COGNITIVE

AND
METACOGNITIVE
FACTORS OF
LEARNING
• In a traditional setting, instruction and the
learning process are typically the
responsibility of the teacher. The teacher is
the information source who disseminates the
information to the students to learn. In a
learner-centered classroom, the teacher
plays the role of a facilitator and resource
provider. The teacher recommends and
points the way to useful resources and asks
thought provoking questions and provides
opportunities for students to construct and be
accountable for their own learning. 1
• The psychological principles enumerated
below pertain to the learner and the learning
process and are focused on the cognitive
and metacognitive factors. ( American
Psychological Association, 2005)

• 2
 NATURE OF THE LEARNING PROCESS
The learning of complex subject matter
is most effective when it is an
intentional process of constructing
meaning from information and
experience.

3
• There are different types of learning processes; for
example habit formation in motor learning; and learning
that involves generation of knowledge, or cognitive skills
and learning strategies. Learning in schools emphasizes
intentional processes that students can use to construct
meaning from information, experiences and their own
thoughts and beliefs. Successful learners are active,
goal-directed, self–regulating, and assume personal
responsibility for contributing to their own learning.

4
 GOALS OF THE LEARNING
PROCESS
The successful learner, over time and
with support and instructional
guidance, can create meaningful,
coherent representations of knowledge

5
• .
• The strategic nature learning requires students to be goal-
directed. To construct useful representations of knowledge and
acquire the thinking and learning strategies necessary for
continued learning success across the life span, students must
generate and pursue relevant personal goals. Initially, students’
short term goals and learning may be sketchy in an area, but
over time their understanding can be refined by filling gaps,
resolving inconsistencies, and deepening their understanding
of the subject matter so they can reach longer-term goals.
Educators can assist learners in creating meaningful learning
goals that are consistent with both personal and educational
aspirations and interests. 6
 CONSTRUCTION OF
KNOWLEDGE
The successful learner can
link new information with
existing knowledge in
meaningful ways. 7
• Knowledge widens and deepens as students continue to both
links between new information and experiences and their existing
knowledge base. The nature of these links can take a variety of
forms, such as adding to, modifying or reorganizing existing
knowledge or skills. How these links are made or developed may
vary in different subject areas, and among students with varying
talents, interests, and abilities. However, unless new knowledge
becomes integrated with the learner’s prior knowledge and
understanding, new knowledge remains isolated, cannot be used
most effectively in new tasks, and does not transfer readily to
new situations. Educators can assist learners in acquiring and
integrating knowledge by a number of strategies that have been
shown to be effective with learners of varying abilities, such as
concept mapping and thematic organization or categorization. 8
 STRATEGIC THINKING
• The successful learner can create and use a
repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies
to achieve complex learning goals.

• 9
• Successful learners used strategies thinking in their
approach in the learning, problem solving and
concept learning. They understand and can use a
variety strategies to help them reach learning and
performance goals, and to apply their knowledge in
novel situations. They also continue to expand their
repertoire of strategies by reflecting on methods
they use to see which work well for them, by
receiving guided instructions and feedback, and by
observing or interacting with appropriate models.
Learning outcomes can be enhance if educators
assist learners in developing, applying, and
assessing their strategic learning skills.
10
 THINKING ABOUT THINKING
• Higher strategies for selecting and monitoring
mental operations facilitate creative and critical
thinking.

• 11
• Successful learners can reflect on how they think
and learn, set reasonable learning or
performance goals, select potentially appropriate
learning strategies or methods, and monitoring
their progress toward these goals. In addition,
successful learners know what to do if a problem
occurs or if they are not making sufficient or
timely progress toward a goal. They can generate
alternative methods to reach their goal( or
reassess the appropriateness and utility of the
goal). Instructional methods that focus on helping
learners develop the higher order(metacognitive)
strategies can enhance student learning and
personal responsibility for learning. 12
 CONTEXT OF LEARNING
• Learning is influenced by environmental
factors, culture, technology, and instructional
practices.

