Why Teachers Need Metacognition Training?

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to explore the cognitive and metacognitive skills of teachers engaged in cogni-tive training. One of the best-known stand-alone cognitive programs is "Instrumental Enrichment" (IE) developed by Feuerstein, Rand, Hoffman, and Miller. Similar to other cognitive programs, the main em-phasis on IE research has always been on the change that occurs in students' performance. Little is known of teachers' acquisition of IE problem-solving skills and even less of their metacognitive performance associated with this acquisition. In the present study, 28 teachers were pre-and post-tested before and after 90 hours of IE training. The tests included items similar but not identical to those used during the IE training. The analysis of pre-test problem solving demonstrated that a relatively large number of teachers experienced difficulty in solving at least some of the IE tasks. The even greater difficulty was observed in the teachers’ articulation of their problem-solving strategies in a written form. The comparison of pre-and post-test results indicates statistically significant improvement not only in the teachers’ cognitive problem solving but also in their metacognitive skills. These changes, however, did not reach the level of a complete cognitive or metacognitive mastery. The possible reasons for differences in the two sub-groups of teachers are discussed

Keywords

• metacognition
• cognitive skills
• reflection
• teachers
• “instrumental enrichment”