Yipiyap's Director of Marketing and Innovation, Matthew Dagnall. — Author: Matthew Dagnall

As Yipiyap’s Director of Innovation and Marketing, Matthew is passionate about finding new and better ways to spread important ideas. He has tutored in schools in England and worked as a teaching assistant in France.

At Yipiyap, we’re proud to be able to introduce so many young people to the world of teaching. Many of our gap year tutors have gone on to careers in education - and for those who don’t, they step up to their future career with essential teaching and learning skills.

In our new Explained series for 2024, we’re going to shed some light on the key pedagogical terminology for fledgling educators - and maybe even provide a refresher for seasoned teachers too!

What is metacognition in education?

Metacognition is when learners understand their brain's learning processes and use them to learn better and faster. "Cognition" means "knowledge" or "understanding". And it's "meta" in the same way as the film Inception*. Only in the classroom, it's not a "dream within a dream", it's "learning about learning".

A clip art style icon representing metacognition - a brain is depicted inside a thought bubble.

*Although maths tutors will know the proper word for that is “recursion”.

In an educational context, metacognitive skills allow learners to assess their own learning. That means students are able to evaluate their own learning strategies. Then, they can adapt if they're not learning as effectively as they could be.

Basically, metacognitive abilities are like the instruction book for your brain. Learning without this strategy is like playing a video game without knowing the controls. So, you can understand why it's taking the world of education by storm.

What do the Education Endowment Foundation say about metacognition?

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) are the experts on effective teaching methods. They're an independent charity who put teaching strategies to the test. That means, they have real evidence of what really works and what doesn't.

So, what do the EEF say about metacognition? It's a big thumbs up.

The EEF have strong evidence that implementing metacognitive strategies in the classroom boosts learning. There are seven extra months of learning up for grabs, simply by teaching students how to learn self-reflectively.

What's more, according to the EEF, metacognition can be implemented at a very low cost - after all, you only need to read up on metacognition, and share some top tips with your students.

If you're a teacher or tutor, there's really no reason not to teach your learners about metacognition.

A Yipiyap peer tutor helps a college student develop metacognitive strategies.

Examples of metacognitive strategies in the classroom

So what would metacognitive strategies actually look like in the classroom? Here are four top tips for getting your learners to work self-reflectively:

1. Set clear learning goals. Metacognition is all about assessing how your learning is going. To do that, learners need to understand what they're aiming for.

2. Encourage self-reflection. You can do this simply by prompting your learners to take a minute to think about their progress. You could make this a regular practice at the end of every lesson.

3. Or what about keeping a progress journal? This encourages students to consider the processes involved in learning and guides them towards effective goal setting.

4. Show your students how it's done. Demonstrate self-reflective learning by voicing your own thought process out loud. You know how contestants always talk through their answers on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Think of it like that - you're Chris Tarrant now.

5. Draw comparisons. Students should think back to similar problems they've tackled in the past. Would the same approach work for this one? If not, what's different about it?

How can small group tutoring help with metacognition?

Teachers aren't mind-readers, which means it takes time to find out if each of your learners is making the most of metacognition. That's very hard to do in a class of 30 students, but it's well worth the time. After all, dedicating fifteen minutes to mentor each learner could set them up for hours of effective independent learning.

That's what makes peer tutors so well suited to the task. Small group tutoring sessions are the perfect opportunity to make sure learners develop metacognition. One-to-one tutoring can be even better (budget permitting, at least).

If you are a tutor, pay attention to the way your learners approach problems. Ask questions that will prompt them to take a metacognitive approach.

And make sure you understand metacognition yourself - otherwise, you don't stand a chance of helping students with it! It's well worth the time investment, too - you can use these skills yourself in pretty much every job or university course out there.

What is autonomy in education?

Let's take a quick look at Yipiyap's mission statement: "We want to help every learner gain the confidence to take control of their educational journey..."

What does that mean? Well, it's all about learner autonomy. Autonomy means students taking charge of their own learning.

This concept is closely linked with metacognition. Effectively, metacognition is a tool for learners to achieve autonomy. Once students are able to think about whether their strategies are the best way to reach their learning goal, that's metacognition.

And that lets them adapt their strategy on their own, without a teacher or tutor telling them what to do. That's autonomous learning.

It puts educational problem-solving in the students' hands. So it's not entirely your responsibility as a teacher or tutor.

Advantages of autonomous learning

Why is autonomous learning so great, then?

1. More time for learning. Think about it - you've only got so many contact hours with your learners. The rest of the time, it's up to them. Homework can lead the horse to water, but autonomous learning strategies will help it drink.

2. Increased student engagement. Learners who have decided to learn by themselves will always engaged and motivated. An autonomous approach to learning changes your teacher or tutor from a taskmaster into a shortcut for learning!

3. Holy personal learning, Batman! No two learners have the same strengths, weaknesses, or preferences for learning. Within school contact hours, small-group tutoring is one tool in your kit for meeting individual learner's needs. Autonomous learning strategies are another must-have for your students' academic utility belt.

Examples of autonomous learning at school

So what does autonomous learning actually look like in your lesson or tutoring session?

1. Teach learners metacognitive strategies. You didn't skip that section, right?

2. Let students choose how they learn. Although different learners will benefit from different strategies, this isn't just about boosting their learning in the short term. You're also demonstrating that they have the freedom to choose the path that works best for them.

3. Make use of small-group tuition. Small-group or one-to-one tuition allows for learners to direct the teaching style themselves. That just wouldn't be practical in a classroom of thirty students, each with a different preference of learning task.

What is self-regulation in education?

Self-regulated learning is very similar to autonomy. It's all about students directing their own work to best reach their learning goals.

Self regulation incorporates metacognition as one of its three key elements:

1. Cognition: That is, knowing, learning, and understanding.

2. Metacognition: Learning how to learn, using the strategies we've already suggested.

3. Motivation: Well, this one's a huge question on its own, but it's pretty essential. Learners also need to want to learn. (But that's a story for another article...)

What is the difference between self-regulated learning and metacognition?

Metacognitive processes are just one part of self-regulated learning - but they're the perfect starting point.

What do the Education Endowment Foundation say about self-regulated learning?

The Education Endowment Foundation metacognition report factors in self-regulated learning as well. Teaching pros usually treat these three concepts (metacognition, autonomy, and self-regulation) as a package deal. Hence why they're all together here!

The EEF have evidenced a 7 month progress boost for learners using metacognition and self-regulated learning.

Clip art style icon representing small group tuition - a tutor with three learners.

How can small group tuition help with self-regulation?

There are two major roadblocks when employing a self-regulatory model of learning in the classroom.

Firstly, it's not on the curriculum, so no-one has carved time out for it. As the old saying goes, "Whatever gets measured gets done". And no matter how effective these tools are, nobody is measuring your teaching of self-regulation. However, tutors can use extractions and interventions to teach small groups how to work in a self-regulated way.

Secondly, self-regulation necessarily involves learner autonomy. There are lots of great learning activities that encourage autonomy in the classroom. However, they won't be appropriate in every single lesson. Some days, you just need to make a priority of assessments, coursework, or just delivering curriculum content.

However, peer tutors can always deploy these strategies when working one-to-one or with small groups of learners. And if you are a tutor, make sure you understand these key concepts. You're in a uniquely privileged position to help your learners develop these key life skills!

Explained: Metacognition, Autonomy, and Self-Regulation