Managing and Caring For The Self
Managing and Caring For The Self
R THE SELF
Lesson 1: Learning To Be A Better Lea
rner
INTRODUCTION
Knowing the "self" is nit enough. Since "who you ar
e" is partly made up of your choices, you must also have t
he ability to choose especially to be better "you".
This lesson will present several techniques that you c
an adapt depending on your situation and preferences to
make you a better learner.Learning should not just mean
studying for your quizzes and exam in school. Learning co
uld also occur outside the confinesofa book or classroom,
like when you want to acquire a new move in your favorit
e sport, or the skills for a certain hobby, among others.
ABSTRACTION
We are Homo sapiens or the "wise man". We thi
nk in a more complex level than our ancestors and m
ost, if not all, of the other beings. But being called wi
se,not only do we think, but we are also capable to t
hink about thinking, like how ww think of things and
why we think in a certain way about things. It is like y
our brain thinks about itself, then thinks about how it
thinks about itself.
This idea falls under the concept of metacognition.
Metacognition is commonly defined as "thinking about
thinking". It is the awareness of the scope and limitatio
ns of your current knowledge and skills (Meichenbaum
1985 in American Institutes for Research 2010). Due to
this awareness, metacognition enables the person to ad
apt their existing knowledge and skills to approach a lea
rning task, seeking for the optimum result of the learnin
g experience (American Institutes for Research 2010).
Metacognition is also not limited to the thinking proces
sof the individual. It also includes keeping one's emotio
ns and motivation while learning in check (Papaleontio
u-Louca 2003) .
The emotional state and the motivation of a person the
n should be in the preferred ideal state for that person
order to further facilitate his or her learning.
TWO ASPECTS OF METACOGNITION
Self-appraisal - is your personal reflection on your knowled
ge and capabilities.
Self-management - is the mental process you employ using
what you have in planning and adapting to successfully lear
n or accomplish a certain task.
ELEMENTS OF METACOGNITION
Metacognitive knowledge or what you know about how yo
u think.
Metacognition regulation or how you adjust your thinking p
rocesses to help you learn better.
There are several variables that affect how you know
or assess yourself as a thinker.
• First is the personal variable, which is your evaluati
on of your strengths and weaknesses in learning.
• Second is the task variable, which is what you know
or what you think about the nature of the task, as
well as what strategies the task requires.
• Lastly, strategy variable refers to what strategies or
skills you already have in dealing with certain tasks.
The following are other skills that can help you in exe
rcising metacognition: