How well do learners remember what they learn at school? A view shared by many is that much of what we learn in school is forgotten soon after it has been taught. You may have probably experienced the same thing, where you don’t remember much of what you may have studied in a course. Up to this point, the focus has been on a general explanation of how people attend to, encode, store, and retrieve information. In other words, we have focused on some of the most important aspects of thinking. Much of the research in the last twenty years has focused on how much knowledge individuals have about their own thought processes and the significance of this knowledge for learning. We refer to this as metacognition – or ‘thinking about your own thinking’. While cognition refers to the way in which information is processed, metacognition refers to what we know about those operations and how they might be used to achieve a learning goal. Flavell in Biehler and Snowman (1997, p332) puts it this way:

I am engaging in metacognition...if I notice that I am having more trouble learning A than B; if it strikes me that I should double check C before accepting it as a fact; if it occurs to me that I had better scrutinize each and every alternative in any multiple-choice type task situation before deciding which one is the best one; if I become aware that I am not sure what the experimenter wants me to do; if I sense that I had better make a note of D because I may forget it; if I think to ask someone about E to see if I have it right.

Flavell’s three part classification scheme is useful in understanding this concept better. This classification scheme includes: knowledge of person variables, task variables, and strategy variables. Examples of each are as follows:

• Knowledge of person variables: knowing that you are better at learning essays than mathematical concepts.
• Task variables: knowing that you have difficulty understanding extracts which are long and have difficult, unfamiliar words.
• Strategy variables: knowing that you will understand a text better if you first skim through it to determine its length and difficulty.

Research has shown that younger children know very little about their own cognitive processes, when and how to use them. Learners in primary school do not analyze learning tasks, make plans for learning, use strategies to help their memory and understanding or monitor their progress. The view is that they do not (or cannot) understand how doing these things benefits their learning. As children grow and develop and begin to experience more complex information, they begin to develop a greater awareness of their metacognitive knowledge. Teachers can assist learners by helping them learn to use their metacognitive knowledge.

A learning strategy is a general plan that a learner develops for achieving a learning goal (like achieving an A on the next test). It will provide an outline of what needs to be done to achieve this goal, where and when it will be done. A learning tactic, on the other hand, is a specific technique (like note taking or summarizing) that a learner will use to achieve an outcome (like understand the information processing model and relate it to learning). Learning tactics are integrally linked to learning strategies. For example, if you wanted to recall the parts of this section word for word, you might use a learning tactic that would enable you to recall each paragraph accurately and completely. However, if you wanted to apply what you learn in this section to classroom teaching and learning, then you would use a learning tactic that would help you understand the main ideas of each paragraph.

Helping learners become strategic learners

In this sub-section, we will think about some of the tips we may have picked up from the explanation of the information-processing model.

Planning and presenting a well organized and relevant lesson is also of great
importance. To enable us to plan our own learning, and that of our learners, we
need to keep in mind the following six elements which make up a learning strategy:

Learners often resort to rote learning (like reading a chapter or section repeatedly so as to memorise it), simple organizational schemes (like outlining), and various devices (like marking important ideas). These encoding techniques are effective for certain types of learning, but are not helpful when the nature of the task changes. This is because learners are not taught how to effectively use their cognitive abilities. We describe these in a little more detail below.

Metacognition: We have already discussed the importance of knowing how we think and how our thought processes affect our academic performance. In order to be effective in our learning, we need to be able to analyze the learning situation, formulate a learning plan, skillfully implement appropriate learning tactics, regularly monitor our progress, and modify the things that do not work. In addition, we need to know why the above steps are necessary, when each should be carried out, and how prepared we are to execute these steps.

Analysis: If a plan is to be workable, it must be based on relevant information. The strategic learner needs to ask questions such as what, when, why, where, who and how. These will help the learner identify:

• the material that must be learned (what, when, where).
• the type of task one is confronted with or nature of the test (why).
• personal characteristics (who).
• useful learning tactics and activities (how).

Planning: Once you have tackled the above tasks satisfactorily, you are ready to formulate a learning plan. You might say something like the following:

• I have to study and understand the theories of learning within the next two weeks (the material to be learned).
• I will have to compare and contrast the principles and theories proposed by the behaviourist, cognitive and social cognitive theorists (nature of the task related to the outcome on p.1).
• I am good at identifying main ideas and summarizing the key points from a text but I cannot concentrate for long periods (your strengths and weaknesses).
• I can use skimming to get the main ideas of the text, make notes of important details and use self-questioning to enhance my understanding of what I am studying ( nature of techniques and learning activities).

Armed with this knowledge, you may decide to: divide the unit into smaller sections which will take you not longer than half an hour to read, make notes as you read, ask yourself self-generated questions which help you compare and contrast ideas, and perhaps repeat this sequence several times (rehearsal) until you feel confident that you know the material well.

Implementation: Once you have formulated a plan, you need to implement each of the elements skillfully. If you use learning tactics poorly, or have a lack of knowledge about what conditions make for effective use of tactics, then even a thorough analysis and well-designed plan will not work.

Monitoring the plan: It is necessary to evaluate and establish how well the chosen tactics are working. The following tactics can be used to monitor learning effectiveness: writing summaries, giving an oral presentation, working on practical problems, and answering questions. In class, discuss your ideas and your understanding of material with other students or your class tutor in order to assess it.

Modification: If your attempts at understanding or remembering certain information are unsuccessful, then you will need to re-evaluate and modify the analysis. This will obviously result in changes in the plan and implementation.

Types of Tactics: There are two categories of learning tactics based on what the basic purpose of the tactic is:

• Memory-directed tactics are tactics that help to produce accurate storage and retrieval of information. Rehearsal and mnemonic devices (codes to help memorizing) are examples of memory-directed tactics.
  
  
• Comprehension-directed tactics are techniques which facilitate understanding of the meaning of ideas and their connection to each other. Examples include note-taking and self-questioning.

Self Questioning can be a valuable learning tactic, especially as learners are expected to demonstrate much of what they know by answering oral or written test questions. The key to using questions effectively is to recognize that different types of questions make different cognitive demands. Some questions require word-for-word recall or recognition of simple facts and details. If an exam stresses factual recall, then it may be useful for learners to generate questions of the type which might be asked, while studying. If questions assess comprehension, application, or drawing together of main ideas, then learners need to generate different questions for these tasks.

The following play an important role in the effectiveness of self-questioning:

• The amount of prior knowledge the learner has about the topic of the passage. If a learner knows a lot about a topic, it will be easier for him/her to formulate questions that reflect factual knowledge, comprehension of main ideas, similarities and differences among different ideas, and so on.
• The amount of metacognitive knowledge the learner has developed. A learner has to be aware of, for example, the types of questions that could be asked (such as questions dealing with knowledge level, comprehension level, or application level) and the reasons for asking them, before he/she can effectively engage in self-questioning.
• The clarity of instructions. Learners need to be given clear and detailed instructions on how to write good questions of a particular nature.
• The instructional format. Learners should be encouraged to work in small cooperative groups in which they practice and evaluate each other’s questions.
• The amount of practice the learner engages in. Learners should be given as much practice as possible in writing questions which develop high proficiency.
• The length of practice sessions. Each practice session should be long enough for all learners to comfortably read a passage and think of good questions. Often, teachers are unrealistic in their expectations when they give learners time to read an extract, usually because of time limitations.

A Summary of this section’s key learning points

• Learners need to learn how to learn, they need to become aware of their own cognitive processes.
• The Information Processing Model explains the flow of information through various components and processes.
• Helping learners learn by developing Strategies for effective learning and tactics for remembering information.