Question

How can college students use the information on metacognition to improve their academic work? What strategies will you employ in your future academic work?

Answer 1

Metacognition is used to define the higher cognitive process involved in understanding the processes of cognition itself such as in thinking, solving problems, remembering. Metacognition as a field deals with the question of how do individuals think, solve problems and /or improve their memory. Thus metacognition pertains to practical solution oriented approach and it is this characteristic of metacognition which makes it highly applicable and useful for academic performance of college graduates.

Metacognition can help improve our learning by helping us pay attention to the three types of metacognitions. Descriptive metacognition or the knowledge of the factors which influence our own individual ability to learn and solve problems in a situation could help us find the inhibitory factors that reduce our motivation to study during exams and work on minimising them, such as reflecting on the fact that I study alone better than in the group allow such me to ensure that I chose a quiet place while writing an assignment so that I am able to concentrate better. Then, there is procedural knowledge about the steps of doing things such a simple the use of heuristics and specific strategies. This is particularly helpful in physics and mathematical problems. Thirdly, conditional knowledge which allows the students to assess when and why to use either descriptive or procedural forms of knowledge to attain the best results and thus allows us to develop a logic of learning and doing the work in the right way.

Moreoer, as students, we can appreciate the theories of memory and research works in the sub field of metamemory which provides several techniques of improving memory using mnemonics or memory shorthands. Knowledge and practice of Mnemonic techniques such as making associative pairs between concepts in a theory to remember and recall during exams the correct terminology as coined by a theorist. This is one of he many strategies which are made available to us through an understanding of the process of metacognition.