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1992 25: 253J Learn DisabilJohn G. Borkowski

Metacognitive Theory: A Framework for Teaching Literacy, Writing, and Math Skills  

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Metacognitive Theory: A Framework for Teaching Literacy, Writing, and Math Skills

John G. Borkowski

This set of articles—on the three Rs—has provided us with inno-vative, wide-ranging perspec-

tives on how teachers can enhance aca-demic performance. I could devote considerable space to emphasizing the many positive aspects in each of the three major articles. However, the commentators have done a fine job in pinpointing strengths and identifying limitations associated with each posi-tion paper. Hence, my goal is to draw the three articles into a more coherent and unified perspective, based in large part on recent advances in metacog-nitive theory. I will develop three themes: (1) self-regulation as the cen-terpiece of strategy-based instruction; (2) the reciprocal relationship between self-regulated learning and beliefs about the "self" as a learner; and (3) "working models" and their role in classroom teaching. Hopefully, having stated my case as succinctly as possi-ble, connections will emerge between my preferred metacognitive frame-work and the major themes in the ac-companying articles.

Lessons From Metacognitive Theory

Although the fields of education and psychology have failed to achieve con-

sensus on the boundary conditions that define metacognitive theory (Bor-kowski, Carr, Rellinger, & Pressley, 1990), its elusive framework continues to stimulate research, especially in the area of learning disabilities (LD). Bor-kowski, Estrada, Milstead, and Hale (1989) argued that two concepts—self-regulation and the motivational beliefs associated with strategy use—are the major components of metacognitive theory that are relevant to our under-standing of a wide range of learning impairments. Additionally, Borkowski and Muthukrishna (in press) have sug-gested that a teacher's understanding of these processes, that is, his or her implicit working model of children's learning and problem solving, is essen-tial for sustained, innovative, strategy-oriented instruction.

Self-Regulation: The Heart of Metacognition

As children mature they acquire, at different rates and to different degrees of competency, executive or self-regu-latory skills. These skills form the basis for adaptive, planful learning, think-ing, reading, and problem solving across a number of academic domains. Initially, the function of self-regulation is to analyze and "size u p " tasks in order to select an approach to problem

solving (hopefully, through the choice of a viable strategy). Later, during the course of learning, the job of self-reg-ulation is to monitor the course of learn-ing and, perhaps, to adjust or revise the strategy. These complex components of self-regulation are not easily ac-quired and generally are not the ex-plicit focus of classroom instruction or discussion in their own right.

Motivational Beliefs: Linkages to Self-Regulation

Our approach to metacognitive the-ory has for some time contained two important assumptions: Every impor-tant cognitive act has motivational con-sequences, and, furthermore, these conse-quences potentiate future self-regulatory actions (Borkowski et al., 1989). For instance, as strategic and executive processes become more refined, the young student comes to recognize the importance of being strategic. As a result, feelings of self-efficacy emerge. Simultaneously, children learn to at-tribute successful academic outcomes to effort (and sometimes ability) rather than to luck or ease of the to-be-learned task. Over time, some children recognize two important aspects about themselves as students: (1) They enjoy learning for its own sake; that is, they become task-oriented rather than ego-

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254 JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES

oriented (Nicholls, 1989); and (2) it is through their own self-directed ac-tions that mental competencies are en-hanced; that is, they develop "in-cremental" theories about the growth of the mind (Dweck, 1986).

The final link in the metacogni-tive chain is between motivational-personal states and future problem-solving behaviors. Borkowski and Muthukrishna (in press) have de-scribed the bidirectional relationships between learning and motivation in the following way:

A sense of self-efficacy and an enjoyment of learning flow from individual strategic events but eventually return to energize strategy selection and monitoring deci-sions (i.e., executive processes). It is this latter connection—the association between the learner's reasons for learning and the de-ployment of self-regulation [italics added]— that has been absent from most instruc-tional programs.

