METACOGNITION consists of three basic elements:
  • Developing a plan of action
  • Maintaining/monitoring the plan
  • Evaluating the plan
Before - When you are developing the plan of action, ask yourself:
  • What in my prior knowledge will help me with this particular task?
  • In what direction do I want my thinking to take me?
  • What should I do first?
  • Why am I reading this selection?
  • How much time do I have to complete the task?
During - When you are maintaining/monitoring the plan of action, ask yourself:
  • How am I doing?
  • Am I on the right track?
  • How should I proceed?
  • What information is important to remember?
  • Should I move in a different direction?
  • Should I adjust the pace depending on the difficulty?
  • What do I need to do if I do not understand?
After - When you are evaluating the plan of action ask yourself:
  • How well did I do?
  • Did my particular course of thinking produce more or less than I had expected?
  • What could I have done differently?
  • How might I apply this line of thinking to other problems?
  • Do I need to go back through the task to fill in any "blanks" in my understanding?
Excerpted from Strategic Teaching and Reading Project Guidebook. (1995, NCREL, rev. ed.).

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