Is it Metacognition or is it Critical Thinking? (or The Importance of Questions)

by Pam Reese, Assistant Professor, CSD

“What’s the difference between meta-cognition and critical thinking?” That was the question running through my mind at the close of the webinar “Teaching Metacognitive Skills” that I attended on February 17. The presenter said there was “overlap” but I think using some of the strategies that they discussed would help students learn to use critical thinking.

My mind turns again and again to thinking about asking questions. How often do I really ask questions of the students? And more importantly, what type of questions do I ask? Using a revised Bloom’s taxonomy levels, questions can help students remember and understand, but also apply, analyze, evaluate and create. Not only is important to ask questions, but also to plan questions to ask. Clearly, this is the way to ensure that higher level thinking questions are asked. It’s more than just asking questions. How long should I wait for an answer? How to handle when the same one or two students are always quick to answer? A suggestion for this last question was to think of the class divided into sections and ask for the answer from different sections. Ask a question and get a good answer.

Questions are important for students to ask themselves. I believe these prompts for student self-questions goes to the heart of students learning to reflect and beginning to think critically. The presenters shared samples of self-questions in the areas of planning to learn, monitoring learning and evaluating learning. The handout taken from Tanner (2012) listed questions students could ask themselves before, during or after class sessions, homework assignments, quizzes or exams and even the overall course.

I plan to begin improving my use of questions in the classroom—both in number and quality. The first step will begin in planning which questions to ask and then asking them. This will be a process with some questions being better than others, but over time I should have the best questions to ask while teaching different concepts. Wish me luck!