• 13
• Learning does not occur in a vacuum. Teachers play
in a major interactive role with both the learner and
the learning environment. Cultural or group
influences on students can impact many
educationally relevant variables such as motivation,
orientation toward learning, and ways of thinking.
Technologies and instructional practices must be
appropriate for the learners level of prior knowledge,
cognitive abilities and their learning and thinking
strategies. The classroom environment, particularly
the degree to which it is nurturing, can also have
significant impacts on students learning.
14
 DEVELOPING METACOGNITION
• Metacognition appears to be one of the
most powerful predictors of learning. It
regulates cognitive activity, but at the
same time its needs cognitive activity as a
vehicle. For instance, checking the
outcome of a mathematical procedure
requires the cognitive activity of
recalculation. 15
• Metacognition is thinking about
thinking, knowing ‘’ what we know’’
and what we don’t know”. Just as an
executive’s job is management of an
organization, a thinker’s job is
management of thinking.

16
The basic metacognitive strategies.
1. Connecting new information to former knowledge.
2. Selecting thinking strategies deliberately.
3. Planning, monitoring and evaluating thinking
process (Dirkes, 1985).
4. A thinking person is in charge of her behavior. She
determines when it is necessary to use
metacognitive strategies. She selects strategies to
define a problem situation and researches
alternative solutions. She tailors this search for
information to constraints of time and energy . She
monitors, controls, and judges her thinking.
17
• Studies show that increases in learning have followed
direct instructions in metacognitive strategies. These
results suggest that direct teaching of these thinking
strategies may be useful, and that independent use
develops gradually.
• Learning how to learn, developing, a repertoire of thinking
processes which can be applied to solve problems is a
major goal of education. The school library media center,
as the hub of the school, is an ideal place to integrate
these types of skills into subject areas or students’ own
areas of interest. When life presents situations that cannot
be solved by learned responses, metacognitive behavior is
brought into play. Metacognitive skills are needed when
habitual processes are not successful. Guidance in
recognizing, and practice in applying metacognitive
strategies, will help students successfully solve problems
throughout their lives. 18
METACOGNITIVE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Metacognition includes knowledge and skills

such as the following;
• Being aware of one’s own learning and
memory capabilities and of what learning
tasks can realistically be accomplished (e.g.,
recognizing that it is probably not possible to
learn everything in a 200 page reading
assignment in a single evening). 19
• Knowing which learning strategies are
effective and which are not ( e.g., realizing
that meaningful learning is more effective
than rote learning for long-term retention)
• Planning an approach to a learning task that
is likely to be successful (e.g., finding a place
to study where there will be few distractions)
• Using effective learning strategies (e.g.,
taking detailed notes when lecture materials
is likely to be difficult to remember
otherwise) 20
• Monitoring one’s present knowledge state
(e.g., recognizing when information has
been successfully learned and when it has
not.
• Knowing effective strategies for retrieval of
previously stored information( e.g., thinking
about the context in which a certain piece
of information, was probably learned)
21
 STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING
METACOGNITIVE BEHAVIOR
There are various strategies for developing metacognitive
behaviors such as:
1. Identifying “what you know” and what “you don’t
know”. At the beginning of a research activity students
need to make themselves conscious about their
knowledge. Initially students write “What I already
know about” and “What I want to learn about”. As a
students research the topic, they will verify, clarify and
expand the topic, or replace with more accurate
information each of their initial statements.
22
2. Talking about thinking. Talking about thinking
is important because students need a thinking
vocabulary. During planning and problem-
solving situations, teachers should think aloud
so that students can follow demonstrated
thinking process. Modeling and discussion
develop the vocabulary that students need for
thinking and talking about their own thinking.
Labeling thinking processes when students use
them is also important for student recognition
of thinking skills. 23
• Paired problem- solving is another useful
strategy. One student talks through a problem,
describing his thinking processes. His partner
listens and asks questions to help clarify
thinking. Similarly, and in reciprocal teaching,
small groups of students take turns playing
teacher, asking questions and clarifying and
summarizing the material being studied.

