ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the ways in which ideas about learning strategies and metacognition could be introduced into classroom life. A number of methods have been suggested by different authors for improving the method and flexibility with which children tackle learning tasks. The strategies which good learners need relate to planning of work, to monitoring of performance and to assessment and diagnosis on the completion of work. Direct training methods require the teacher to determine what strategies are required and to offer students a framework within which to operate. Modelling methods offer greater possibilities for those who teach younger children. Children can be using any learning medium from the microcomputer to the Cuisenaire rods, and a thinking teacher can turn the occasion into an opportunity for real learning to take place by encouraging them to speculate on their own cognition, to examine their strategies for tackling tasks and to reflect on their own performance.
