Verified by 
Teens work with more efficiency and perseverance when they are intentionally aware of the strategies that bring them success.
Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking
Metacognition—or thinking about how they think—helps teens develop an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and the strategies that are most useful to them in specific situations.
Optimal learning is linked with kids being aware of and practicing distinct behaviors and doing so consciously. Teens benefit from multiple approaches and opportunities in how they learn and self-awareness of their most successful learning strategies (Dance, 2015).
By planning and using a variety of ways to acquire and apply learning, kids can increase memory and recall of the information. Brain imaging reveals that when subjects apply new learning from previously unconnected memory storage regions, there is a "lighting up" of these regions simultaneously in new patterns. Thus, in experiences where kids try consciously to perform mental or physical tasks in new ways, such as improvization, creative innovation, or using visual mind maps to illustrate their learning, the new multicentric brain activation can increase the ways in which the learning can be activated and retrieved. (Anderson & Contino. 2010; Dhindsa et al. 2011).
Strategies for Building Your Teen’s Metacognition
Teens are more successful at learning, studying, and memory when their awareness is directed to the strategies that they have experienced as bringing them success. Have your teens consider the outcome of their learning or studying strategies.
After using a new strategy successfully, especially if it was in an area in which they had not been successful previously, have them think about, write down, or discuss their impressions of what made the new (or repeated) strategy helpful. For example, if your child noted that they remembered new material better when they related the information to a film they saw or book they had read, how and when would that be a strategy worth using again in the same or another subject?
Students get even more guidance and self-awareness by keeping these insights in success logs, writing down how they might use them again for future success. These success logs provide tools to consult for future test preparation and assignments.
Here are some suggestions for your child to consider as guides for their self-evaluation and future strategy planning.
- What did I do that was the best use of my time?
- What improvement did I notice?
- What did I try that I’d do again?
- What would I do differently next time?
- How could this strategy be modified to apply to another subject or type of assignment?
The metacognitive process of taking note of strategies and when they work promotes independent learning and raises teens’ confidence by reinforcing their best learning tools. These practices of metacognition expand teens’ learning potential and empower them to be their own tutors and guides in learning and in life.
References
Anderson & Contino. 2010. A study of teacher-mediated enhancement of students’ organization of earth science using web diagrams as a teaching device. Journal of Science Teacher Education. 21(60, 683-701).
Dance, A. (2015).Connectomes make the map. Nature, 526(7571), 147-149.
Dhindsa, H., Kasim, M., & Anderson, O. (2011). Constructivist-visual mind map teaching approach and the quality of students’ cognitive structures. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 20(2), 186-200.
Willis, J. (2019). Unlock Teen Brainpower: 20 Keys to Boosting Attention, Memory, and Efficiency. JRowman & Littlefield Publishing: Lanham, MD.
Willis, J. (2008). How Your Child Learns Best: Brain-Based Ways to Ignite Learning and Increase School Success. Foreword by Goldie Hawn. Sourcebooks: Naperville, Illinois.