• 24
3. Keeping a thinking journal. Another means of
developing metacognition is through the use of
journal or learning log. This is a diary in which
students reflect upon their thinking, make note of
their awareness of ambiguities and
inconsistencies and comment on how they have
dealt with difficulties: this journal is a diary of
process.
4. Planning and self-regulation. Students must
assume increasing responsibility for planning and
regulating their learning. It is difficult for learners
to become self-directed when learning is planned
and monitored by someone else. 25
Students can be taught to make plans for learning
activities including estimating time
requirements, organizing materials, and
scheduling procedures necessary to complete an
activity. The resource center’s flexibility and
access to a variety of materials allows to student
to do just this. Criteria for evaluation must be
developed with students so they learn to think
and ask questions of themselves as they proceed
through a learning activity.
26
5. Debriefing the thinking process. Closure
activities focus student discussion on thinking
processes to develop awareness of strategies that
can be applied to other learning situations.
A three step method is useful. First, the teacher
guides students to review the activity, gathering
data on thinking processes and feelings. Then,
the group classifies related ideas, identifying
thinking strategies used. Finally, they evaluate
their success, discarding inappropriate strategies,
identifying those valuable for future use, and
seeking promising alternative approaches. 27
• 6. Self-Evaluation. Guided self-evaluation
experiences can be introduced through
individual conferences and checklist focusing on
thinking processes. Gradually self-evaluation
will be applied more independently. As students
recognize that learning activities in different
disciplines are similar, they will begin to transfer
learning strategies to new situations.

28
 Distinction Between Cognitive and
Metacognitive Learning Strategies
Cognitive and metacognitive strategies and skills are
closely related in terms of them both involving
cognition and skill but they are conceptually distinct in
at least one major way.
Weinstein and Meyer(1994) state that a cognitive
learning strategies is a plan for orchestrating cognitive
resources, such as attention and long-term memory to
help teach a learning goal. This indicate that there are
several characteristics of cognitive learning strategies
such as being goal-directed, intentionally invoked,
effortful, and are not universally applicable, but
situation specific. 29
Metacognitive strategies appear to share most of
these characteristics with the exception of the
last one since they involve more universal
application through focus upon planning for
implementation, monitoring and evaluation
(Shraw,1998). That is to say, metacognitive
strategies are not so situation specific but involve
generic skills essential for adult, more
sophisticated forms of thinking and problem-
solving.
30
 Establishing the Metacognitive
Environment
• A metacognitive environment encourages awareness of
thinking. Planning is shared among teachers, school library
media specialist, and students. Various thinking strategies
are discussed while evaluation is on going.
• In the creation of a metacognitive environment, teachers
monitor and apply their knowledge, deliberately modeling
metacognitive behavior to assist students to becoming
aware of their own thinking. Metacognitive strategies are
already in the teacher's repertoires so they must be alert to
these strategies and consciously model them for students.
• Problem-solving and research activities in all
subjects provide opportunities for developing
metacognitive strategies. Teachers therefore
need to focus attention on how task are
accomplished. Process goals, in addition to
content goal, must be established and
evaluate with students so that they can
discover that understanding and transferring
thinking processes improve learning.
 THE ROLE OF METACOGNITIVE
KNOWLEDGE IN LEARNING, TEACHING
AND ASSESSING
• Metacognitive knowledge can play an important role in
student learning and by implication in the way students are
taught and assessed in the classroom (Bransford et al,
1999).
• First, metacognitive knowledge of strategies and tasks, as
well as self-knowledge, is linked how students will learn
and perform in the classroom. Students who know about
the different kinds of strategies for learning, thinking and
problem-solving will be more likely use them. Students who
know about different strategies for memory tasks, for
example, are more likely to use them to recall relevant
information.
• Similarly, students who know about different
learning strategies are more likely to use them
when they are studying. And, students who
know about general strategies for thinking and
problem-solving are more likely use them
when classroom confronting different tasks.
Metacognitive knowledge of all these different
strategies enables students to perform better
and learn more.
• In addition, metacognitive knowledge of all
these different strategies seems to be related to
the transfer of learning; that is, the ability to use
knowledge gained in one setting or situation in
other. Students are often confronted with new
tasks that require knowledge and skills they have
not yet learned. In this case, they cannot rely
solely on their specific prior knowledge or skills
to help them on the new task. When experts find
themselves in this situation, they are likely to use
more general strategies to help students think
about or solve the problem.
• In terms of implication for teaching, it is
important that metacognitive knowledge is
embedded within the usual content driven
lesson in the different subjects areas. General
strategies for thinking and problem solving can
be taught in the context of English,
mathematics, science, music, art, physical
education, and social studies.Science teachers,
for example, can teach general scientific
methods and procedures, but learning will
likely be more effective when it is tied to
specific
• science content, not taught in the abstract.
Of course, in skill areas, such as reading or
writing, the teaching of metacognitive
knowledge about different general strategies
for reading comprehension or writing is both
acceptable and desirable.
• In terms of implication for assessment, it is
important to know how it is used by the
students to facilitate their own learners. In this
sense, it is more likely that any assessment of
metacognitive knowledge by teachers will be
informal rather than formal.
 COGNITIVE PROCESSES OF EXPERTS
AND EXPERT SYSTEMS
• Expert Systems are computer programs that are
derived from a branch of computer science
research called Artificial Intelligence (AI).AI’s
scientific goal is to understand intelligence by
building computer programs that exhibit
intelligent behavior. It is concerned with the
concepts and methods of symbolic inference, or
reasoning by a computer, and how the knowledge
used to make those inferences will be
represented inside the machine.
• Of course, the term intelligence covers many
cognitive skills, including the ability to solve
problems, learn and understand language which
is addressed by AI. Most progress to date on AI
has been made in the area of problem-solving
concepts and methods for building programs
that reasons about problems rather than
calculate a solution
(http://www.tec.org/loyola/kb.htm).
• AI programs that achieve expert-level competence in solving
problems in task areas by bringing a body of knowledge about
specific task are called knowledge-based or expert systems. Often,
the term expert systems is reserved for programs whose knowledge
base contains the knowledge used by human experts, in contrast to
knowledge gathered from textbooks or non-experts. More often
than not, the two terms, expert systems (ES) and knowledge-
based systems (KBS), are used synonymously. Taken together, they
represent the most widespread type of AI application. The area of
human intellectual endeavor to be captured in an expert system
is called the task domain. Task refers to some goals-oriented,
problem-solving activity. Domain refers to the area within which
the task is being performed. Typical tasks are diagnosis, planning,
scheduling ,configuration and design. An example of a task domain
is aircraft crew scheduling.
• Building an expert system is known knowledge
engineering and its practitioners are called knowledge
engineers. The knowledge engineer must make sure that
the computer has all the knowledge needed to solve a
problem. The knowledge engineer must choose one or
more forms in which to represent the required
knowledge as symbol patterns in the memory of the
computer that is, he/she must choose a knowledge
representation. He must also ensure that the
computer can use the knowledge efficiently by selecting
from a handful of reasoning methods.
• Every expert system consist of two principal
parts :the knowledge base and the reasoning
of inference engine.
• The Knowledge base of expert system
contains both factual and heuristic knowledge.
Factual knowledge is that knowledge of the
task domain that is widely shared, typically
found in textbooks or journals and commonly
agree upon by those knowledgeable in the
particular field.
• Heuristic knowledge is the less rigorous, more
experiential , more judgemental knowledge of
performance. in contrast to factual knowledge
, heuristic knowledge is rarely discussed, and is
largely individualistic. It is the knowledge of
good practice, good judgement, and plausible
reasoning in the field . It is the knowledge that
underlies ‘’ art of good guessing’’.
• Knowledge of representation formalized and organizes
knowledge . One widely used representation is the
production rule, or simply rule . A rule consists of an IF
part and THEN part ( also called a condition of action) .
The IF part lists a set of conditions in some logical
combination . The piece of knowledge represent by the
production rule is relevant to the line of reasoning being
developed if the IF part of the rule is satisfied;
consequently the THEN part can be concluded or its
problem solving action taken. Expert system whose
knowledge is represented in rule from are called
rule – based systems
• Another widely used representation, called
the unit (also known as frame , schema, or list
structure) is based upon s more passive view
of knowledge. The unit is an assemblage of
associated symbolic knowledge about an
entity to be represented
• Typically a unit consists of a list of properties of the entity and
associated values for properties.

