learntolearn

I’d like to take 3 points of departure on this topic: Defining Metacognition, Expanding the concept, One other related concept.

First, when does the concept of “metacognition” first appear in the literature?

The earliest work (theory, research, writing) on metacognition began with the work of John Flavell, a student of Piaget, when he published an article in 1971 and used the term “metamemory.” Here’s the link and a few brief excerpts:

http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/constructivism/flavell.html

“John Flavell of Stanford University is regarded as a foundation researcher in metacognition.”

“Flavell (1971) used the term metamemory in regard to an individual’s ability to manage and monitor the input, storage, search and retrieval of the contents of his own memory. Flavell invited the academic community to come forth with additional metamemory research, and this theme of metacognitive research has continued more than thirty years later…..”

“In his 1976 article, Flavell recognized that metacognition consisted of both monitoring and regulation aspects. It was here that the term metacognition was first formally used in the title of his paper….”

“….In the 1979 paper, Flavell proposed a formal model of metacognitive monitoring to include four classes of phenomena and their relationships. The four classes included (a) metacognitive knowledge, (b) metacognitive experiences, (c) tasks or goals, and (d) strategies or activities….”
Second, I’d note an updating of the concept in the form of a much broader concept “Theory of Mind.”

Second, has the concept been expanded?

In 1999, Flavell published an article on Cognitive Development: “Children’s Knowledge About the Mind” that took a much broader look at what children understood about their own minds, tracing development from infancy. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1999. 50:21.45
Copyright © 1999 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/pylyshyn/Proseminar08/Flavell.pdf

Third, I’d like to reference a narrower concept that addresses how children think about and “control” their own learning: Executive Function. Here I offer a 5 minute video from Harvard’s

Center on the Developing Child that looks at young children and what they know about learning.