How Working Models Augment Strategic Teaching

By forming and continually updating their working models of children's metacognitive development, teachers make explicit commitments to the im-portance of strategy-based approaches to instruction. The conscious devel-opment of working models during teacher training seems especially im-portant. Models need to evolve grad-ually in the minds of novice teachers and become carefully fitted to their unique dispositions and histories.

It seems imperative for teachers to develop working models of metacog-nitive development in order to deliver inventive, flexible, strategy-oriented curricula. This idea is built around the rationale developed in other fields of inquiry about the importance of work-ing models in guiding human decision making, as well as observations of sea-soned, effective teachers, most of whom display a rich perspective on, and interest in, their own theories of children's mental development (Press-ley et al., 1991).

A working model provides a schema for organizing knowledge, a frame-work in which to incorporate new information, and a springboard for launching future actions. The adjective working emphasizes the dynamic na-ture of the concept: The concept helps provide interpretations of present sit-uations and determines a range of al-ternative future actions (Bretherton, 1985). In the hands of a strategic teacher, a working model assists in de-cisions as to the next course of action for a class, a small group, or a particu-lar student. The noun model implies an active, personal construction of one's own theory, as well as its inevitable change in content and function with experience (Bretherton, 1985). Hence, there is ownership of each teacher's working model of metacognitive devel-opment, because it has been care-fully crafted, reshaped, and groomed through personal success and failure experiences.

In order for our preferred model of metacognition, or any similar concep-tualization of strategy-based learning, to function properly, it must be "inter-nalized and personalized." It must be owned rather than borrowed. To "own" a model, in this sense, implies that a teacher must practice its major components, receive guidance in mod-ifying related instructional techniques, adapt the model's characteristics to the unique circumstances of the classroom, and update the model based on per-sonal experiences. In short, an exter-nally imposed model will do little to enhance flexible, transactional, con-structively oriented teaching.

Applications to the Teachings of Literacy,

Writing, and Mathematics

The Hidden Agenda in Reciprocal Teaching

Palincsar and Klenk (this issue) have provided a rich description of how "supportive contexts" set the stage for the emergence of literacy learning skills in students with learning difficulties.

They characterize students with LD as "having difficulty with intentional learning accompanied by impover-ished understandings regarding the nature and demands of learning, a limited repertoire of strategic ap-proaches to learning, and negative motivational attributions and beliefs." This description incorporates many of the features of the metacognitive mod-el outlined above, provided that the strategic skills referred to by Palincsar and Klenk include lower level skills (such as summarization) as well as higher order, self-regulatory skills (such as decisions to select a strategy, monitor its effectiveness, and even-tually revise it to meet the needs of changing circumstances).

From a metacognitive framework, why is reciprocal teaching (RT) so ef-fective with students with LD? First, as Palincsar and Klenk claim, a sense of "playfulness" is engendered by the RT approach. Children come to see learn-ing as a game rather than a chore or threat. Hence, the RT approach pro-motes the adoption of task orientations and actively counters ego-oriented rea-sons for performing academic tasks. Second, RT fosters the development of skills that constitute self-regulation: attending to the demands of each task, planning alternative approaches, selecting a reasonable choice, judging the success of performance as it un-folds, and, finally, trying a different approach if needed. It may be that RT enhances self-regulatory skills even more than it fosters the development of specific strategies. Finally, the moti-vational consequences of RT are con-siderable, especially for students with LD who have accumulated histories of academic failure and have formed self-defeating explanations for their failures in extremely personal terms ("I'm a dumb person and nothing I do mat-ters"). Hence, RT has the potential for reshaping negative attributional be-liefs, especially if the teacher is aware of their presence and possible destruc-tive consequences, and intentionally provides supportive feedback de-signed to strengthen the self system.

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How is the concept of working mod-els of children's cognitive, metacogni-tive, and motivational development applicable to RT? Teachers who are consciously aware of metacognitive linkages are in good positions to re-shape self-defeating beliefs, enhance feelings of self-efficacy, foster an in-terest in learning for its oWn sake, and, most importantly, associate such changes in the motivational-self sys-tems with the emergence of indepen-dent, self-regulatory skills. For in-stance, it may be helpful to extend RT more explicitly into the delicate realm of motivational retraining, in order to provide students with LD with the energizing factors necessary for inde-pendent reading and thinking. Work-ing models would likely be an asset to teachers in diagnosing and under-standing the complexities of individual problems and in redirecting classroom dialogues aimed at reshaping personal beliefs about self-efficacy and learning orientations.