• The problem-solving model, or paradigm, organizes and controls

the steps taken to solve the problem. One common but powerful
paradigm involves chaining of IF-THEN rules to forms a line of
reasoning. If the chaining stars from a set of conditions and moves
toward some conclusion, the method is called forward chaining. If
the conclusion is known (for example, a goal to be achieved) but
the path to that conclusion is not known, then reasoning backwards
is called for, and the method is background chaining. These
problem – solving methods are built into program modules called
inference engines or inference procedures that manipulate and use
knowledge in the knowledge base to form a line reasoning.
• The knowledge base an expert uses is what he
learned at school, from colleagues, and from
years of experience. Presumably the more
experience he has, the larger his store of
knowledge. Knowledge allow him to interpret
the information in his databases to advantage
in diagnosis, design, and analysis.
• The most important ingredient is any expert system is
knowledge. The power of expert system resides in the
specific high-quality knowledge they contains about
task domains AI researchers will continue to explore
and add to the current repertoire of knowledge
representation and reasoning methods. But in
knowledge resides the power. Because of the
importance of knowledge acquisition method is slow
and tedious, much of the future of expert systems
depends on breaking the knowledge acquisition
bottleneck and in codifying and representing a large
knowledge infrastructure.
 PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
• What somebody already knows when
confronted with new information is called prior
knowledge. Learners continually synthesize,
consolidate, and integrated old and new
information into hierarchical knowledge
structures or schema . In order to gain the most
prior knowledge, it must be appropriate,
accurate, sufficient, and activated. ( Andres,
326)
• Prior knowledge can be explained as a
combination of the learner’s pre existing
attitudes, experiences, and knowledge.
 ATTITUDES
• Belief about ourselves as learners/ readers.
• Awareness of our individual interest and
strengths.
• Motivation and desire to read.
 EXPERIENCES
• Everyday activities that relate to reading
• Events in our lives that provide background
understanding.
• Family and community experiences that we
bring to school with us.
 KNOWLEDGE
• Of reading process itself
• Pf content ( literature, science, and
mathematics)
• Of topics ( fables, photosynthesis, fraction)
• Of concept ( main idea, theory, numeration)
• Of different types of style and form (fiction and
non fiction)
• Of the academic and personal goals
The Role of Prior Knowledge In Current
Learning
Current research on learning has offered more and
more evidence of the extent to which new learning is
determined by what the learner already knows about
the topic or related topics. The effect can be either
positive or negative, positive if the pre-existing
knowledge is correct and consistent with the new
information or negative if it is full misconceptions or
conflicts with the new information. The following are
some of the effects of prior learning on new learning
(http://www.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/MinnCon.html
).
 1. Prior knowledge affects how the
learner perceives new information.
• The phenomenon is readily demonstrated by a
simple experiment. What is the first that you
associate with the word “cardinal”? Some people
think immediately of football, some of baseball.
Birds, Roman Catholic priests, or the color red. In
the absence of context, the association you make
will depend on you prior knowledge. Your
interpretation of this new information , the word
“cardinal”, is dependent on what you brought to
the situation.
 2. Prior knowledge affects how a
student organizes new information
• Remember that one of the goals of learning is to
incorporate new information into the existing
organization of memory. A student uses that existing
structure to assimilate new information. For
example, in the absence of any strong signals to the
contrary, a student in history class is going to
organize new historical information chronologically
because that is the way history had been organized
in earlier classes. History Instructions trying to
organize around a different conceptual structure
must fight against the student’s tendency to see
everything as happening in a straight timeline.
• Instructors can use this prior knowledge of structure to
their advantage when they use analogies or examples.
The analogies represents a known organizational
structure of information. That organizational structure is
what is transferred to the new information. For example,
in trying to explain how a gland works, in instructor
might say that the gland is like a thermostat. Most
students already know that a thermostat controls the
