#metacognition

#metacognition

I remember working on my book and catching myself mid-paragraph. I'd just finished a sentence that felt particularly satisfying to write and paused to ask: Why does this feel so good? The answer wasn't flattering. What I'd written sounded smart, but it wasn't clear. I realized I'd been unconsciously filtering ideas through "does this make me look clever?" instead of "will this help the reader?"

For almost five years, I've been dutifully drawing little green dots at the top of my journal entries. A small green dot means it was a generally good day, a slightly bigger one that it was pretty fantastic. A huge one represents one of the handful of no-notes, absolutely perfect days of the year. Orange dots equal stress, red denotes anger, and blue means feeling blue.

Children who practice metacognition learn to analyze tasks and estimate their own effectiveness.

Critical thinking is a process of thinking about thinking through purposeful, self-regulated judgment.