Engaging with history requires investigating, analyzing, and interpreting past events, establishing a chronology, and weighing evidence while considering inherent biases. It is only when learners are cognitively present during these learning steps that deep understanding develops.
Metacognitive strategy
Cognitive engagement facilitates the second essential element required to help learners avoid the cognitive debt: the reflective process of metacognition, which has now become, if anything, even more important than ever.
Ideas about metacognition, or ‘thinking about thinking’ often traced back to the work of J. H. Flavell in the 1970s are now widely accepted as crucial in helping learners monitor and adjust their learning approaches, in turn deepening engagement. It is also now an essential practice if students are to avoid the cognitive debt that threatens them when thinking is ‘out-sourced’.
That said, finding time to go the extra mile from cognition to the abstract world of metacognition is hard! However, given the surge in cognitively indebted learners, there’s no way out except to encourage learners to adapt a ‘slow’ life and help them engage with their own thinking, both cognitively and metacognitively.
The ‘slow’ life: a mantra for deep learning
Metacognitive strategies, when thoughtfully woven into pedagogy encourage students to pause, reflect, plan and evaluate their thinking, fostering a sense of honesty and academic independence, whereby students take ownership of their learning and avoid the problem of the cognitive debt.