Introduction

Imagine this scenario: you’ve been diligently studying for two hours every night for a week leading up to a major exam. You’ve used flashcards and rewritten the course notes. You arrive to the exam feeling prepared, but when you open the test and read the questions it feels like you didn’t study at all. You leave the exam feeling discouraged and asking yourself questions like, did I focus on the right material and how did I miss the mark so badly? Those frustrations are reflected in the grade you see posted after results are released by your instructor.

Most students have found themselves in a similar situation to the one described above. It can be a frustrating and disheartening experience. Which of the responses noted in the box above have you had? Maybe it was a mix of the four choices or one not listed. If you selected the third option, you were practicing what is known as metacognition.

What is Metacognition?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary^[1] metacognition is awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process. Simply put, metacognition is learning about how you learn and thinking about your individual thought process. Students who practice metacognition often report deeper learning, feeling more satisfied with course outcomes, and feel a greater ability to monitor and regulate their own study habits.

Practicing Metacognition

While the concept of metacognition might sound simple, it can be daunting to figure out how to incorporate metacognition into your study routine. The best approach is to break the metacognitive process into three distinct steps: planning, monitoring, and adapting. These three steps should be repeated as a cycle, to continue to make your studying as efficient and productive as it can be.

Planning

The first step at improving your metacognition is to plan you study routine and identify methods that you’ll be using. You might consider what days of the week and times are best to study for a specific course. Then you can identify which study tools you’ll be using. When making your plan it can be helpful to set a goal for the exam or course you’re working on and then ask yourself what needs to be done to achieve that goal.

Monitoring

After you make your study plan you should monitor how closely you followed the plan. Some considerations might be if you spent the amount of time you planned studying, if the days and times you selected worked for your schedule, and if the study tools you selected were appropriate for the content. You might also monitor your learning by tracking how well you do on practice exams, short quizzes, and/or class assignments.  Another key part to the monitoring step is determining if you met your goal set in the planning stage.

Adapting

During the adaptation stage you reflect on how your plan contributed to whether or not you met your learning goal. If you did meet your goal it can be helpful to assess what was the most effective part of your plan. If your goal was not met you can consider how the plan can be changed to achieve a more desirable outcome. Once you have identified what works and what might not be productive for you, you can use that information to revise you study plan for your next exam. You should also be sure to plan a way to reward yourself for all of the hard work you put in!

Exam Wrappers

Exam wrappers are short activities that you can complete as soon as you finish an exam that reinforce the metacognitive process. You can select from the following questions associated with each step of the metacognitive process to create an exam wrapper that will help you with your metacognitive skills.

You can view another Exam Wrapper example here which you can use for your own studying.

In October 2021, Dr. Shingler also recorded the below presentation that gives more insight into making the most of exam wrappers for understanding your learning.