Metacognition

=Thinking About Our Thinking--METACOGNITION! =P= "When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself." Plato

Metacognition. Thinking about our thinking. The first impression of the word is that it sounds so philosophical, like something you would hear being said by some philosophical whiz. But, after searching this word up on the Habits of Mind site, I have found that it is surprisingly uncomplicated. It’s just basically knowing the strategies you’re using.

I think that this is one major problem with me. I know for math, it is all too tempting to fall into the “Teacher solved the problem this way, so all my homework questions should be solved this way. Just throw them into the formula” without actually figuring out the mechanics or even WHY (*ahemQuestioningAndPosingProblemsahem*).

One example that comes to mind is this one question on the most recent test. The question asked for a coefficient of hydrogen ions after the equation was balanced. I saw the signs, and immediately freaked out. I immediately assumed (managing impulsivity much?) that we had to balance out the signs, that there was something uneven about the charges. I was so focused on making sure that the charges were equal on both sides of the equation that I just simply forgot to use the way we were taught. It wasn’t until I was feeling the pressure of time when I thought of just balancing it the “Normal Way.” I did, then checked the distribution of my charges. They were exactly the same. Thank goodness that I had thought of changing the way I thought about/interpreted the question, otherwise I was not very likely to finish the test within the period.

My hasty judgment does sometimes get me in trouble though, but I do “think about my thinking” (and justify it in my head). Though I do not shine in this habit like I might for others, but at least this doesn’t need that much improvement.

Figure 1:The question that exceptionally annoyed me.