By Anandi Nagarajan, Assistant Vice Provost for Pedagogy and Director, NYU Center for Teaching and Learning
Thinking is hard. But thinking about your thinking is harder.
Knowing which one you’re doing can change how you teach—and how you learn.
The Key to Deeper Learning
During my doctoral work, one of the most valuable concepts I learned was metacognition: the awareness of and reflection on what you know and, more importantly, what you don’t know. It’s the ultimate “cognition of one’s cognition,” and it continues to inform how I learn, teach, and live.
In almost every workshop or course I’ve taught or participated in, someone eventually asks a deceptively simple question: “What’s the difference between a cognitive strategy and a metacognitive one?” Too often, the distinction is glossed over, reduced to a vague binary: cognitive is “doing,” metacognitive is “thinking about doing.” That’s a start, but it’s not enough. Let’s clarify it once and for all.
Cognitive vs. Metacognitive: A Clear Distinction
The distinction is both simple and powerful:
Cognitive strategies help you learn something. They are the tools we use to process and encode information. Think of them as the direct actions you take. When students struggle, we often default to offering more cognitive strategies.
For example:
- Summarizing a chapter in your own words.
- Elaborating by connecting a new concept to something you already know.
- Drawing a diagram to visualize a complex process.
- Creating a timeline for historical events.
- Working through practice problems in a textbook.
- Using contextual cues to organize and conceptualize information.
For these strategies to be truly effective, students need guidance on when, why, and how to use them—and how to recognize when they’re not working. If a student doesn’t realize that they’re not understanding, more cognitive strategies won’t help. That’s where metacognitive strategies come in. Metacognitive strategies help you manage your learning. These are the tools we use to plan, monitor, and evaluate our thinking. They are the “thinking about thinking” tools.
Some metacognitive techniques include:
- Planning your approach before starting a difficult assignment.
- What should I focus on first? Do I understand the goals of this assignment?
- Checking your comprehension by pausing.
- Do I understand this? Am I on the right path? Should I consider alternatives?
- Revising your strategy after realizing your initial plan isn’t working.
- Do I know what else to try? Do I have any information or skills or do I need to do more research?
These are metacognitive muscles—and like any muscle, they need intentional exercise. Without metacognitive awareness, even strong cognitive strategies may become rituals without results.
As John Flavell (1979) put it, metacognition is “one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes . . . and the active monitoring and consequent regulation of those processes.”
The Power of the Pause
Think about the last time you had to learn something new. Did you dive in immediately, or did you stop to self-assess what you already knew and then plan your approach ? Did you notice when you were confused, or did you just keep going? That moment of awareness—and the decision to adapt—is a metacognitive moment.
Why the Terms Shouldn’t Be Used Interchangeably
It’s tempting to use “cognitive” and “metacognitive” interchangeably because they’re so intertwined. A student who summarizes a text (a cognitive strategy) may also be simultaneously monitoring their comprehension (a metacognitive act). However, blurring the lines can hinder effective instruction and self-directed learning. If we don’t distinguish between the two, we risk only teaching what to do without teaching why or how to adjust. For example, a student might be told to “use flashcards” (a cognitive strategy), but without the metacognitive awareness to know when and how often to review them, the strategy becomes a mindless ritual. Making the distinction explicit helps both teachers and students understand the difference between simply performing a task and consciously controlling their learning process.
Cognitive + Metacognitive: A Partnership, Not a Competition
We don’t just use strategies—we choose them, adapt them, and sometimes abandon them. And that cycle of awareness, trial, error, and adjustment is where deep learning lives.
How do you help your students become not just better thinkers, but better managers of their thinking?
That’s the real work of teaching. And it starts with us being metacognitive about our own practice.
Why Metacognition Is Even More Critical with Generative AI
In the age of generative AI, metacognition is no longer just a valuable skill; it’s an essential one. We are no longer learning from static resources; we are engaging with dynamic tools that can create content instantly. This changes the nature of learning and requires a new level of awareness.
- The Problem of “AI Hallucinations”: AI models can present false information, or “hallucinate,” with the same confidence as they present facts. Without metacognitive skills, a user may passively accept this information without questioning it.
- The Illusion of Understanding: Generative AI can produce coherent, well-structured content, giving the user an illusion of comprehension. You might think you understand a topic simply because the AI’s explanation sounds convincing. But without a metacognitive check—”Do I really get this?”—you haven’t truly learned.
While generative AI is a powerful tool for augmentation, it is not a replacement for thinking. It can act as a partner in your learning process, but you must remain the active manager. A good metacognitive habit is to always assume the AI’s information could be wrong until you’ve verified it.
Prompts for Teacher Reflection
How do we help students become not just better thinkers, but better managers of their thinking, especially with these new tools? It starts with us.
- Rethinking Routine: What’s one teaching strategy I use on autopilot? When did I last pause to evaluate its effectiveness, or consider if it’s still the best approach for this group of students?
- Empowering Stuck Students: When a student is struggling, can they articulate why they’re stuck? Do they have a clear understanding of what went wrong, or do they just feel frustrated? How can I equip them with a “next step” instead of just more information?
- Modeling Metacognition: How can I make my own thought process visible in the classroom? Can I narrate my decision-making—for example, explaining why I’m choosing one teaching method over another, or how I would approach a complex problem myself?
- Feedback with a Twist: When I give feedback, am I just pointing out errors, or am I asking students to reflect on their process? For example, instead of just correcting a mistake, I could ask: “What was your strategy for this problem? Let’s talk about what happened.”
- Beyond the Correct Answer: Am I asking students questions that go beyond the right answer? For example, after they solve a problem, I could ask: “How did you know your answer was correct?” or “What made you confident in your approach?” This shifts the focus from the outcome to the process.
Prompts for Students
- Process, Not Just Product: “When you were working on this, what was your initial strategy? Looking back, did that strategy help you, or did you have to change your plan?”
- Targeting Confusion: “What’s the one part of this lesson that made you stop and think, ‘I’m not sure about this’? What did you do to try to figure it out?”
- Forecasting Future Learning: “Based on what we just did, what’s a new approach you’ll use the next time you encounter a similar problem?”
- The Power of Mistakes: “Find a mistake you made in your work. How did that mistake help you understand the concept better?”
- Confidence Check: “On a scale of 1 to 5, how confident are you in this answer? What’s one thing you could do to make your confidence a 5?”
A Final Reflection
The ultimate goal is to help develop self-directed learners. This means, as the authors of How Learning Works explain, that “students must learn to assess the demands of the task, evaluate their own knowledge and skills, plan their approach, monitor their progress, and adjust their strategies as needed” (Lovett et.al, 2005).
Though often perceived as an intrinsic trait, metacognition—like cognitive strategies—can be explicitly taught and prompted. With practice, external scaffolds give way to internal habits that shape how students approach learning. If learning is a journey, then cognitive strategies are the tools in our backpack—and metacognition is the guidebook that shows us how and when to use them along the way. Equipping students with more tools is important, but guiding them to know which tool to use, when, and why—that is what transforms learning.
And as educators, we can model that mindset: Not just teaching how to think, but how to self-assess, observe, question, and refine our thinking in real time.
That’s where reflection becomes a habit. That’s where learning becomes self-directed. That’s where critical thinking begins.
References
- Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911.
- Lovett, M. C., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Ambrose, S. A., & Norman, M. K. (2023). How learning works: 8 research-based principles for smart teaching (2nd ed). Wiley.