Meta-cognition and Self-regulation

How does adolescent brain development impact meta-cognition and self regulation? How will you and your students develop the three meta-cognitive knowledge types(declarative, procedural, and self-regulatory), and the three meta-cognitive skills(planning, monitoring, and evaluating) within your specific content area?


Because the adolescent brain develops from back to front, the teenage brain is not yet fully complete. That means that the frontal lobes, and especially the prefrontal cortex are not yet fleshed out. Teens need to be specifically taught how to use meta-cognitive techniques and especially self regulation. They truly do not see the learning process the same way an adult does, and need to be shown explicitly things that an adult might just assume to be common sense.

Within my content area (music education), I would need to teach my students how to identify WHAT they know(declarative metacognitive knowledge) - do they know how to sit with proper posture, can they put their instruments together, do they know how to play a scale or piece of music? I would also need to help them identify the ways that they can learn these things the best - by reading, watching a film, having it demonstrated, by physically trying it out? Once I have identified my student's learning styles, then I need to help them identify HOW to actually learn these new ideas, movements, and concepts(procedural meta-cognitive knowledge). I would need to introduce different ways to plan lessons, monitor their progress, and evaluate their skills(the meta-cognitive skills).This could be anything from a pen and paper quiz on the history of their instrument, to playing a scale test in class, to their adjudication scores at the district solo festival. I would need to spend time specifically teaching them how to self-regulate their own learning process(self-regulatory meta-cognitive knowledge), by giving them tools to analyze the tasks I have set (eg, learn their scales), helping them set goals (eg, play 6 scales by Christmas), then I would need to show them good strategies to help them (eg, use practice logs, record themselves playing, listening to others), then I would need to monitor their progress and help them learn to monitor their own progress (eg, a scale playing test, I could help them understand what I expect from them and how they could improve), and then teach them to self-evaluate their progress (eg, did their scales improve, did they achieve their goals that they previously set?).

I can teach the meta-cognitive skills of planning, monitoring, and evaluating, by explaining what I expect from them on the first day, and help them break down their goals into smaller, more easily understood chunks (planning). I can help them by monitoring their progress myself (playing tests) and also by teaching them to self monitor (at home practice and assessment), and I can teach them to evaluate their playing (via listening to recordings of themselves and others, playing for peers/family/friends).