The Role of Metacognition in Life Transitions

The month of May marks the homestretch for the school year.  As the end of the term approaches, EEG has been working with our clients to help prepare for upcoming transitions.  These include not only the transitions from high school to college, middle school to high school, or elementary to middle school, but all stages of schooling. 

Did you know, for instance, that the transition to third grade is one of the most important elementary school transitions?  Third grade is the time when the curriculum shifts from learning to read, to reading to learn.  Expectations for student responsibilities also shift at this critical juncture.

In middle school, a transition of sorts occurs between sixth and seventh grades, with some arguing that this shift even begins during the second half of sixth grade.  From an educator’s standpoint, sixth graders are typically granted a little bit more leeway as they navigate the juncture between being an experienced elementary student and a brand-new middle school student.  By seventh grade, they are expected to rise to meet these increasing personal responsibilities and more fully understand the expectations of middle school in general.

High school is all about the transition to independence.  This is the time when students should not only shoulder responsibility for keeping track of their assignments, but also mastering life skills such as waking up with an alarm and being on time to class and appointments; maintaining their space appropriately (bedroom or study area); and being proactive when it comes to problem-solving, instead of reactive.  This includes skills like self-advocacy, or knowing to ask for help from a teacher if they don’t fully understand a concept, rather than waiting until they fail the test.

So, it follows that metacognition, or understanding how you learn, plays a very important role in all stages of educational transition.  Understanding skill sets, both strengths and weaknesses, is essential to not only determine a student’s readiness for the next transition stage, but how to apply strength-based strategies to bolster areas of comparative weakness.

An example would look something like this:  an elementary student is having difficulty memorizing times tables, and it is impacting their performance in math class.  We know that this student is an auditory learner, and the rote memorization of reading and reviewing times tables isn’t helping.  Using this metacognitive insight, we can instead help the student use a strength-based strategy, such as singing along with Schoolhouse Rock multiplication songs, to reach that end goal of memorizing their times tables.

The post-secondary transition is one of the areas where metacognition plays the biggest role.  We encourage our students to become sufficiently self-aware to understand whether they are ready for this leap in independence, and if they are not, where they need to focus their efforts to become ready.

Should you need help along the journey, feel free to check out our options for summer support.