A 4-Step Plan for Promoting Metacognition in Middle School

In middle school, as students gain independence and are given increased responsibility, it’s an essential time to explicitly teach metacognitive skills. Middle school is often the first opportunity for students to move from one class to another and interact each period with a new teacher who has their own style and set of expectations. Students also move from concrete to abstract thinking while managing long-term assignments, preparing for assessments, revising writing, and solving increasingly complex problems. When students are instructed to study, revise, prepare, and more, they need tools to make effective decisions about those tasks and useful strategies to manage their additional responsibilities.

Metacognition is an essential part of providing students with the tools and strategies they need to be successful in middle school. Work with metacognition is best used as a regular classroom practice that can be implemented by naming it, modeling, providing students with language to discuss their thinking, and creating consistent opportunities for students to engage with this skill and see its impact on their learning.

Step 1: Name It

The first step is simple; use the word metacognition so that students can name the skill they’re practicing. For middle school students, I like to stick with the definition, “thinking about your thinking,” and explain that it’s a skill they can learn through practice and reflection. I have students consider the questions that prompt metacognitive thinking: What do I already know about this? What am I still learning? How do I know I understand? Does this strategy work for me, and how do I know? What do I want to do differently next time?

It’s important for students to understand that metacognition is thinking about both what worked well and what they want to improve in the future.

Step 2: Modeling

Students need the opportunity to hear what metacognitive thinking sounds like. I naturally think through decisions about where to start, how to approach a task, and what information is important, but I sometimes forget to share that thinking with students. I make this visible for students by explaining my thought process. This way, they can see examples of success or when I may need to change my strategy to accomplish my goal. For example, when giving out a new assignment, I could think aloud, “There are several components to this assignment. Before I begin, I need to decide what to do first and what materials I will need.”

In the midst of a problem during a project, I'll say, “I thought this was the best strategy, but it isn’t allowing me to arrive at an answer. I’m going to stop and try a different approach for this problem.” After completing an assessment, I might share, “I spent a lot of time rereading my notes, but that strategy didn’t help; next time, I’ll try creating a mind map of the content as part of my study process.”

Explicitly teach students the language needed to engage in this type of thinking. Give them specific sentence starters:

• I got stuck when…
• I am confused by…
• I understand…
• I think... because...
• I chose this strategy because…
• When I got stuck, I…
• Next time I plan to…
• Before I get started I need to…

Asking students to reflect can sometimes seem so broad that they aren’t sure where to start. Guiding phrases like these can help them organize their thinking.

Step 3: Short Pauses

Metacognition practice can be done in two to three minutes. These short sessions help students see it as a part of their learning process and not a separate or time-consuming activity.

When learning new content, pause and ask the students to answer—verbally or on paper—quick questions or statements:

• What did you just learn? Be specific.
• What questions do you have?
• My answer is... because...
• I chose this strategy because...
• I am still wondering...
• I hope to get more direction about...

These pauses help students stop long enough for them to notice their own learning and give me valuable information about how they’re doing and if I need to adjust my instruction.

You can also ask students to rate their understanding on a 1-to-5 scale and then explain to a partner what they understand and why they chose that number.

Exit tickets also provide students a chance to engage in metacognitive thinking and inform the teacher about their progress. When designing these around metacognitive thinking, shift attention from recalling facts to thinking about the process that helped them learn the content.

Step 4: Assessment Reflection

Create opportunities for students to reflect on the strategies they used to prepare for assessments both before and after the assessment. Before the assessment, get them to consider how they plan to study and identify specific strategies they’ll use. After the assessments, ask them to revisit their thinking and consider which strategies helped them learn and which ones didn’t work for them. This allows them to decide what to do differently next time and arrive at the conclusion that it isn’t necessarily about how long they spent studying, but more about understanding which approaches support their learning.

The goal for teaching metacognition isn’t to have students complete reflection forms. We want them to develop their own independence. When they are given an assignment, we hope that they will pause and think about what they need to know and do and the best way they can approach it. When students can look back and say, “That worked!” “I should try it again,” or “That didn’t work, let me try something else,” they are growing into independent learners.

As middle school students learn how to think about their own thinking, over time, they’ll be able to do it automatically without prompting from their teacher. When they leave middle school, they’ll have an understanding about how they arrived at answers and what strategies work best for them.