can I use to approach this task?” prompt learners to think critically and develop their understanding.
5	Self-Explanation and Elaboration	Foster a learning environment where learners are encouraged to explain concepts in their own words, connect new information to prior knowledge, and engage in discussions. This process of self-explanation deepens understanding and promotes higher-order thinking.
6	Problem-Solving Strategies	Teach learners problem-solving techniques such as breaking complex problems, considering alternative perspectives, and brainstorming solutions, and evaluating different approaches. These strategies encourage learners to approach challenges systematically

Table 1.

The following table highlights some of the strategies.

Metacognition is monitoring and controlling what’s in your head, while self-regulation is monitoring and controlling how you interact with your environment. Thus, self-regulated learning is the application of metacognition and self-regulation in learning.

6. Conclusion and recommendation

In the twenty-first century, fostering self-regulated learners is more critical than ever due to the fast-paced, information-saturated environment. Metacognitive strategies present an effective approach to cultivating these skills, with empirical and neuroscientific evidence substantiating their impact on learning. Therefore, educators should implement these strategies in their teaching practices to prepare learners for the challenges of the twenty-first century. The integration of metacognitive strategies in learning is paramount to preparing self-regulated learners for the twenty-first century. By fostering metacognitive skills, educators equip learners with the ability to take charge of their learning, adapt to novel situations, and solve problems effectively. As educators, it is our responsibility to create a metacognitive environment that encourages reflection, inquiry, and self-regulation, thereby empowering learners for life-long learning, shaping active rather than passive learners, promoting deep learning rather than superficial learning, and giving them a sense of control over learning and learning how to learn.