Simply put, metacognition involves thinking about one’s thinking and learning. When faculty adopt a metacognitive approach to teaching, they provide students the opportunity to assess their learning and understanding, and consider the effectiveness of the methods they use to prepare for class and assessments. Classes commonly consist of a lecture peppered with occasional questions designed to check that students are following and making desired connections. Typically, these questions are answered by the same few students and instructors are left wondering how the other students are doing. Further, the students themselves often have a poor sense of their own understanding and comfort with the course content.

To remedy this, consider incorporating a brief active learning activity every so often during the lecture. These activities provide an opportunity for everyone in the class to engage with the course material in a more thoughtful way and provide instructors with a brief, informal assessment of students’ progress.

Most of these activities require limited advanced planning and demand only a few minutes of class time yet they boost students’ learning and performance. One meta-analysis of 225 studies comparing student performance in STEM courses with and without active learning practices found that integrating active learning was associated with improved exam performance and reduced failure rates (Freeman et al., 2014).

This resource provides information on commonly used activities that promote this form of learning, along with icebreakers and community building.