Think About Thinking Trivia Quiz

Answer: Thinking about how you think

The prefix "meta" means "beyond." "Cognition" comes from the Latin for "to know." Therefore metacognition essentially means "thinking beyond what you know," ergo thinking about how you think.

Answer: Organization of both time and resources

With metacognition, you know what you know and don't know. Therefore you can organize based on this. You know what you need to complete something and how long you need to do it.

Answer: strengths and weaknesses

Knowing more about how you think helps you better understand your strengths and weaknesses. This is important because they ask it at job interviews. Also, if you know areas you are weak in you can improve on those. It's hard to improve when you don't know what needs improving.

Answer: birth

According to David Whitebread (2007) in his PhD on the subject in England, research shows that children develop metacognition skills from birth. This is enhanced by communication, especially with open-ended questions that encourage a child to think about things more. Also, discussing feelings is a good thing so that a child can learn to recognize how they are feeling at any given time.

Answer: Yes

Metacognition can be distracting when you are trying to complete a task. This is because the task will never get done if you overthink about how to do it, rather than just getting on with it. Also, overthinking can cause more mistakes when things aren't as hard as they seem.

Answer: Identifying what you know

You need to know what you know before thinking about what you know. To do this, write two lists, "What I know about (topic)" and "what I want to learn about (topic)."

Answer: John Flavell

John Flavell introduced the word in the 1970s. Flavell was a developmental psychologist from Massachussettes. He has written several books such as "Cognitive Development" and "The Development Psychology of Jean." He has also written over 100 articles.

Answer: True

When a person journals, they write their thoughts. For example, someone might write about a person they are having trouble with. They will ask "why I am having trouble, what I can do, and how I feel?" As they do this day after day, their thoughts become more together because they have developed metacognition.

Answer: 12-15

Those who teach in the 12-15 age range can further help their students' metacognition grow by asking open-ended questions, encouraging the children to think about how and why they do something. At this age, children are starting to become more independent and need to problem-solve with guidance, but not direct instruction.

Answer: Past, Present and Future

Having to think about all three tenses is what makes metacognition complex. A person has to think about what worked in the past to figure out what they can do now (in the present) so that the future outcome will be what they want. This complexity is why it's best to start training children early on to think about how they think.