“I have 30 minutes in a staff meeting to look at metacognition. Do you have any advice?”
Is this last-minute professional development plea familiar? For a complex topic such as ‘metacognition’ a thorough understanding and clear, confident professional development is essential.
Recommendation 1 of the EEF’s Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning guidance report emphasises the importance of ensuring that teachers acquire the professional understanding and skills to develop their pupils’ metacognitive knowledge. Yet, determining how best to support colleagues’ understanding of this subtle and nuanced concept can seem challenging.
Metacognition is not a ‘hack’ or a quick fix. It is ever-present in the classroom, but unless teachers have a strong understanding of what this looks like in practice, it can remain ‘hidden in plain sight’ (Quigley & Stringer, 2018, para. 3), resulting in missed opportunities to develop pupils’ knowledge and skills.
