Back to the Metacognitive Drawing Board: A Lesson Learnt during Hard Times
Back to the Metacognitive Drawing Board: A Lesson Learnt during Hard Times

Summary/Abstract: The past year and a half has been a time of reckoning for many educators. Seemingly well-adjusted, smoothly working systems - whether personal, professional or institutional- have been unexpectedly and extensively put to the test. Under such pressing circumstances, while discovering the previously overlooked, yet very real, advantages of technology for our new digital classrooms, we may also have become acutely aware of the persistence of issues that technology alone cannot solve. Insufficiently addressed before, one of them, in particular, seems to have been rendered even more visible by our sudden shift to the online medium. No matter how many online or offline resources we can use in class or recommend to our students, unless we also teach them how to take full advantage of these resources by translating this process into improved learning outcomes, our work is only half done and technology only partially useful. This past year's teaching experience has thus been a time of reflection on the fact that, essentially when it comes to young adults transitioning from high-school to university studies, nothing can replace or do more good in the long run than familiarising our students, as soon as possible, with metacognitive learning strategies. If we manage that, then, regardless of whether our work continues online or shifts back to the physical classroom environment, we will have ensured that such strategies enable them to be self-reliant, confident and independent learners, not only for the duration of their academic training, but, indeed, for life.

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