temperature by monitoring the presence of heat. They
transfer this understanding to the functioning of a gland.
It monitors and controls the level of a hormone in the
body in the same fashion.
 3. The prior knowledge affects how
easily students make connections for
new information
• One of the keys to learning and memory is the richness
of the connections a bit of information has. The more
connections, the easier is to remember. When new
information gets hooked up with a particularly rich and
well-organized portion of memory, it inherits all the
connections that already exist. This is why it is much
easier to learn information that is in one’s existing field of
expertise that to learn information from a brand new
field of expertise than to learn information from a brand
new field Reutzel and Morgan, 1990)
 How To Use Prior Knowledge in
Instruction
• Students are not blank slates on which teacher’s
words are inscribed. The students bring more to
the interpretation of the situation than teachers
realize. What students learn is condition by what
they already know and what they know can be as
damaging as what they don’t know. It is
important therefore for the teacher to remember
the following when using prior knowledge in
instruction (Svinicki, 2003).
 1. Know what prior knowledge
students bring to the learning setting
• It pays to know what common experiences the
students have or if they have similar backgrounds,
similar environments or the aspirations and goal
that they have common. What does this
information tell about the prior knowledge the
students will bring to the class.? Prior knowledge
need not only be knowledge of the content,
although it is the most critical type of knowledge
to monitor. Knowledge of popular culture or
current events can be used to great advantage as
well in the same ways, especially in the context of
analogies.
 Use prior knowledge deliberately in
the presentation of the use
information
• Beginning a class with a review of what has been
learned before helps activate prior knowledge.
Presenting new information in its relationship to
old not only helps students learn the new
information but strengthens the old. Contrasting
them with some that have already been learned
makes use of prior knowledge to aid in the learning
of new. Better yet, having the students make those
comparisons teaches them something about the
way to approach the learning of new material and
about the structure of the discipline.
 Get the students to minor their own
prior experiences and consciously use
them in learning new information.
• Asking students to recall post courses that are
related to the present course is an interesting
way to encourage this. In a certain subject,
students may be asked to product a bibliography
from the reading of their previous subjects that
relate to the present subject. This is an
interesting experience which has never been
asked of the students before, but it makes the
point that what they know is related to what they
are learning.
 Check for faulty prior knowledge
regularly so that it is not allowed to
continue to detract from learning
• There is a wonderful apocalyptic story about
astronomy class in which the instructor drew many
beautiful orbital diagrams and still the students had
trouble understanding celestial motions. Finally, by
accidents, the instructor discovered that several of the
students were interpreting the ovals he drew as being
in reality ovals rather than the circles show in
perspective. Until the instructor ask the students what
they understand about what is being taught, he will
never know what is being learned. The instructor
should structure the learning to bring those
misconceptions to the attention of the students.
• Learning is more effective when the learner is involved in an active
intentional process of constructing meaningful knowledge form old
and new information and experience. Appropriate prior knowledge
allows learners to more easily comprehend or understand new
materials.
Engaging students in prior knowledge experiences becomes a form in
classrooms where teachers value understanding whatever knowledge the
students have acquired. We know that prior knowledge is an important
step in the learning process.
It is a major factor in comprehension: that is making sense of our learning
experiences. Brain-based research confirms that the fact leaning
environment needs to provide a setting that incorporates stability and
familiarity. It should be able to satisfy the mind’s enormous curiosity and
hunger for discovery, challenge, and novelty. Creating an opportunity to
challenge our students to call on the collective experiences(prior
knowledge) is essential.
• Through this process we move students from
memorizing information to meaningful
learning and begin the journey of connecting
learning events rather than remembering bits
and pieces. Prior knowledge is an essential
element in this quest for making meaning.