Social Contexts: Are Direct Interventions Appropriate?

Englert (this series) has provided a provocative account of how a social constructivist framework can be an ef-fective model for developing writing programs for students with LD. The insightful, interactive dialogues she provides vividly document the value of teaching writing as a holistic, authen-tic enterprise. My main reservations about Englert's article are twofold: (1) Can direct strategy instruction en-hance, or speed up, the teaching of writing, and is such instruction neces-sarily antithetical to social constructi-vism? (2) Can metacognitive theory— especially its self-regulatory and moti-vational components—broaden the ho-listic approach to writing instruction?

A major criticism of strategy instruc-tion has been that it does not place sufficient emphasis on the learner's active construction of knowledge. In-deed, if strategy instruction considers the learner merely as a passive par-ticipant and the teacher as simply a

manager, then children will work on highly specified strategies that have lit-tle meaning to them (Poplin, 1988a, 1988b). Englert refers to this approach as "emphasizing writings as the mas-tering of a series of skills"—children are simply drilled on what strategy to apply, and asked to memorize and re-produce strategy sequences. The re-sulting effects are often inconsequen-tial and short-lived.

Although some constructivists de-scribe direct strategy teaching as incor-porating features of behavioral instruc-tion and, hence, mechanical in nature, Pressley, Harris, and Marks (in press) believe that good strategy instruction is, in fact, constructivist. They argue that characteristics of constructivist in-struction are consistent with the prin-ciples of effective strategy instruction. Their conclusions are based on qualita-tive research in school settings that practice strategy-based instruction (see Pressley, El-Dinary, et al., in press, for a review): Effective teachers have an explicit strategy-based teaching agenda, possess the ingredients of a working model of development, but nonetheless are constructivists in their approach to children's learning. Stu-dents are stimulated to explore new strategies, with competent teachers guiding their students to discover the effectiveness of individual strategic sequences. Thus, understanding is con-structed through interactions with the more competent problem solvers. The net result is that strategies evolve through a pro-cess of "guided discovery."

An important component of good strategy instruction is scaffolding. The teacher assumes control in promoting attention to the task and to appropri-ate strategies, controls frustration, decreases the risk inherent in problem solving by reducing the number of steps in the process, and makes overt any discrepancies between the child's response and more appropriate strate-gy use. Teachers do not merely deliver content to students but, rather, model strategic processing. During extensive practice sessions, effective teachers dis-cuss and illustrate how content can be

understood using study strategies. A critical aspect of this process is that the students' responses have substan-tial impact on the course of student-teacher interactions.

Strategy instruction, including the kind of scaffolding provided to partic-ular students, is unique because the components of teacher-student inter-actions are not scripted but, rather, develop as instruction unfolds. The na-ture and content of each interaction is determined by the teacher's perception of a student's progress in acquiring an individual strategy. Thus, the ultimate goal of strategy-oriented scaffolding is to develop student independence through the gradual internalization of the processes that are encouraged dur-ing instruction. Descriptive data, pro-vided by Pressley, El-Dinary, et al. (in press), have revealed that effective teachers generally promote a view of reading as an interactive task of "con-structing meaning": Students come to realize that comprehension depends on a combination of their own personal effort and strategy use in searching for understand-ing. In short, the aim of good strategy instruction is to provide opportunities for students to personalize strategies. It should be noted, however, that teachers do not have to choose be-tween constructed and instructed orien-tations to instruction. By incorporating the concept of guided discovery, strat-egy instruction provides ample oppor-tunities for constructive processes to develop and operate effectively.

