Metacognition

 Instructional Design Tips To Enhance Metacognition in eLearning

1.            Integrate a wide range of skills and subjects.

In the real world learners will need to be able to apply their metacognitive abilities in a wide range of situations and settings. As such, you will want to integrate a wide range of skills and subjects into your eLearning course design, so that your learners can fine tune their metacognitive talents by completing diverse learning tasks.

2.            Model the metacognitive process.

Leading by example is one of the most effective ways to encourage metacognition in your learners. Create a tutorial or video presentation that showcases the metacognitive process. State the problem or question in the beginning of the presentation; then guide them through the steps you would use to solve it. Be as detailed as possible and include every mistake they could make along the way, as mistakes can serve as invaluable teaching tools as well.

3.            Give them control.

Allow students to take control of their own eLearning experience by giving them freedom of choice. Give them the ability to choose what projects to complete, when, as well as which topics they would like to explore. By doing this, you generate authentic interest, rather than forcing them to master a particular subject. They are also more likely to use their critical thinking, analysis, and creative thinking skills to solve the problem if they were the ones who chose to tackle the problem themselves.

4.            Review, identify, and evaluate.

At the end of every eLearning activity, encourage your students to review, identify, and evaluate the process. Ask them to review the eLearning activity, itself, including their personal opinions about it. Then ask them to identify the strategies they utilized and why they chose these strategies, before evaluating their overall performance and assessing their strengths and weaknesses throughout the task.

5.            Encourage learners to differentiate what they know from what they need to know.

The main goal of any eLearning experience is to fill the learning gap, whatever or however large that gap might be. Before each eLearning activity encourage your learners to determine what they currently know and what they need to learn by the end of the task. This might be developing specific skills or acquiring new information. Once they have completed the task, have them evaluate their original statements in order to determine if they have achieved their individual goals. You can also ask them to modify or add to their statements throughout the eLearning activity if necessary.

Metacognition gives your learners the ability to self-regulate and self-reflect, whether they have the skills and information they need to tackle challenges in and out of the virtual classroom. You can utilize these tips and best practices to develop metacognition in eLearning and benefit your online learners by facilitating their learning process and helping them to achieve better results.