Metacognition in the common core state standards Underlying (yet neglected) focus?

Abstract

This paper investigates the potential role metacognition (Flavell, 1979; Griffith & Ruan, 2005) may play
in helping students meet the increased cognitive demands required by the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS) (Porter, McMaken, Hwang, & Yang, 2011). The CCSS and all official accompanying
documents were analyzed looking for themes of metacognition. Specific strategies/approaches for
incorporating metacognition in the classroom based on TESOL and educational research that may
help students with the CCSS demands are presented. While all primary and secondary students would
likely benefit from increased metacognition, this project focuses primarily on helping multilingual
students and English language learners (ELLs) become stronger students via an emphasis on explicit
metacognitive strategies.