The main point here is that the ef-fects produced by the holistic approach to writing might be enhanced by incor-porating more explicit, direct instruc-tions. This is especially true in the development of more regulated forms of writing, as well as in the motiva-tional antecedents necessary for com-pleting complicated, lengthy, and thought-provoking writing assign-ments. Perhaps an explicit concern for the motivational underpinnings of writing would aid the emergence of the self-regulating skills that seem es-sential for success in these more ad-vanced writing tasks.

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Teaching Mathematics: Decomposing Cognitive Regulatory Skills

In many respects, Montague's (this issue) classification of cognitive and metacognitive strategies resembles the model discussed earlier in this article. The language used—strategy use, its regulation, and inspiration—is parallel to Montague's concepts of cognitive-metacognitive strategies. More impor-tantly, Montague's data, though not terribly compelling (i.e., the maxi-mum performance gain at transfer was around 20%), hint at the value of dis-entangling, at least conceptually, lower level strategies from the higher level executive routines that are necessary for their implementation. The issue of decomposition merits further consid-eration.

Is Self-Regulation Only in the Eyes of the Beholder? Assuming that sig-nificant temporal and setting generali-zation effects were detected in Mon-tague's study, can they "safely" be assigned to cognitive, metacognitive, or combined causes? The question of decomposing lower and higher level strategies is conceptually complex (see Borkowski & Turner, 1989). My own perspective is to insist that changing tasks represent the necessary condi-tions for demonstrating self-regulatory processes.

The concept of executive functioning (or self-regulation) has been operation-ally identified as follows: "A subject spontaneously changes a control pro-cess or sequence of control processes as a reasonable response to an objec-tive change in an information process-ing task" (Butterfield & Belmont, 1977, p. 284). In other words, if strategy A is used with task X, and if task Y is then introduced, the subject is said to employ executive functioning if strat-egy B replaces A. Or, if strategy A on task X is found to be ineffective and hence is replaced by strategy B during the course of problem solving, the sub-stitution becomes an instance of regu-lation. Hence, generalization tests can

JOURNAL OF LEARNING DISABILITIES

only indirectly measure the existence and adequacy of the executive system, in that the changes in materials and/or tasks from the training phase to the transfer phase provide an opportunity for observing the selection and revi-sion of lower level strategies. The dif-ficulty with Montague's generalization tests is that they failed to allow for clear, unequivocal opportunities for "switches" in strategy use. Rapid, dra-matic changes in strategy actions pro-vide the most interpretable "moment" for inferring the operation of higher order regulatory processes.

Working Models and Classroom Teaching. Borkowski and Muthu-krishna (in press) believe that a meta-cognition-based working model can supplement the general models of classroom interactive decision making, such as Shavelson and Stern's (1981), by providing greater content specific-ity. Thus, the concept of the working model has profound implications not only for the way in which teachers interact with students, but also for the way they organize their short- and long-range classroom activities. Be-cause the focus of instruction should be on each student's learning process, the teacher becomes adept at hypothe-sizing about how a student is process-ing information at any moment and modifies the teaching strategy to alter not only the course of learning but also cognitive development itself.

In this light, teachers' working models need "fleshing out," in terms of possible interactive routines that might be drawn upon to spur meta-cognitive development. Hence, Mon-tague's focus on how strategy and regulatory skills might be taught (in sequence or in combination) is highly relevant as a framework for conduct-ing classroom dialogues. The problem, however, is that her methods for in-structing metacognitive processes (es-pecially higher level executive skills) are under specified. Teachers desper-ately need explicit examples of how to teach children to carry out task anal-yses, how to scan past experiences for

a range of viable strategies, how to match task demands to the strategy set in order to select the best strategy, and how to monitor and revise the initial strategy selection.

