Learning Enhancement

High Impact Teaching Strategy #9

You may not think that you are thinking about your thinking, but for many adults it is so ingrained they don’t have to think about it! Effective teachers use metacognitive strategies to help students develop awareness of their own learning, to self-regulate, and to drive and sustain their motivation to learn. Each day presents opportunities to think about our thinking – what problem-solving strategy do I need here? Why didn’t that work? What could I do instead? If I want to know how to do that, I have to learn this. I wasn’t successful this time because …

Metacognitive strategies empower students to think about their own thinking. Awareness of their learning process enhances control over their own learning. It also enhances personal capacity for self-regulation and managing motivation for learning. Metacognitive activities can include planning how to approach learning tasks, evaluating progress, and monitoring comprehension.

Evidence shows that teaching metacognitive strategies can substantially improve student learning. The Australian Teaching and Learning Toolkit reports an impact equivalent to 8 additional months of progress. So students with no discussion or learning about their thinking skills may make 12 months progress during a school year, but adding on metacognitive strategies and referring to them regularly during learning, means they may make up to 20 months of progress in the same time.

Metacognitive strategies do not directly influence how content knowledge is presented to students. In a way, teaching metacognitive strategies entails teaching students to teach themselves; or how to get the most out of their learning.

Metacognitive strategies must be taught explicitly, extensively modelled, embedded in routines and the lesson structure, and linked to the content being taught to be effective. The advantage of using a metacognitive strategy must be made clear to students. These considerations apply to thinking skills like notetaking and summarising, and to self-regulation strategies such as self-questioning and self-consequences.

This strategy is demonstrated when students:

have a repertoire of learning strategies and can select strategies appropriate for the learning goals
reflect on their learning processes, self-assess and acknowledge the impact of effort on achievement
actively seek out feedback because they value it as a way to improve understanding of how they learn
are capable of self-regulation and proactively take control of, and responsibility for, their own learning.

To support the changes to our literacy program for 2025, a major part of Magnify Sandhurst, our Foundation, Junior Learning Community teachers and Learning Support Staff are involved in intensive professional learning this term, engaging with their own metacognitive strategies. They are thinking about how they best learn, how to learn co-operatively, how to embed their learning into their practice in the classroom, how to self-assess their progress and take responsibility for their outcomes.

regards

Jen McKillop

Eloise Liddell

Jess Moodie

Library News

What a great success our Bookfair has been again this year. It has been wonderful to see the excitement on children’s faces when they enter the library looking at all the displays set up. A huge thank you to the team of helpers for all your work in helping set up and run the Bookfair before and after school. Our library is always such an engaging and happy place at our school and with the rewards we have earned through the sales, we will be able to purchase more books for the students to enjoy.

Congratulations to the following winners of the Bookfair colouring competition:

Foundation Coomans - Hazel Reeves

Foundation Moodie - Esther Soly

Foundation Pigdon/O'Sullivan- Violet Daniel

12/ Damianopoulos - Edie Saunders

1/2 Finn- Dani Jis

1/2 Bekirofski - Tessa Nordbye

1/2 Jondahl - Aroha Don

3/4 Sait - Fiona Dinu

3/4 Hudson'/Fordge- Isabel Shelley

3/4 Maher - Arham Rehan

5/6 Liddell - Ella Edwards

5/6 Austen -Taqweer Bhatti

5/6 Kelly- Liam Maddox