Culture of Mastery
The following metacognitive skills can support students as they reach deeper learning outcomes (Kaplan, Silver, Lavaque-Mantry, & Meizlish, 2013; Norford & Marzano, 2016; Tanner, 2012). • “Staying focused when answers and solutions are not immediately apparent” (Norford & Marzano, 2016, p. 5) • “Pushing the limits of one’s knowledge and skills” (Norford & Marzano, 2016, p. 6) • “Generating and pursuing one’s own standards of excellence” (Norford & Marzano, 2016, p. 6) • “Seeking incremental steps” (Norford & Marzano, 2016, p. 6) • Seeking clarity and accuracy (Norford & Marzano, 2016) • Resisting impulses (Norford & Marzano, 2016) • Self-questioning • Active listening • Reflecting and meditating • Being aware of one’s own strengths and weaknesses • Thinking aloud • Planning ahead As necessary as these skills are for quality of life, we see them rarely, if ever, taught and practiced as skills that are just as or even more important than content standards. However, metacognitive skills must be given the commitment and focused attention to ensure every student has the time and resources to master them. Teachers should define metacognition, talk about metacognitive skills with learners and explain why developing the skills is important for school and for life. These skills provide yet another example of how mastery-based learning should align with
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actions more effectively and efficiently, become more self-aware, and self-assess their current status and progress (Hammond, 2015; Marzano, 2010, 2017; Osher et al., 2018). When students apply metacognitive strategies, they become better learners in that they can provide executive control over their thoughts and actions much more effectively. In fact, well-developed metacognition gives learners tools to adapt their learning strategies to the situation, discipline, or learning task (Conley & French, 2013), and ongoing metacognitive processes help students develop neural connections necessary to learn from errors, enabling them to design their own learning methodology and evolve their strategies to meet a variety of learning challenges (Marcovitch & Zelazo, 2009).
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