It may well be premature to conduct instructional, manipulative research on self-regulatory processes. Perhaps qualitative research can best yield the rich dialogues that are needed to help students acquire essential self-regula-tory skills as well as to foster the emer-gence of motivational states necessary for their implementation. Armed with more precise hypotheses about the na-ture of self-regulation and its interface with lower level strategies and motiva-tional dispositions, experimental re-search might be in a better position to produce educationally significant findings.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John G. Borkowski is the Andrew J. McKenna Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught for the past 25 years. He received his MA from Ohio Univer-sity and PhD from the University of Iowa, and taught at Oberlin College for 2 years. Professor Borkowski''s research has focused on the develop-ment of metacognitive theory and its application to classroom settings. A special interest has been exceptionality, especially learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, and giftedness. Ad-dress: John G. Borkowski, Department of Psy-chology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.

REFERENCES

Borkowski, J.G., Carr, M., Rellinger, L., & Pressley, M. (1990). Self-regulated cogni-tion: Interdependence of metacognition, attributions and self-esteem. In B. Jones & L. Idol (Eds.), Dimensions of thinking and cognitive instruction (Vol. 1, pp. 53-92). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Borkowski, J.G., Estrada, T.M., Milstead, M., & Hale, C.A. (1989). General prob-lem-solving skills: Relations between metacognitive and strategic processing. Learning Disability Quarterly, 12, 57-70.

Borkowski, J.G., & Muthukrishna, N. (in press). Moving metacognition into the classroom: ''Working models7' and effec-tive strategy teaching. In M. Pressley, K.

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Harris, & J. Guthrie (Eds.), Promoting aca- 2 demic literacy. Orlando, FL: Academic E Press. Dw

Borkowski, J.G., & Turner, L. (1989). Trans- a situational characteristics of metacogni- 4 tion. In W. Schneider & F. Weinert Nic (Eds.), Interaction among aptitudes, strate- a gies, and knowledge in cognitive performance F (pp. 159-176). Boston: Springer-Verlag. Pot

Bretherton, J. (1985). Attachment theory: p Retrospect and prospect. In J. Bretherton c & E. Waters (Eds.), Growing points of at- ii tachment theory and research (pp. 32-35). ii SRCD Monographs, 50, Serial No. 209. Poj

Butterfield, E., & Belmont, J.M. (1977). 1« Assessing and improving the executive tl cognitive functions of mentally retarded o people. In I. Bialer & M. Sternlicht (Eds.), Pre The psychology of mental retardation (pp. I.

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Pressley, M., Goodchild, F., Fleet, J., Zajchowski, R., & Evans, E.D. (1989). The challenges of classroom strategy in-struction. The Elementary School Journal, 89, 301-342.

Slife, B.D., Weiss, J., & Bell, T. (1985). Separability of metacognition and cogni-tion: Problem solving in learning disabled and regular students. Journal of Educa-tional Psychology, 77, 437-445.

Sternberg, RJ. (1987). A unified theory of intellectual exceptionality. In J. Day & J.G. Borkowski (Eds.), Intelligence and exceptionality: New directions for theory, as-sessment, and instructional practices (pp. 135-172). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

277-318). New York: Psychological Dimensions.

Dweck, C.S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 41, 1040-1048.

Nicholls, J.G. (1989). The competitive ethics and democratic education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Poplin, M.S. (1988a). Holistic/constructivist principles of the teaching/learning pro-cess: Implications for the field of learn-ing disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabil-ities, 21, 401-416.

Poplin, M.S. (1988b). The reductionist fal-lacy in learning disabilities: Replicating the past by reducing the present. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 21, 389-400.

Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P.B., Gaskins, I.W., Schuder, T., Bergman, J., Almasi,

J., & Brown, R. (in press). Direct explana-tion done well: Transactional instruction of reading comprehension strategies. Elementary School Journal.

Pressley, M., Gaskins, I.W., Cunicelli, E.A., Burdick, N.J., Schaub-Matt, M., Lee, D.S., & Powell, H. (1991). Strategy instruction at Benchmark School: A faculty interview study. Learning Disabil-ity Quarterly, 14, 19-48.

Pressley, M., Harris, K.R., & Marks, M.B. (in press). But good strategy instructors are constructivist. Educational Psychology Review.

Shavelson, R.J., & Stern, P. (1981). Re-search on teachers' pedogogical thoughts, judgments, decisions, and behavior. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455-498.

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